Ambush!

They had set off at dawn and the four 'Bulldog' APC's were making good progress, Half an hour into a 45 minute journey with no incident.
 Captain Fennek had briefed them early, explaining how he wanted troops to quickly take the outskirts of Havlock and hold it until 1st and 2nd platoons pushed in to take the town.
 It was down to his platoon to take those outskirts.
 They were also accompanied by two extra soldiers, Corporal Clark, a drone operator who would hopefully provide Intel and recon on Havlock. And Sergent Drake, a sniper who had his own, yet unknown, mission in the area.
 The vehicle started to slow down and the intercom crackled to life with the commanders voice,
"Bottleneck on the road up ahead, we are slowing and moving through causiously"
 Hildermann looked through the view port close to him, they were moving through a lightly wooded area with a lot of ground foliage. He didn't like it.
 Keying platoon net "Heads on a swivel, I don't like the look of this"
 He checked his P36 assault carbine was loaded and took another look out of the view port, for a split second he thought he saw someone's head poking above the foliage but his attention was drawn to the puff of smoke and rocket trail coming from a close knot of trees . . .

New Vehicle
M18 'Bulldog' APC
APC armour, Tracked, Turret, HMG, Carries 8.

The Mission
A moderate priority mission to get through the area and reach Havlock.

Forces
Insurgents
All have no body armour

5 man team: Irregular
-platoon leader, integrated commander
-SAW

x4 8 man team: Irregular
-squad leader
-SAW
-buzzbomb

supporting squad: hardened fighters
8 man team
-squad leader
-SAW

Army
4 man Command team.
-lieutenant Hilderman: integrated commander, platoon leader.
-master sergent Korwen: platoon NCO, x2 smoke grenades
-soldier: squad automatic

4 man inf. Team
-Sergent Young: squad leader, x2 smoke grenades
-2 soldiers: squad automatic

6 man inf. Team
-Sergent Rush: squad leader, x2 smoke grenades
-2 soldiers: squad automatic

5 man inf. Team
-Corporal Ash: squad leader, x2 smoke grenades
-2 soldiers: squad automatic

Medic Niles: self motivated, medic

Corporal Clark: self motivated, drone operator.

Sergent Drake: self motivated, sniper.

x4 M18 bulldog APC's

The Battle
The insurgents set up in ambush positions along the road, the army APC column would arrive on one table edge and have to escape the opposite edge.

The Convoy

1st APC: Squad Rush

2nd APC: CnC team + Medic Niles

3rd APC: Squad Ash + Drone operator

4th APC: Squad Young + sniper

The four APC's moved along the road in column formation, their crew scanning the area. The situation was changed when a rocket slammed into the lead APC knocking it out.
The second APC opened up with its HMG spraying the trees the rocket had come from, that was short lived as a second rocket position fired, this one blowing the APC to pieces.

Squads start to dismount in an effort to fight back as a third APC is knock at out, small arms fire is exchanged.
Squad Rush being close to the front start to fall back and one is picked off, enemy fire intensifies.

What remains of the platoon throw out smoke and withdraw from the area.

Aftermath

Well . . . a short game and a bloody one.

The Ambush worked, very well.

The first APC was wrecked, killing all crew and two members of squad Rush who then looses a third during their retreat.

The second APC was a catastrophic hit killing everyone except the Medic.

The 3rd APC (APC 4) was wretched and all crew were killed along with two members of Squad Young.

With the platoon mauled and it's entire command element killed they were withdrawn from the front lines.

Commander Kale stood on the hill watching the road below, smoke drifted across the scene obscuring much and sporadic gunfire signalled the end of a fight.

He turned to one of his bodyguards,

"Bring up the truck, we are reporting back to Havlock"

This would hinder the armies plans and he knew they would have to act fast to take advantage of the situation.

The Smoke had built up nicely and Sergent Drake slipped out from under the APC, and keeping low headed for the tree line, he half expected a shot to hit him but none came.

