Ars Victor - 15mm Miniatures for the Empire of Man

I recently wrote a small review of the Ars Victor boardgame with an eye of using the rule with miniatures before being interupted by supper... I've been thinking a bit more about it and here are the minis I'm leaning toward for the Empire of Man faction.

Ars Victot Empire of Man unit tokens. Picture from editor website.

The faction units can be split in three thematical categories...

Not-Space Marines 

They come in several variants (read in 3 columns: name of the Ars Victor unit, 40K equivalent and signature attribute):

• "Medium" = "tactical" Space Marines = baseline unit
• "Jump" = "assault" Space Marines = jump packs
• "Heavy" = "devastator" Space Marines = missile launchers
• "Cavalry" = bikes = bikes
• "Light" = scouts = sniper rifle & camo cloak
• "Assault" = "terminator" Space Marines = power armour

Altough they are a bit more lightly kitted than you old Space Marine, I'll go with 15mm.co.uk SFA troopers: a few other ranges provide the variety of roles I'm looking for but it's one of the only one with jump pack troops...

Picture from manufacturer website.

• "Medium" = 15mm.co.uk SFA SMG Troopers
• "Jump" = 15mm.co.uk SFA Jump Packs Troopers
• "Heavy" = 15mm.co.uk SFA Support Troopers

Ars Victor - Command & Colors 40K

If you read this blog, you probably know Memoir' 44 scratch quite a few of my itches... Friction (the card activation), unambiguous movement/line of sight system (large hexes), simple rules yet deep tactics... Only I'm not too found of historical games. I've already considered Quar infantry + All Quiet on the Martian Front steam tanks + Memoir'44 rules...

Picture from editor website.

Monday, while procrastinating on the internet, I came across Ars Victor... The rules are free to download (in fact the entire game material - except for the dices you have to kitbash and two deck of regular playing cards - can be downloaded if you sign in on the website) but here are some details (I'm assuming you're somewhat familiar with the C&C system)...

This Quar's Memoir

I couldn't sleep last night and had another of those "Eureka!" moments... Flashback a couple of years: I bought Memoir 44, a WW2 themed boardgame by Days of Wonder whose rules blew my mind! 

They might not be for everyone: they use card activation and quite a few wargamers would call them over-simplistic! Sure, they're quite abstract and I wouldn't call them a simulation of anything by any stretch of the word but it all ends up being great gameplay allowing for good miniature-pushing time without taking the slightest risk of brain cramp rule-wise while still allowing for some Clausewitz Friction and Cornelian "tactical" choices!

In fact, using just the basic rules (no special units or card, and not too much terrain) at first, I'll  use this game to introduce my four and half son to wargaming about any time soon.

Just in case you've never heard of the game...

Memoir 44 board set up for the Omaha Beach scenario. Picture from the manufacturer website.

All Quiet on the Quar Front - TO&E

Having figured out I needed (yes, needed; funny I can't find unpainted lead in Maslow's pyramid) an army of Quars mounted in All Quiet on the Martian Front tanks, I now need to write down a shopping list...

Infantry:

I'm still trying to find the perfect ruleset for my 15mm sci fi gaming...  But a couple of things I've nailed so far are: I want reinforced platoon sized combined arms forces, and I want them based in fireteam sized elements!

My rule of a thumb to figure out how many such elements I need for the infantry core of a force gives me 12 teams of low tech level average troop quality quars. The actual number of "men" per team/base is loosely on TL too: the lower the TL, the bigger the fire teams. 

Looking at the TO&E from This Quar War I see companies made of two "sections" (platoons) each one made of two 10-quars squads. I intend to have 5 quars on each base so that company would be made of 8 teams. I'll add another "section"/platoon to make the 12 teams I need, I'll either use it as a third platoon added/detached to the company or use its squads to bulk out the 2 "official" "sections" with a third squad. Not sure yet. 

Quar Company (reinforced with a sniper and a cavalry "troop") by Jay White from Jay's Wargaming Madness.

The Crusader Light Infantry Company also fields a Weapon Squad (reporting directly to the Company CO) made of a HQ team, 2 LMG teams and 2 light mortars teams.

A pack of 2 snipers is also available. You can never go wrong with snipers!

Shopping List:

• Company HQ: Officer, NCO, Standard Bearer, Comms Guy (with message carrying squirels!), Musician, Cook
• 3 x Platoon HQ: 3 x Officer w/ Shotgun
• 6 x Squads: 6 x (NCO w/ Assault Rifle, 6 x Assault Rifles, 3 x Heavy Rifles)
• 1 x Weapon Squad HQ:  NCO w/ Assault Rifle, Assault Rifle
• 2 x LMG Teams: 2 x (LMG, Assault Rifle)
• 2 x Light Mortar Teams: 2 (Mortar w/ Operator, Assault Rifle)
• 2 x Snipers
• Total: 4 officers, 8 NCO, 41 Assault Rifles, 18 Heavy Rifles, 2 LMG, 2 Mortars, 2 Mortar Operators, 2 snipers, 1 Standard Bearer, 1 Squirel Messenger, 1 Musician, 1 Cook

All Quiet on the Quar Front - Infantry

Following up on my All Quiet on the Martian Front vehicles post... Some thoughts about what to use for infantry for 15mm not-Imperial Guard.

When talking about 15mm not-Imperial Guard, one usually thinks one of three options...

1. You have maddening modelling/sculpting/converting skills and/or will settle for nothing but a perfect homothety of the GW models! I haven't anything like those skills and actually prefer more approximate proxies. 

15mm Death Korps of Krieg by Dan from Gunners Wargaming... Along the same lines,
have a look at his Titanium Dropship 2014 entry or at his current 15mm not-40K project...

All Quiet on the Quar Front - Tanks

Like most of you, I read about the All Quiet on the Martian Front (AQotMF) Kickstarter back in the day. While I recognized the "H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds Miniatures Game" as a good idea, I've never been a big fan of retro sci fi, VSF and the like... Until a few weeks ago when, with the models release getting closer (the KS should be shipping next month and the rest of us can pre-order them since yesterday) a comment by JBR on TMP (too many TLA?) got me looking back at some of the model. He was eagerly looking forward to the plastic US tanks that he qualified as great conversion fodder for 15mm not-40K Imperial Guard...

All pictures in this post are from Alien Dungeon's (AQotMF manufacturer) blog or Kickstarter page.