Battletech - Terra

 The first battle on Terra, Clan Wolf vs the 10th Hastati Sentinels.

The basic premise of this mission is that the Wolves are rampaging through a Republic admin centre, trying to cause as much damage as possible whilst the Republic forces try to get them to retreat the field before they achieve their objective.

This was a first time game for a friend so to make it a bit fairer (considering he was using Clan Mechs) and I outnumbered him, I staggered when my second lance was allowed to enter the battle.  This proved to be quite telling, with two of my assault Mechs taking forever to actually get on the board, but in the end the game went right down to the wire, and with an extra hit or two could have ended with a draw.

Some pics from the game, with the Wolved needing to destroy all the marked buildings for a win, I needed to destroy or put the Wolves into forced retreat:

Closing:

A little maneuvering, with the Zeus leading the charge, aiming for the Wolf Gladiator:

Throwing my lighter forces forward to distract the enemy fire:

A battle on the far side of the board, by this point the Shadowhawk had lost initiative and just lined themselves up for a shot down the gap between the buildings, my Trebuchet & Blackjack got behind them and that was all she wrote:

The Nove overheated to shutdown to absolutely hammer the Zeus while my Raven was harassing the Gladiator (which was focused on doing as much damage to the buildings as possible): 

The Nova and the Zeus went down in the same turn and with some of my heavier Mechs out of position I was in dire straits at this point, only two buildings remaining:

Nova, boom:

Shadowcat with a rear shot from the Trebuchet, the Blackjack was forced to retreat by fire from the Timber Wolf very shortly after this:

The kill of the game, a critical hit from the Raven on the Gladiator, rolled double 6's for the head shot - initiative is so important in this game:

This is what was left after the last turn, the Wolves managed to destroy the last building and I failed to put the Summoner into forced retreat with the last shot of the game, just two internal structure short to get a draw!

My casualties:

The Wolves casualties by the end of the game:

So after all of that, a loss, 5 VP to 4 VP, a win to the Wolves and the 10th Hastati Sentinels had to fall back to fight another day!

It was such a close game, but the TMM values of the Wolves made them just that little bit harder to hit, and I just had too much ground to cover especially with the staggered forces.  We both really enjoyed the game though, my friend far more than I expected to be fair, I may have convinced him to get a small force of his own...

So, I did win, from a certain point of view.

Next up, a solo tryout game, Dragon's Fury vs 10th Hastati Sentinels!

Battletech - 10th Hastati Sentinels

 So, I've discovered that I'm better when I have an actual deadline to work to.

Last weekend I hosted an Alpha Strike game for a friend who'd never played Battletech before, but was aware of a small amount of the lore and wanted to play as Clan Wolf - thankfully I already had enough of those painted up for him to use them.

However, I didn't want to go back to my existing factions to oppose him in this little battle, so gave myself the aim of getting 3 lances of Mechs painted up in a relatively short space of time - this would top my previous best of 8 in a weekend.

Which unit to paint up though?  I knew the era I wanted to play in, which was the fall of the Republic, so setting it during the early part of the fight on Terra would be an ideal choice and would give me a new unit to tackle - the Republic of the Sphere, specifically the 10th Hastati Sentinels (in their original MWDA colours, not the newer interpretation of black/gold).

2 Days, start to finish with the exception of having primed them the night before so I was ready to go.  Happy to say I did indeed accomplish my task:

Above, the 3 full lances, below a little close up of a few of them:

Ready to go defend Terra from the Wolves!

Next up, a few pics of the actual battle.

Battletech - Dragon's Fury

 Another Battletech Alpha Strike update, 2 days, 8 mech's painted up as the Dark Age Dragon's Fury faction!

My camera isn't exactly liking the red and has somehow lost a bit of depth in the grey as well but you can get the general idea - I'll try and work out some better lighting next time...

Firstly, a group shot of the force, can be used to mix and match two lances:

So, in the pic above, back row: Wolverine, Griffin, Warhammer, Rifleman; Front row: Valkyrie, Wasp, Phoenix Hawk & lastly a Stinger.

After painting them up, have to say that I'm really happy with the way they look as a unit, I had originally planned to just have the left arm red and the rest grey but it did look a little bland to be honest, hence the addition of the red on the right lower legs.

