Stealers in the Hive

I've not posted in while but our game last week has re-motivated me. We revisited Necromunda of which we had a handful of games at the start of last year. There were four us playing a mini campaign. But that isn't what this post is focussed on.

After our campaign finished, we still had a couple of hours spare so decided to hook out the rules for 40k second edition Genestealers and have them invade the hive world (Necromunda rules are based on 2nd ed so they work well together)! Our gangs were left as they were at the end of the campaign and had to get from one end of the table to the other...presumably out the hive and in to the wastes...a marginally better fate than being torn up or impregnated by the stealers.

The gangs started just ahead of the cranes and had to get to the gaps in the elevated walkway in the distance.

It's difficult to write a battle report in any meaningful way. We ran headlong forward as a random number of aliens entered from random table edges each turn. They had to enter at ground level so the only tactic was to get off the floor as soon as possible!

Dave's Chaos Cult join the central walkway from the right flank. Ross's gang do so from the other side.

My poor gang, the Rusty O's, took a route down the left flank (mainly because I was stood that side).

Dave's zombies held up the Genestealers for a short while but didn't put up much resistance.

The central gangway became the main stage for the massacre fight. With both gangs crammed in, the aliens headed for this area and were able to cut through man after man (after mutant!).

My own team survived longer than expected with my heavy stub gun maintaining overwatch and a lot of luck.

I knew the writing was on the wall as these stealers approached...my heavy stubber (top right) and shotgun jammed. My leader's plasma pistol was recharging :(

A stealer looks down from from its entry point, ready to join the feast. But, in the distance, some of the Chaos cult are making a getaway.

Dave wins as one of his Chaos mutants gets to an exit (top right) with the Genestealers nipping at all three of his heels.

I just love it when we say "hang the rules and any hope of balance" and get on with it. This was such a fun, tense and cinematic game. It finished off a great day.

Next time, we are going to send 2nd ed Teminators in to the hive to see if they can clear out the bugs. If not then there's always exterminatus (Digamma, Decimatio, Duodecies).

Other pics:

Welcome to the Jungle

A couple of weeks ago we played a small, three-player game of Gruntz. We used the jungle terrain I finished making a week earlier.

Each player could make a force of up to 50 points with no vehicles, jump packs or the like - the aim was get a "traipsing through the jungle" feel. For those unfamiliar with the Gruntz army builders, 50 points equates to maybe a couple of 5-man fire teams or a single powered armour team.

The scenario background was deliberately vague as it fits into a loose, mystery narrative arc I'm using for some of our games. Each player had to place two objectives away from their deployment zones (which were the three corners of a 4 x 4 table). The aim was to collect as many of the objectives as possible and carry them off the respective deployment corners. No alliances were allowed.

My GoR forces are nearest the camera. James' Blitzkreig AG scum troops are opposite. Ant's New Commonwealth Gurkhas are in the left corner (by the empty chair).

Plan showing the six blue objectives. The river can be traversed on foot but halves movement.

 My plan was to send one team left to capture that lower objective as well as denying it to Ant. The other team were to cross the river and take the objectives at the base of the hill and on top of it.

Ant's men have beaten me to the first objective but I take a short cut through the terrain to ambush him. This triggers an opposed skill check....

....against these fellas. Since I fail the check, a pack of "things" appear nearby. Luckily, they are out of charge range.

Although I managed to kill the monsters, doing so tied my chaps up leaving the Gurkhas to escape with one of the mysterious missiles. They looped round this copse and annihilated my men!

From the hill, my second fire team spot the BlitzKreig troops are using bounding overwatch to advance.

With the New Commonwealth already retreating with one objective, my remaining team crossed the river and collected the easy target from the base of the hill. They proceeded to climb the slope, entering terrain again and drawing the attention of another pack of creatures some distance away.

What I should have done is retreated with two objectives and let Ant and James fight it out. What I actually did was press on, deliberately entering terrain and choosing not to test for stealth! With one team gone I suppose I saw the writing on the wall and hoped I'd get lucky and have BlitzKrieg set upon by the pink things.

Omnomnom

It sort of worked. BlitzKrieg were attacked but their overwatch fire was successful and put paid to the creatures. Unfortunately for me, more monsters piled in and finished my force.

Even in hand to claw combat, the Gurkhas make light work of these monsters with their energy-kukris. These beasts had regenerated after my earlier encounter with them.

Battle for the Hill

As the Gurkhas close on the hill, their colleagues (off camera) are ready to leave the table with two objectives. James' BlitzKrieg AG have collected two of their own McGuffins so whoever secures the two missiles I dropped will be the winner.

It looks dicey for James as he is caught between a pack of pinkies and the Gurkhas. His overwatch takes care of the humans and...

