Iskandria Once More...

This week I have been mainly playing...Urban War.

With no campaign games looming and a bit of a lull generally for the summer season, Kev and myself were looking for a game and we plumped for a game of these old favorites, spurred on by Kev's wish to put his very nice Forward Post terrain bit's from Antenociti's Workshop on the table. No problems there.

With a bit of a change in line up from our previous forays into Iskandria, I went with a squad of Viridian Marine's and Kev played his Koralon gribblies.

The game played out in a fairly typical manner. The first few rounds, the Marine's seemed to be unable to miss anything and the Koralon forces were depleted seemingly with ease and they approached their break point (50%) very quickly. Even by opening a portal and vallumping some gribblies including the big one, into the centre of the Marine's troops failed to make a dent in the troops lines as the Sergeant took out the first alien as it emerged from the portal much to everyone's surprise then succumbed to the onslaught but the next lowly Marine grunt then proceeded to dispatch the next alien with his knife and took a wound from the big nasty and held the centre by himself for several turns.

On the flank it was a similar story as the grunts seemed to have charmed lives and took another couple out in close combat and only losing one of their number in return.

The wheel turned however as it usually does, and with the Koralon forces making their first break test they dropped a gear and the Marine's started using rubber bullets, still hitting everything they aimed at but failing to wound anything. C'est La Guerre.

In fairly quick succession the marine's lost a further four, mainly on the right flank, and once reaching break point, failed their first test and broke.

Another close and enjoyable game, which is always nice.

Once more in Iskandria...

As a bit of a change from the usual fayre, we were looking for a game for last weeks club night and Kev had asked me if I had anything in mind and having recently come across the Urban War rules, this jumped to mind, so we decided on that. Dave K was also looking for a game for the evening so we had a three way drop down game just playing to break point, last man standing.

Kev was as his usual, plumped for Gladiators;

4 Secutors
2 Retiari
1 Decurion
2 Pit Beasts
1 Greater Pit Beast
1 Myrmillio
1 Exo Suit
and 1 Taurian Howitzer

Dave being the man he is stumped up for Viridians;

4 Marine's
1 Marine Sergeant
2 Special Forces
1 Sniper
2 Shock Marine's
1 HMG Team

I, being the underhanded tyranical/imperialist/dictorial peacekeeper that I am, went for VASA as usual;

5 Peacekeepers
1 Peacekeeper Sergeant
1 Archangel
1 Archangel Sergeant
2 Oni Class Battle Suits (Allies)

With a good amount of terrain on the board and the teams equally spaced, the word was Go! and with the first initiative going to Kev and with his first shot of his Howitzer landing right in the middle of my Peacekeepers, I was not chuffed, loosing the Peacekeeper Sergeant on the first roll of the dice.

Now, after lots of slagging and general comments to the fact that 'what do gladiator's do with a howitzer in an arena' and ' no it's not a mortar, it's a howitzer' it came to the fact that Kev had fielded his howitzer in the last couple of games but no one had noticed, such was it's un-erring in-accuracy. Not this game it seemed. And so it proved.

The game then resolved itself into Dave's Viridians bunching up and slowly sidling round to face the on-coming Gladiators while keeping each other in sight for support. Kev with slightly more numbers split his force with the shooty types taking cover and watching the advance of the VASA while lobbing the odd howitzer shell in my direction, while the bulk of his close combat (most) troops advanced quickly on the Viridians.

I meanwhile fanned out (trying to avoid incoming artillery and tried to get as many guns to bear on the Gladiators in my sector while menacing towards the Viridians with the Battlesuits.

The Viridians did pop up pretty early on in the direction of the VASA with their sniper climbing up the landing pad and emerging on the roof for a vantage point and promptly took a pot shot at the advancing Battle suits but to no effect, but the rest of their troops were occupied with the Gladiators slowly moving round to meet them.

The battle suits in reply sent a hail of depleted uranium rounds from their Autoguns and the second suit nailed the sniper.

A second Peacekeeper soon followed the Sergeant being atomised by artillery but the encroaching Peacekeepers and Archangels started to worry the Gladiators as they fanned out and started to get a good number of shots onto a small number of defenders.