A closer shot of the Warhammer:

The Rifleman:

Finally, the Phoenix Hawk:

As per usual I've seen a few spots I need to clean up on the paint jobs after taking pictures of them so I'll go back and tidy them up at some point.  The cockpit colour will probably end up being a jewelled blue (dark through to light) but I'm so out of practice at the moment I'm keeping that until my confidence is back up a bit.

With all that being said, I now have the decent sized forces for Alpha Strike, all from the Dark Age/Republic era: Swordsworn, Steel Wolves & now Dragon's Fury.

In addition to the above, I have the camo lance which can act as a planetary force so can drop into any of the above as needed.

On to some games next I think!

Battletech - Alpha Strike

 An old favourite, with renewed interest!

I've been a fan of the Battletech universe since my brother bought me a second hand copy of the second book in the Blood of Kerensky trilogy in my early teens.

I read that book over and over again, never knowing the start of the story or the end but being completely enthralled regardless.  As time went on, Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries and Mechcommander on the PC expanded my love for the universe, followed by the sequels to both games.

My early miniature gaming was primarily Warhammer 40k & Fantasy, I had no real interest in Battletech as a miniature game when I was younger but that changed with the release of Mechwarrior: Dark Age by Wizkids in my early 20's.  I know a lot of Classic Battletech (as it has been known since) players didn't like the direction Wizkids took the game - it was completely different from the game they played and loved, the fiction had been given a time jump, new characters replaced old favourites and generally left a bad taste in their mouths.

Personally, I loved it.  I had a great group of people to game with, I was invested in the new lore just as much as the old and it was just fantastic to get so involved with the universe in a way I hadn't before.

Were there things I didn't like? Yes of course.  Blind boosters were annoying but almost everything was at least usable.  Some game balance issues were clearly evident especially in those first few waves of releases - Fire for Effect introduced artillery and that threw people for a right spin.  There were some really strange interactions that could be used that made no sense in real life but worked too well in game.

For all its faults, I still loved MW:DA and I do still play from time to time, just for a nostalgia kick!

Move on some number of years since MW:DA was cancelled, I got the urge to look into Battletech again, picking up some mechs from Ral Partha Europe and throwing a bit of paint on them with no real intention of getting into Classic Battletech with any serious thought, just maybe play the odd game or two.

Enter Alpha Strike.  I'd seen mention of this on the Battletech forums and had absolutely no idea what this was, so after a bit of digging about for information it appeared to be exactly what I was after - a quick, easy to play version of Battletech.

I timed it really well, with the release of the "A Game of Armoured Combat" and the Introductory boxed sets, plastic rather than metal mechs (I've never liked metal minis) I was hooked.  Picked up the Alpha Strike pdf, found resources such as the Master Unit List and I'm all on board.

I've played a few test games so far, and with the release of the Clan Invasion boxed set and some expansions have a nice little force being built up now.

So far, most of the mechs I've painted are from MW:DA factions - it's the era I first gamed in, and the one that I'm most invested in.

So my first set of mechs from the Introductory & AGoAC box sets have mostly been painted in Swordsworn colours:

I choose to go for the lighter green seen on the Swordsworn Thor that was in MW:DA (Gary Metcalfe I think was the unit in question) purely because I just wanted them to be my own take on them rather than the much darker green used in the MW:DA game.  I'm happy with them and it's a nice mix of units that I can form a few different types of lance from as well.

Next up, I wanted to attempt some camouflage mechs, to be used as a planetary militia:

The Wolverine shown below was the test mini for the scheme:

Again, I'm quite happy with the way they've turned out and I can easily use them to augment the Swordsworn unit above, or act as third force if required.

Lastly for now, my Clan based mechs, this time fro the Steel Wolves faction from MW:DA:

I wanted these to have a more metallic look than the original Steel Wolves, so replaced the usual matt brown with a contrast paint (Gore Grunta Fur) over a Leadbelcher base.  Again I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and the mechs have a nice overall theme which looks like they're part of the same unit without being identical.  I'm particularly happy with the Thor in the centre of the last picture, reversing the colour scheme will help signify it as the Star's lead mech in games.

Next up will be my Dragon's Fury mechs, but I'm going to get a couple of games in with the above first as I've not actually used them yet.

Hopefully, I'll be posting a bit more content again, between Battletech and the newly released Star Trek Attack Wing Alliance: Dominion War Campaign, I can get back into the swing of things!