...he wins initiative against the beasts, easily finishing them off.

The other Gurkhas leave the area for final scores of:

BlitzKrieg AG: 4
New Commonwealth: 2
Guardians of the Revolution: 0 (and a poor one at that!)

Ultimately, James' choice to keep his fire teams together and use overwatch properly won him the game.

Other stuff:

We used card based activation for the first time. This was great fun for representing the hack through the jungle. Since the creatures were assigned cards too, it made interaction with them that bit more tense.

I should probably have clustered the terrain pieces into larger areas so there was more emphasis on choosing to go round the long way or risk summoning monsters by taking short cuts through the undergrowth.

There was some other stuff too but...well...you know how it is writing these things...

Trouble at New Hamburg

We played a game of Gruntz on Thursday night. The setting was our custom M67 background (https://sites.google.com/site/system15mm/).

We were pretty engrossed in the game so didn't manage to take enough pictures for a cohesive battle report. However, I've posted the scenario and outcome here as it played well and may be of use to others.

Background

New Hamburg was a major city in an independent ark colony. The city had grown quickly for a small independent, making its fortune as a shipping hub due to its host planet’s prime location. Although not an immediate threat to some of the larger corporate powers, it was becoming a nuisance to someone. Five years ago it was extensively bombed by unknown agents. The bombing was enough to effectively destroy the city, ending the colony. It since became no man’s land, open for the taking.

The Anarcho Communist Commonality (ACC) recently began clearing debris from the ruins using nano-cloud technology. In doing so, they have discovered evidence about who bombed the city. Before the ACC engineers could get the evidence off-world, their craft was (conveniently) shot down by a combined force made up of Lone Star Mercenaries and BlitzKreig AG who wish to contest the land.

A small force of ACC Guardians of the Revolution arrive to help the engineers escape.

Game

The game takes place on a 4 x 4 table, ideally covered with dense urban ruins. The crashed engineering craft is between 12 and 24 inches of the Lone Star/BlitzKreig edge. Three engineers are noted in secret as being somewhere along this same strip (i.e. 12 to 24 inches of Lone Star/BlirzKreig edge).

Both forces (400 points each) are set up no more than 6” onto the table.

Lone Star and BlitzKreig units can scan an area 6 + d6” in radius (centered on themselves) with an action. If an engineer is in this area, they are revealed. If the engineers move position, they are instantly revealed and placed on the table. They carry small arms but should be fairly easy to hit and kill.

Each engineer carries an encrypted device that may contain evidence about the illegal bombing. One is a dummy, the other two are actual pieces of evidence. Neither side knows which until the end of the game. If an engineer is killed, they drop their device and it can be retrieved by infantry of either side (using an action to pick it up).

The ACC mission is to get both pieces of evidence off their table edge. If they extract one device the game is a draw. If they retrieve neither of the genuine objectives, then Lone Star/BlitzKreig win.

Early on, a Che Guevara MBT takes up a commanding position atop a building.

Lone Star detect an engineer (directly below the satellite dish). They kill the civilian and take his evidence. The Goblin walker sets up in the building to defend their retreat.

Lone Star as they enter the building.

GoR powered armour cross the street to enter the building and take the data back from Lone Star. They are shot down by the Goblin but recover due to nano-tech. Ultimately they change course away from the camera to defend another fleeing engineer who appears between the crashed ship and the large gas cylinder.

Slain powered armour can be seen below the dish. The engineer they go to defend is killed by cylinder 7 but they pick up the evidence and escape through the C-shaped building to the left. Lone Star had taken the other data as far as the distant block by the green truck. They were taken out by a lucky missile strike, leaving the damaged grav APC (far left) to go and retrieve the device.

The third engineer escaped down the left flank (wrecked brick buildings) fairly unmolested.

 I was worried that I would only retrieve two of the devices and, should one of those be the dummy, the game would end in a draw. There was plenty of other action not covered above. BlitzKreig AG committed to my right flank which I managed to counter by moving the engineer around the tall cylinders. This commitment to the wrong area also left one of my Che Guevara tanks unchallenged. In turn, that allowed the lucky shot that stopped Lone Star from escaping with evidence that I had all but given up on.

If you are thinking of using the scenario, something to be aware of is how easy it is to kill the engineers. Luckily, this is offset by the dense terrain providing them opportunities to hide and the ability for troops to pick up the evidence. I'm not sure the scenario would work as well in a ugo-igo system - the attackers might kill all the engineers in one turn. With alternating activations or similar, it is difficult to commit units to a headlong search as they will require support.

Rogue 7rader

7TV by Crooked Dice is amazing. Although its default setting is cult spy-fi, the system is so well designed it can be used for any sort of modern or science fiction skirmish.