He reached the trees and didn't stop until he was 50 meters into the woods.

Shouldering his Westfield S40A2 self loading rifle he scanned the area through its scope, no sign of pursuit.

He took a moment to fix his bearings and position before stealthily heading off.

A Mixed up Setting

A Mixed up Setting

Being like many wargamers I am pretty chaotic at what I'm painting and collecting, half finished projects everywhere, rule systems coming out my ears.

So I have decided to try and blend it all together and see what the result is.

Wanting to play a Campaign I firstly needed a setting, so out comes the traveller core rulebook, 2D6 and flick to the planetary creation section.

let the dice rolling commence . . .

SIZE: 8 = is around 12800km wide and has a gravity of 1G

ATMOSPHERE: 5 = thin 0.43-0.7 pressure, has a temperate climate

HYDROGRAPHICS: 6 = 56%-65% water covourage

POPULATION: 9 = billions live here

GOVERNMENT: C = Charismatic Oligarchy

 has two minor factions

-Minor faction; Civil Service Beaurocracy

-Notable group; Non Charismatic leader

LAW: 4 

TECH: 11 = Early stella

STARPORT: A = Excellent

QUIRK: Unusual custom: offworlders

TRAVEL CODES: Agricultral, Garden, High population.

So we have a world pretty much like earth, but with a thinner atmosphere which means civilisation will stick to lower altitudes.

Now that the planet is done it's time to create the factions, so I decide to use the traveller hammers slammers book.

Looking at the extra world creation charts here I find it qualifies as an Old Colony, I decide to roll a D3 to see how many nations settled here, I rolled a 2 so then roll on the colonists table to get,

-Eastern European

-British isles

Rolling on the war cause I get, 

Territory War.

Factions are,

-Western Alliance

-Southern States

So it has been settled by the British and people from the Ukraine, the Southern States are a mix of people led by the state royal council.
The Western Alliance is mainly populated by Ukrainians and is ruled by a ruthless general who runs it as a military state.

Deciding the Southern States will be the defender I roll on the advantages table

-Dug-in,

For the Attacking Western Alliance

-No advantage

For the first game i use the Generic Sci Fi  Mission Generator from Nordic weasel games.

 Rolling for forces they are around the same size,

-Western Alliance troops are veterans with steady moral, they are a fast moving force supported by light vehicles.

- Southern States are also veterans with insane moral (do or die), they are vehicle heavy supported by heavy troops.

The Western Alliance is attacking the border territories but the Southern States have obviously been expecting this and have dug in.

Rolling for a mission the result was Patrol battlefield, with a side objective of kill a particular target, this suits the Western Alliance troops so I gave it to them.

Debated about rolling up objectives for the Southern States, but what the hell.

Destroy target (crashed vehicle/craft) with a side objective of reach a particular location.

The Western Alliance are aiming to clear a route into the States territories and if the opportunity arises, kill the commander in the area.
The Southern States have a wretched APC in no man's land containing military Intel which they have to destroy, a location near the APC also needs to be scouted if possible.

With virtually everything set, just need a battlefield so out comes PMC2640.

Deciding on a 6x4 board and dividing it into 2x2 sections I start rolling.

-top left sector: 1 building

-top mid sector: 2 buildings

-top right sector: open terrain

-bottom left sector: 4 buildings 4 walls

-bottom mid sector: 2 rubble areas

-bottom right sector: 2 rubble areas

Looks like a battle on the outskirts of a town.

So there you go, combining what you have to create a setting, a conflict and a mission.
 This actually came out really well and I am tempted to build the forces (no! I don't need another project).
Using either No Stars in Sight or stargrunt II to play the game.

Building buildings

To start:

Earlier this I picked up a copy of Spectre Operations, I had been playing with the idea of buying it for quite a while and after reading some battle reports of the game I went for it.

Reviewing the game could be for another post but after reading the rules it looks awesome. I have yet to play a game.