Anyway, until next time!

Attack Wing - Update & Randoms

Hi all, just a quick update regarding the state of the game - there have been no official OP events in my local store for some time, so instead we've been playing games with a random mission generator that I've come up with - basically you get one main objective and one secondary each one allocating you a number of victory points.

So, just running though some action shots from one of last years most memorable games (and I'm sorry I've been mega quiet, just had no time to update anything):

This game was a three way battle between TMP era Klingons, TMP era Federation & my Xindi force.

The Klingons had the "Move the asteroid off the board" condition, in which they can spend an action to tractor beam an asteroid towards the edge of the board, if they get it off before it reaches the far side they get the points.

The Federation had "Kill the opposing flagship", in which they must destroy the most expensive ship from each fleet.

The Xindi ended up with "Research raid", so attack the planet (which is shielded) then spend an action to transport a research token onto their ships.

The secondary objectives were two "Turnabout Intruders", which are an objective that can be moved a random speed (D6) in any straight line by whichever player rolls the highest, then at the beginning of the attack phase, they attack each ship with 3 red dice, no mods - if it kills a ship on a turn you moved it, you gain points for the kill.

The last one is "Countdown to extinction", so essentially, from turn 6 onwards each ship rolls a red die and takes any damage from it - last ship standing gains the points.

I'm just going to throw the pics down and you can see the chaos!

Setup:

The closing & first shots fired:

Federation fleet getting stuck in:

Xindi fleet suffering heavy losses:

A turn later and the Intruders and the Xindi wreak havoc:

 To the last:

 Both ships reduced to one hull left, playing the time game:

First turn of the "Countdown to extinction" and both ships suffer damage which destroys them both!

Overall, an excellent game, chaotic and brutal - just how we like it!

Next up, X-Wing games!

40k - Grey Knights

Ok, something a little different this week - 40k 8th Edition.

Now this is only my second game of 40k and no doubt we're getting little things incorrect here and there and as this is a friendly game we're not too fussy!

Anyway, army-wise I've always liked the look of the Grey Knights and I've had some lying around for a few years, never really finished painting them so when we decided to have a game it was either them or my Imperial Fists.

The first game used the Fists but even though I pulled out a win by the skin of my teeth I felt the Grey Knights offered me more choice and as my opponent was using Space Marines as well, it would at least not end up being a clone war!

So, we decided to use power values as opposed to points, using everything I had we ended up with 78 power.

On my side this consisted of a 10-man Interceptor squad, a 5-man Terminator squad, a 3-man Paladin squad, a Nemesis Dreadknight, a GK Librarian, a Brother-Captain and a Grand Master:

My opponents force consisted of 3x 10-man Devastator squads, 2x 10-man Tactical squads, a 10-man Scout squad, 2x Captains and a Tech-Marine with a cannon.

So with my opponent having rolled for the game type etc, it ended up that I would place first and start first (no idea how, I just went with it).

After placing the 4 objectives and deciding board sides, deployment ended up looking like this:

My Paladins and Librarian were as far in towards the centre as possible, the Interceptors over on the left hand side and the remaining forces held in teleport pods ready to drop in (we realise there was the 50% rule but erred on the side of model count)

 My opponent deployed as follows:

This meant that my opponent would have control of two objectives barring nothing untoward happening, whereas I would have to advance forward as I'd placed my two more centrally on the board.

Looking at my opponents placement and knowing I had the initiative for the first turn I had some interesting choices to make.  I'd not faced the Techmarine or the Scouts with sniper rifles before so made them a priority target.  This would have the added benefit of making the objective obtainable, if not immediately then a turn or two in.  So now it was a case of selecting which units would teleport where... My Interceptors jumped towards the mass of Tactical and Devastators on the right of the picture above.  My Dreadknight and Brother-Captain teleported in next to them.

On the other side, my Terminators and Grand Master teleported in.  During the psychic phase, my Librarian used Gate of Inifnity to teleport my Paladins in, supporting the Grand Master and Terminators.

During the rest of this phase, my units used Smite to remove a couple of Scouts and some Tactical Marines.

The shooting phase began, with the Interceptor's Storm Bolters decimating the frontmost tactical squad, the Brother-Captain finished them off. The Psilencers killed a few of the Scouts.