On Saturday we used it to play a Rogue Trader-esque game and it worked a treat. The forces involved are Ian's Rogue Trader Stannilas Laird (Underworld Boss) and crew set against my Illuminati band.

I think this is set to become our go-to skirmish ruleset. It's hugely fun and full of character. The main book and its supplements also include a generous range of scenarios that can easily be adapted to the setting at hand.

Illuminati Band (L-R)
Slymenstra (Ninja)
Short Connery (Cultist)
Crispin Quentz (Navigator/Inhuman Servitor)
Nook Hackard (Security Guard)
Malloway (Tech-Priest)
Larith Graziel (Eldar Merc/Lackey)
Luthor Reborn (Unhinged Toff)
Jeramo Groon (Security Gaurd)

Molloway the Tech-Priest advances under the leadership of Luthor Reborn.

Luthor is aware of dog-things to the left as the crew advance on the objective in the hangar.

Woof woof gragghh!

The "dogs" attack Larith and Quentin

Darryl Black the Astropath and Arena Girl take position on the landing pad

As Luthor is ambushed by Gene Zymmonds, Molloway announces he has been bought by the opposition.

Following Luthor's death and an ungodly number of his team being bought out by Rogue Trader Laird, we conceded. Only the Navigator Crispsin Quentz was left alive and he had a terrible headache.

How to train your Mangler Squigs

This post is similar to my Giant Saving post, where I converted a £1 toy wrestler into a giant for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Unfortunately, Andre the giant wasn't as good in-game as I'd hoped (lucky I didn't buy a real one) so I thought I'd try out a couple of Mangler Squigs.

The thing is, again, GW are charging a ridiculous price (£36) for a figure that I really don't like the look of. Regarding their giant, I just simply don't like the design but can see why some people do; Mangler Squigs, however, are a daft-looking pair of monsters. GW Orcs are comedic enough but I'm certainly not paying over £70 for what is effectively a childish, mass produced monster.

Especially when it seems you can buy childish, mass produced monsters for £1 a pair.

Why they are in Italian is anybody's guess. Maybe that's why they were £1 a pack.

The toy has holes where a pair of wings are supposed to go. I'm sure they'll be used for something else...the wings; not the holes.

I had some jeweller's chain kicking around that I'd originally bought to decorate my Dark Eldar. I put this use as the chain binding the brutes together and acting a leash for their poor snotling handlers. Wire threaded through the chain allows it to be posed and doesn't look too intrusive.

There's some Milliput filler in their chops.

Fetch!

A little bit of painting, inking, highlighting (you know the drill) later and here are the completed not-really-Mangler Squigs. Total saving = £70.

Games Workshop, I love you dearly - you got me into the wargaming hobby and have given me lots of fun over the years. I appreciate you are a business with shareholders to appease, however, I'm really not going pay over-the-odds prices for your products. You might possibly have taken £40 in revenue for a couple of sensibly priced squigs. Instead you've taken £0 revenue from me instead.

Things I want to Steal from My 4 Year Old Son

My son has more toys than me (maybe). I look at some of them with envy as I can see their wargaming potential. Here's the top 6 toys I want to steal from him (most of them from the Tomica Thomas the Tank Engine range):

Health and Safety laws dictate that more footbridges are needed in Redemption City

This is clearly a 15mm scale bridge. The Fat Controller will just have to find another route around Sodor.

Looks garish and plastic but with a little work, this is some sort of Rogue Trader-esque building in 28mm. It's got separate rooms and everything inside.

15mm Air Traffic Control Tower for our long-overdue Gruntz spaceport game.

Remove the chassis and you have a 15mm shed. Ollie has several of these (at the moment).

And finally, my favourite, a limo for my Genestealer Cult Magus.

A Giant Saving

I decided a while ago that I wanted a giant in my Warhammer Orcs and Goblins army. Whether or not they are any good is beside the point; I wanted one.

Now, given that a Citadel giant costs £32.50...and that I have recently wasted £50 on the white elephant that is 7th edition 40k...and that I really don't like how that figure looks, did I?:

a. Spend £32.50 on a giant from Games Workshop

b. Go on eBay and look for what would, no doubt, have cost me even more but possibly looks better (maybe the old Marauder giant)

c. Go to Poundland and spend but £1 on a brandless "wrestler" toy that was made in China

The wrestler as purchased

Limb joints given a thorough dowsing with superglue to fix their position 

Miliput added to seal gaps and a loin cloth made from  paper towel and an Orc banner. Pendant is a skeletal horse head. 

Painted. I added a tankard made from a powder keg and a snotling with the same pose.  Perhaps the snotling is controlling the brute. 

My friend Ross pointed out that a giant wrestler should be called Andre, hence the tattoo. I guess he's from Brettonia!