So this is where I start, all my terrain is 15mm, spectre is for 28mm so rather than spending a small fortune on buying buildings I decided I would build some.

Materials

To start I gathered up all the modelling stuff I have buying over the years but never get round to using,

-craft knife

-metal ruler

-glue gun

-5mm foam board

-cork granules (or sand/small pebbles)

-PVA glue

-pen/pencil
-fine grade sandpaper

-polyfiller

-lollipop sticks (or the coffee stirring one's Costa let you have free, although do get the odd look when they think your stirring your latte with 30 odd sticks)

-really thin MDF (had to buy this one)

And the most important bit,

-imagination

To get a building design either doodle one down of go on Google images, once you have something you like then your set to start building.

But, my method is to look at Google images and find something close to what I want and doodle down the changes, But then add and change things as I'm building it.

Building it

Firstly I made the outer walls, they are 70mm high, doors are 40mm high and 30mm wide.

Windows between 20mm and 40mm in height but width can be anything you choose (forgot how wide I done mine).

Then glued them on with the glue gun.

Interior walls are 45mm high.

Then I cut out a roof section (access hole 20x20mm) and glued in lollipop sticks on the inside of the exterior walls level with the interior walls. This creates a lip for the roof to rest on.

Then mixed water, PVA and polyfiller into a paste and coated all the edges where the foam is exposed, filled in unwanted gaps and gave the exterior walls a thin coating.

Let this dry and give it a light sand down.

Brickwork note! Slice off the card exposing the foam and using a pen/pencil draw a brickwork pattern and push into it as you draw.

Roof note! The flat roofs tend to warp when you paint them, so I glued some lollipop sticks to the bottom for extra strength.

Then covoured the floor in PVA and sprinkled in the cork, plus a few chunks of foam board to add texture.

Once dry I then painted the whole building in a PVA and water mix. This bonds it all together.

Then I sprayed it with a black undercoat, This is where you find out if you have any exposed foam as the aerosol tends to melt it.

Painting it!

I gave all the outside walls a coat of heavy ochre 72.150.

floors got a coat of German camo beige ww2 70.821

inside walls had a coat of field blue 70.964

brick areas had ochre brown 70.856

Once dry I gave all surfaces a second coat,

inside walls dark blue grey 70.904

outside walls dark sand 70.847

And give floor a second coat.

To make areas look mucky I added some Agrax earthshade.

paint bricks stone grey 70.884

I then highlighted all walls with stone grey 70.884.

lastly add varnish.

And there you have a nice building to hide in/storm and blow up.

First Game of NSIS

Backdrop:

The world of Emerald has become subject to an uprising, insurgent forces are trying to overthrow the government and gain independence from the Tyreen Commonwealth that Emerald is part of.

 The Jolen Vale is held firmly by insurgent forces and the Army has sent the 2nd Battalion in to reclaim he area.

The Vale has a good railway network and the Army want to use it to get armour into the vale quickly, hoping that heavy armour will crush the insurgents and break their will to fight.

As part of the operation it fell to 4th Company, 3rd Platoon commanded by lieutenant Hildermann to capture a small rail depot.

The Mission:

A Routine priority mission on the railway to capture the rail depot, being a routine mission there was no roll for supporting forces.

Hildermann has entered the AO on foot and had spent the best parts of the early hours slowly and quietly advancing his platoon through the woods towards the depot.

Observation drone surveys the AO.

Platoon ready to advance.

Western blocking squad.

Reserve squad in the building, eastern blocking squad up the road.

Squad Anders breaks cover from the tree line in two fire teams leapfrogging and putting down some heavy fire on the western squad, Squad Young sprints from cover towards the raised shed followed by Niles. Squad Rush and the command team quickly mave down the rail lines.

The Rocket squad do little, while the western squad returns fire. The eastern squad and reserve squad start moving to support their fellow rebels.

Lead starts to fly.

Reinforcements inbound.