The combat between the Viridians and the Gladiators began to hot up with both sides feeding in more and more but the Viridians began to get the upper hand with the Gladiators slowly getting the worst of the fight.

The Gladiators began to feel the pinch and trying to fight two fronts, began to look dodgy, rapidly approaching their break point with loses mounting from the Hand to Hand Combat with the Viridian's and one going down to fire from the Peacekeepers, quickly followed by one cut down by one of the Arch Angels.

In a make or break attempt to pull out something, Kev targetted his own Greater Pit Beast which was surrounded by five or so Viridians (and was probably soon going to go down with that number of opponents against it) with his howitzer.

Once again, he was spot on target, and though his pit beast did take a wound he managed to take out four of the Viridians with the blast in one go, evening things up more than a little.

An Archangel hops over the field to take up position where the sniper was and dispite Cal2 and three shots, failed to hit the now distant Viridians. The angel was soon cut down by return fire finding neon signage insufficient cover.

The second Archangel falls to return fire from the Gladiators ensconced under the pipefarm but the accompanying Peacekeepers cut down the Gladiator responsible in return. Quickly followed by another from the advancing Battlesuits.

The lead Battlesuit then charged into the fray and the lone gladiator didn't stand for long and another of Kev's troops was down. This being followed by the demise to gun fire of the Big Beast, bringing Kev to break point and the subsequent check was failed and the Gladiators legged it.

A lone Peacekeeper on the bridge thinks he's safe miles from anyone...

This then left both the VASA and the Viridians a distance apart and both within one casualty of break point.

Dave consolidated his remaining troops at the far corner of the field and I began an advance trying to keep to cover.

Dave then spotted the lone Peacekeeper advancing across the walkway and at maximum range of three feet away and bearly visible, the HMG team opened up and cut the unsuspected Peacekeeper down. The break point was duly checked and two ones on two D10 obviously meant the galaxy's finest had had enough too, and victory went to the novice Urban War player, Dave, who in his own words muttered the proverbial "beginners luck". Not so, well played by all.

An absolute smashing game (as the spur of the moment one's often are) and the game even drew a spectating crowd for some of the more spectacular moments (or the swearing got too loud).

A good show all round and perhaps a taste of things to come in the forth coming Necromunda campaign. Here's hoping.

You can see another view of the game and some more (better) photo's over on Kev's blog at Double Six Required

Once More in Iskandria

...with the dust settling on the landing pad as the penultimate shuttle leaves the planet surface with the Koralon horde descending on the mining town the remnants of the feuding forces are forced to make a last dash to get to the landing pad and get that last shuttle. The only problem, there's only room for one Strike Team.

Kev and myself had arranged for this weeks game to be the previously promised re-visit to the 2nd Edition Urban War rules, and we had planned a Junkers vs Viridian clash. On the night Doug was also up for a game so we re-arranged the barney to a three way Junkers (Doug), Vasa (Kev) and Viridians (Me) and a 'Take the high Ground' scenario which meant a random turn ending from turn 6 with the landing pad in the centre of the previously arranged table as the scenario objective.

The quiet streets before the storm hits

Dougs Junkers started off the proceedings and since he had the greater numbers, and lacked any meaningful ranged attacks moved up quickly towards the VASA, Viridians on his flanks and towards the objective.

The Junkers begin to move out from the cover of the flats
and make an early move to control the landing pad.

The VASA, seeing the main initial threat as the Junkers moved towards them in a general sweep with two snipers taking up commanding positions early on and the Black Legion nasties moved on to the roof tops ready to swoop on anything that came into view, or wait until the last moment and jump to the landing pad to claim victory.

The VASA Suppressors move through the pipefarm
covered by their sniper team

My Viridians had deployed in a bit of a conjested area of the table and found it a bit slow to extricate themselves from the tangle but this did give a decent amount of cover while they tried to keep coherence as they moved out. 

The Viridian Marines try to move out of their bottleneck

Early on, from round two, the Junkers and the VASA teams started to clash as the two forces closed quickly on each other. Kev's shooting and indeed his combat dice being pretty poor came off from several skirmishes much the worse and forgetting his initial plan launched his Black Legion into a couple of street fights which he unfortunately lost against the odds. The Junkers Greater Pitbeast making a meal of a couple of the VASA elite troops. 