The Dreadknight had range on the middle Devastator squad and opened up on them, killing most of them.

On the left side, the Terminators killed the Techmarine and the Paladins reduced the Scouts to 5-men.

The assault phase saw my Interceptors charge the rear-most Devastator squad, the Dreadknight charge the middle Devastator squad and my Paladins succeed in charging the Captain.

What followed was an absolute slaughter - the Devastator squad was reduced to just the Sargeant by the Dreadknight, the Interceptors reduced the Devastators to three men (the opposing Captain joined the fray at this point) and lost only three in return.

The Paladins killed the Captain on the left and consolidated into combat with the last Tactical squad:

So, after Grey Knights turn one, the casualties on both sides looked like this:

Overall, I was more than suprised as to how effective this round has been for me.  Considering how outnumbered I had been, I was now in a decent position.

First up a quick close-up shot of some of the action:

Onto Space Marines turn 1...

Not much happened in the movement phase at all, during the shooting phase the Scouts and the last Devastator squad managed to kill the Brother-Captain (some really bad rolls did not help me here).

In the assault phase, the Scouts rallied to the defence of the Tactical squad against the Paladins but were utterly wiped out by them.  On the other side, the Devastators and Captain engaged with the Interceptors reduced them to 2 survivors, in return they managed to kill off the remnants of the Devastator squad.

The power fist Sargeant managed to damage the Dreadknight further and the last Devastator squad moved into close combat with the Dreadknight.  The hammered it, reducing it to 3 wounds.  The Dreadknight finished off the Sargeant but was now in poor shape.

So after all was said and done, in turn 1, the Space Marines gained 1 victory point from having uncontested control of one of the objectives.  The Interceptors failed thier leadership test so fled the battlefield.

The kills at this point in the game looked like this:

The Interceptors were gone along with the Brother-Captain.

On the flip side, the Scouts, one Tactical squad, two Devastator squads, one Captain and the Techmarine were gone.

Grey Knights turn 2!

The view from the field of battle:

My Terminators and Grand Master moved towards the fray, my Librarian moved into range of one of the objectives.

During the psychic phase my Grand Master rolled perils of the warp twice, rolling 3 mortal wounds twice, killing himself.  Epic fail.

The rest of the units Smited for a few kills in total, then during the assault phase the Terminators moved into base contact with the Tactical squad.  They then proceeded with the Paladins to wipe them out, consolidating towards the final opposing forces (the last Devastator squad and the Captain).

The Dreadknight attacked the Devastator squad, causing little damage.

During my opponents turn, the Dreadknight is eliminated:

I score 2 vp's and my opponent scores 1, bringing us to 2 each.

Current casualties:

Grey Knights turn 3:

It starts like this:

I move my Teminators and Paladins into close range and open up with everything.  I manage to kill some of the marines, during the psychic phase another falls and then I charge in - the Terminators go for the Captain and the Paladins for the last remaining members of the Devastators.  The Paladins reduce the Devastators to three men and the Terminators manage to do one wound to the Captain.

During the Space Marine turn, the Devastators manage to kill one othe Paladins and wound both of the others.  They are finished off in return.

The Captain is unable to harm the Terminators... I claim 2 more VPs.

Grey Knights turn 4:

During the psychic phase, the Librarian finally manages to Gate into range - all units cast smite on the Captain, reducing him to one wound:

The Terminators attack, eventually the Justicar with the Daemon Hammer manages to score the final blow, killing the Captain and winning the day for the Grey Knights!

So, final thoughts having discussed some of this with my opponent - the fact I went first and the placement that my opponent used made it so as soon as I managed to get into close-combat I could just keep on consolidating through and steamrolling his forces.  If they had been more spread out I would have had a harder time I think.

The unit of the game for me were the Interceptors.  The speed and the amount of pure firepower and close combat damage they can throw out is horrific.

The Dreadknight I probably shouldn't have charged into close combat...  In retrospect with the weapon loadout (Gatling Psilencer/Heavy Incinerator) I should have stayed out and used it to throw as many attacks in as possible but live and learn!

Epic fail rolling of the day was the Grand Master... two perils in a row and 3 damage each time... unbelievable.

We definitely missed out on a few things, both forgetting things that would have helped but we are still learning after all!

Anyway, if you've read through all of that, thank you very much & I hoped you enjoyed it!