The Rebel Command team break from the small building and open fire on Squad Young putting one rifleman down, Eastern squad, Reserve squad and the rocket squad do little but manoeuvre while the western squad continues its firefight with Anders Squad. Anders keeps pushing forward suppressing the enemy until his fireteam came into close range, they quickly put three rebels down and some drop their guns and run.

Squad Young take another casualty but keep pushing forward, their fire being really effective as they gun down two members of the rebel command team. Behind them Niles treats the wounded.

The Rocket team once again stand around as reserve squad and the eastern squad finally close in and start putting down some sporadic fire and take down Sergeant Anders.

Hildermanns team flank the rebel command and gun down one of its members, this proves too much for the rebel commander who drops his gun and runs for his life.

Rebel rienforcements arrive and gun down anders.

Hildermann flanks and destroys the rebel command.

Ander Squad pushes into the pipes area that the now decimated western squad were occupying and start laying down fire on the newly arrived eastern squad while Squad Young close assault the reserve squad causing heavy casualties and alot of desertions, with whats left of the rebel forces being surrounded and taking heavy casualties the remaining rebels run.

Drone view at the battles end

Aftermath:

3rd platoon definitely achieved their objective as the rebel forces were crushed, the platoon took three casualties, two riflemen and Sergeant Anders. Rolling for their status resulted in one rifleman and Anders in medical care meaning they miss the next game. The other rifleman is too injured and sent off for long term recovery and no replacement is immediately available.

Sergeant Young gained a medal for holding his squad together under heavy fire and casualties before close assaulting the middle of rebel forces and breaking them.

Master Sergeant Korwen sat on the roof of the troop carriage, the train had arrived four hours after they had taken the depot, so far no counter attack had come, the train arrived carrying 2nd platoon, IFV's and some recon tanks plus alot of support elements, all of who were busying themselves around the depot, but it was none of this he was looking at.

On the horizon, the sun was setting and twilight was starting to set in, the sky was an amazing colour of purple silhouetting the tree's on the horizon, the sky was broken by five plumes of smoke that were slowly spilling up. The smoke came from the destroyed vehicles of the 1st Recon platoon who had advanced deep into the Vale and had been ambushed in the town of Harlock, he had received the reports a few hours ago.

Even though he knew the smoke was a sign of their defeat and men had died, the sky was a beautiful sight. 

Crew Activities

Once again the crew must perform their activities, so . . 

-Rafflesnap: Ventures out to see the sights, gets a few drinks but nothing useful.

-Abraham: Goes out trading and returns with an Instruction manual.

-Zia: Decides to train, she also uses the instruction manual Abraham acquired but learns nothing new.

-Simon: Goes out recruiting but find no willing members.

-'Betty': Guards the ship.

Simon stumbles upon a rumour while out trying to recruit, and Zia is feeling restless, she is growing tired of Florax.

They decide to get back on with the quest.

(Here i decide to start using travel times)

The UNITY post is 6 hours, 2 hours in an event occurs and get . . . making good time, so they reach the post in 4 hours.

Stealing from Golg

'Betty', Simon and two henchmen had been sent by Rafflesnap to the Golg's camp, hopefully the alien merc's had something of value they could steal.

The Golgs Camp

Simon and 'Betty' plan their attack

'Betty' took a henchman around the large pipe stack while Simon advanced through the tree's with the other crewman, they opened up with their shotguns but failed to hit the target. The Golg quickly took cover and returned fire and knocked Simon's henchman over.

'Betty' trips out and runs from cover wildly as Simon lays down a barrage of fire panicking one of the aliens, his henchman regains his feet and joins in the shooting wounding a Golg.

The shooting starts!

The firefight rages between the two groups, the henchman hiding behind the pipes looses his nerve and backs off, Simon manages to gun down the wounded Golg, the panicked Golg keeps running and leaves the area.

Things are getting serious.

Simon and his henchman advance on the last alien laying down a steady rate of fire, their shots hit and wound the creature. 'Betty' sprints forward eager to close the range and the aliens return fire misses everyone.