A Greater Pitbeast and support makes a dash towards
the VASA keeping in cover

While the VASA were occupied trying to survive the gladiatorial onslaught, the middle squad moved quietly towards the landing pad and started to occupy the building all but un-opposed. On their right flank they had a longer walk to move towards the tardy Viridians who though slower anyway were being held up by not wanting to move out piece-meal. The Viridian Mortar team did manage an early hit on the advancing Suppressors and causing several police to dive for cover slowing their advance towards to Junker troops stoming towards the objective.

The Junkers move cautiously towards the Viridians

This meant that the Junkers on this flank came at the Viridians in one's and two's and unfortunately for the Junkers here, my dice rolling was a bit more numerous and ulimately successful bringing down two or three of the Gladiators in short order.

A Junkers Pitbeast makes a rush at the Viridians
as they break from cover.

Two Junkers Pitbeast did make it through the Viridian hail of fire, one in particular, though aimed at the encroaching VASA Suppressors moving through the pipefarm, launched intself at the nearest target, a Marine who was moving towards the VASA enforcers.

A view through the periscope -
a rampaging Pitbeast surprises the Viridians

With a hail of accelerated flachettes ripping around it, the beast made it to the Viridians but enraged by the fire, the beast rampaged through the Marine lines and emerged the other side unscathed but dealing no damage. The other beast leaping to vicorate a slightly worried Marine was cut down by the Strike Team Sergeant in mid air.

The rampaging pitbeast came to on the other side and despite a hail of hits from the surrounding Marines survived long enough to dispatch a very puzzled Marine before finally being put to sleep by the other Sergeant using her CAL extra moves to riddle the thing with bullets.

The Viridians finally manage to get out of their
bottleneck and start to close in.

By this time, the Junkers had put a big hole in the VASA force and the Viridians with a bit of aid from the VASA snipers and Suppressors had put a bigger hole in the Junkers lines.

The VASA and Viridians move in for the kill

Though the Junkers had the high ground and were generally in cover, their numbers were looking grim. The Viridians almost untouched by hiding from the main arena of battle and picking anything off that moved into view, were looking the strongest but the furthest from the objective and the VASA also reduced to breaking point but moving in for the kill it came to round six.

The VASA Suppressors move to take out
 the last of the Junkers

With the VASA and Junkers trading shots from combat shot guns and blows around the doorway of the landing pad, each taking losses and a couple of losses to the last of the Junkers moving towards the fray around the landing pad from Heavy Gauss rifle fire both the Junkers and VASA were forced to take a break check from 60% losses which they both failed.

The Viridian Sergeant was then in range to do a sprint over the high level pipes to the landing pad to claim victory for the Viridians.

A hard fought battle with the victors given the victory by default, more by being slowed down early on and letting the other two parties batter lumps out of each other before coming into the battle to pick off targets almost at will, a victory is a victory and after last time where I grasped defeat from the jaws of victory, I'll take it anyway it comes.

Another fun game full of the bits that make skirmishing gaming fun, with lots of cinematic moments and dice dealing despair, mainly to Kev, but to everyone in roughly equal measure it was anyones game till the last. Other game will no doubt ensue soon.

Urban War in the Spring

Suppressors target the oncoming Junkers
 through the pipe farm.

This week, for a bit of a change Kev and myself opted to have a game of Urban War using the 2nd Edition of the rules, which Kev had not used in anger yet.

With myself opting for the VASA, and Kev being stubbornly sticking with his Junkers gladiator types (as the last couple of outings his Junkers have been shot to pieces by my VASA before getting within arms reach) to see if the tide could be turned.

The table was laid out as you can see with a reasonable amount of terrain and obstacles but as it proved, insufficient to hide enough to avoid the hail of fire the VASA squad put down in the first half of the game.

Pretty quickly, as Kevs gladiator types advanced through the terrain they were quickly picked off one by one with some pretty efficient dice rolling on my part and after three turns or so I had nearly got the Junkers force to breaking point with a pretty effective gun line, helped by what was proving to be a 'no place left to hide' terrain layout.

Kev was beginning to loose hope as he reached break point and had only managed to take out one VASA with an eventual lucky shotgun shot taking out the VASA leader who had got over confident and placed himself in full view of the whole battlefield so he could pick off nearby targets and pounce when the time came. 