Simon moves into an excellent firing position as 'Betty' flips out once again, running in circles and screaming,

The last wounded Golg decides to live to fight another day and hastily retreats from the area.

I'm getting out of here . . .

With no more Golg in the area they start unpacking the crates to find . . . Novelty stuffed animals!

Simon swears about this little raid being a frakking useless mission but still decide to take them back to the Staramus.

No Stars In Sight Insurgents

Ok, so now for the insurgent forces, again these would be chosen at 300pts.
All of them have,
'No body armour' and 'Irregular'

Command team
- 4 men
   -Commander: integrated leader, platoon         leader
   -insurgent: squad automatic
   -insurgent: Hacker

Insurgent squad x3
-10 men
    -leader: team leader
    -insurgent: squad automatic

AT team
-6 men
  -leader: squad leader
  -2 insurgents: buzzbombs

And i have tweaked the assets chart to give them a different 'feel' of what support they have available.

-6-11=Armoured car
-12-17=offworld mercs
             'Professional' 6 man team, squad                       automatic
              Roll D6
              -1=Inspiational leader + roll again
              -2-3=buzzbomb
              -4-5=sharpshooter
              -6=Heavy armour + roll again
-18-20=Hardened/Veteran fighters
-26-32=Specialist
              Roll D6
              -1=Hacker
              -2-3=Medic
              -4-5=Sniper
              -6=Drone Operator
-42-44=Stolen tank
              Roll D6
              -1-3=Light tank
              -4-5=MBT
              -6=Heavy tank
-45-47=Rienforcemants
-48-52=Deserters
             6 man team, roll D6
             -1=+2 men
             -2-5=no extra
             -6=special, roll D6
                             -1=inspiring leader
                             -2-3=squad automatic
                             -4-5=buzzbomb
                             -6=buzzbomb & squad auto
-69-76=Light support vehicle
             Roll D6
             -1-3=Autocannon armed
             -4-5=Rocket armed
             -6=Cannon armed
-77-84=APC
             Roll D6
             -1-4=light armour
             -5-6=Armoured
-95-97=Specialist Vehicle
             Roll D6
             -1-2=comms truck
             -3-4=engineering vehicle
             -5-6=medical truck
-98-100=Air transport
             -1-4=transport
             -5-6=armed transport

No Stars In Sight!

A little while ago i picked up a copy of No Stars in sight, and after reading it i quite like the looks of it and tagged it as a, future game . . . Along with everything else that is still waiting to be done.
But with Assult Publishing's sale i purchased alot of miniatures and thought they would be ideal for No Stars In Sight.

Now, the cool thing about NSIS is that it has a Solo play rule section, which is really handy as my long term gaming partner has vanished still due to girlfriend (starting to think she has kidnapped him) and trying to run a campaign at my gaming club is chaotic at best with all the other games and campaigns going on.

NSIS has a good set of tables that allow you to generate wars, missions, forces, assets, etc. But Seeing as i had insurgents and military guys i just decided the war reason would be an Uprising.
The insurgents were an obvious force type of irregular fighters, for the military i decided to roll on the force table and got 'Line Infantry'.

Although not essential, i decided to choose forces using the points system and went with 300pts per side.

Line inf. Force.
4 man Command team.
-lieutenant Hilderman: integrated commander, platoon leader.
-master sergent Korwen: platoon NCO, x2 smoke grenades
-soldier: squad automatic

6 man inf. Team
-Sergent: squad leader, x2 smoke grenades
-2 soldiers: squad automatic

#sergents are called Rush, Anders and Young

Medic Niles: self motivated, medic

Now seeing as the story will be following these guys i rolled on the relationships and personality tables for officers and NCO's, so randomly rolling pairs and then their personality this is what resulted.

Lieutenant Hilderman
He is a long term soldier who joined to escape his family bussiness, is a very charismatic leader but is very malicious towards his opponents.