The Sniper and Spotter team clear the right flank
of enemies

The Black Legion Sergeant
 gets a vantage point

He proceeded to make three consecutive break checks as his force was reduced to less than half but it was then that my luck on the dice turned as it does and a couple of charges from Greater Pit Beasts and various others managed to get in amongst the VASA Suppressors and did what they do best and dismembered three or four in pretty quick succession. It was then that the much vaunted 'high morale' of the VASA troops began to let them down and several failed panic checks led to reduced shooting abilities.

Junkers make contact at last

As usual, just when you can taste the victory, it is cruelly taken from you. Of course, with the death of the Angel spotter to a couple of well aimed shots from the Junkers leader who had just eviscerated a second suppressor, the VASA had to do a break test which they duly failed. And Kev's Junkers had their victory at last!

VASA advance through the Pipe Farm while an
Angel watches over them

The totalling up the points bar the break VPs were surprisingly even at the end of the fight, with the break giving the victory. Victory though did not have the proper taste of success, as Kev felt that the battle felt already lost so the surprise victory was a bit hollow having won only by me failing one dice roll. The post game discussion revolved around this and it was pointed out that many games of whatever rules, invariably come down to who fails the break test first, especially skirmish games. It takes a scenario with set victory criteria to move this up a notch and remove the 'who fails first' syndrome from the game.

The Suppressors start getting
panicky

All in all though, this game being my third game of the 2nd edition Urban War rules and I'm beginning to warm to them with the simplified approach and less needless dice rolling removed it does become a much slicker game. A sort of sci-fi version of the LotR strategy game would be reasonable analogy.

April WIP

Sometime since I did a WIP post, maybe because there hasn't been a whole lot of progress on my various projects but recently as reported with the new Mordheim campaign at the club I have started putting together my new warband, the Gunnery School cadets;

The Magnificent Seven

Three, "the Cap'n", and the two Marksmen are slightly further on (ie undercoated) and the other four for the Instructor, the Senior Classman "the Old Boy", and the two Under Classmen "the New Boys" are now assembled and ready to rock. With a couple of pennies to spend from their first outing ther might be someone to add soon.

The "Old Boy" and the Cap'n behind him

The Instructor and "the new Boys"

Pleased with the results, now to get them painted.


Also on the painting table after purchasing via ebay are some Grey Knight terminators suitably paint stripped, re-assembled and based.

Grey Knight "Battlesuits"

These are going towards my Witch Hunter army that I have been collecting slowly over the years. They will also double up as Oni Class Battlesuits when playing Urban War.


Speaking of Urban War, I've just last night, (very late last night - yawn) had an experimental game with my mate JTM using the Urban War rules for a near future western hemisphere civil war clash. With similar army stats and even points the game was toe to toe, blow for blow right to the end with me with three grunts defending their corner of a forgotten street from a veteran sergeant and and his corporal where upon JTM chickened out and didn't charge in to face the guns of the grunts, (maybe it was because it was four in the morning and the brandy had run out?). Great game and anybody's right up to the end. Try more of that soon.

Dust up in Iskandria

At tonights club night I had a game of Urban War futuristic skirmish game with fellow club members Kev, and Dave K. (Dave ably assisting myself with a bit of suppressing fire on the right flank).
Kev supplied all the troops and most of the terrain too. This was a pity, as Kevs' luck with the dice was abysmal for the whole game failing to wound even once and my dice rolling was above average, so the result was a bit one sided to say the least. Sorry Kev.
I do like the Urban War system with it's order chits indicating the basic 'stance' of each figure which simply translates to a pretty fluid game even when the rules are fairly new, ie to the likes of me has only had a handful of games. (sorry again Kev. It must have been beginners luck ;-) ).
I think a contibuting factor to the result was also the troops. Kev playing the Junkers faction (basically close combat specialist slave soldiers and beasties, and mine were the VASA (the UN in space) who are more tradition marine types with some jump troops, more shooty. The mix seemed unbalanced with the lack of fire power for the Junkers not made up for with the mediocre advantage in combat.
Still, an enjoyable game, for me and Dave at least.