-has a professional relationship with-

Master Sergent Korwen
From a farming background, he has quickly risen through the ranks and is very ambitious to reach officer ranks.
He leads by example making him popular with the grunts.


Medic Niles
Has been in the military most of his life, he has a strong sense of duty and is a desceet individual.

-has a professional relationship with-

Sergent Anders
Also another lifer, leads with strong discipline and has a number of idealogical views and a conceited individual.


Sergent Rush
Tired of working the production lines in a factory he joined for Adventure, he is a very 'by the book' leader and is quite picky.

-has mutual respect with-

Sergent Young
Was a well known musician which makes him quite pompous but his close relationship with his squad means they work as a close knit team.

The last thing i looked as was the support assets chart, and decided it needed some tweaking, so . . .

-18-20= Non-standard infantry
              Roll D6
             -1=Drop troops
             -2-3= Military police
             -4-5= Engineers
             -6= Spec Ops
-26-32= Specialist
              Roll D4
              -1=Drone Operator
              -2=Hacker
              -3=Medic
              -4=Sniper
-33-37= Command element
               Roll D6
               -1-3=Platoon CnC
               -4-5=Company CnC
               -6=Battallion CnC
-45-47= APC
               Roll D6
               -1-4=Light APC
               -5-6=Heavy APC
-69-76= Light support vehicle
               Roll D6
                -1-2=AAA
                -3-4=Missile support vehicle
                -5-6=Mobile arty
-95-97= Specialist Vehicle
               Roll D6
               -1=Mobile Command Post
               -2-3=Engineering vehicle
               -4-5=Field Ambulance
               -6=Radar vehicle

I am currently working on the support assets chart for the insurgent forces and have just started to paint the military force.

Upcoming Salute

Like all other wargamers i'm getting pretty excited about Salute 2018.
With my recent foray into the crucible i am keen to pick up some more forces.

So far my forces have had strong infantry but am really wanting an armoured engagement, with bits and bobs i have lying around i have 2/3 of a force of Podeles Lions.
I am currently working on a Federal Mechanised infantry detachment.

Have plans for building Oltenian mercs to fight on Cecach then build a Molt force.

Also very tempted to do the Kalan war, i have some Hiroseki and Stewart infantry lying around but no vehicles.

So much to do!!!

Loving the new stuff from brigade . . . Hmm maybe fosters mercs . . .

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2018/03/salute-starts-here/

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2018/03/viking-thunderbolt/

The Crucible!

Been a while since my last post, did'nt realise how much time had passed but having a new baby will do that.

Anyway,

Had the Crucible for quite some time but have never really read the rules or played the game. But a few months ago i read the book and liked the look so went about building some forces.
Now being a Slammers fan i have read all of Mr Drakes books and one of my favourites is the Forlorn Hope.

The first force i built was a Cecach Republican Spearhead force.

And as their opposition i had a force of Fasolini's Company (i picked these up last year from brigade models at salute, did have a nice shopping list for this years salute but with brigades new releases this list has suddenly grown bigger)

With the forces set a game was required, so last night at my gaming club Jim volunteered to command Fasolini's Company, leaving me with the Republicans.

We set up the board, the western side was hills with scattered woods while the eastern side was a partially ruined factory complex. Fasolini's Company set up in hiding while i moved on in the first turn.

My Convoy was led by the Eisenfaust MBT follwed by three Kastenwagons, two were APC's while the third was a command vehicle.
The battle opened with a buzzbomb boucing off the Eisenfausts front armour, the Command vehicle had machinegun rounds bounce off its side armour while the lead APC had its fans shot out by a second MG team which immobilised it.

The Eisenfaust fried an MG team with its main laser while the hull autocannon blew the buzzbomb team apart, the command vehicle headed off to to hide behind some trees and the tailing APC moved up, infantry bailed out of the immobilised APC and the combined fire of small arms and vehicle autocannons blew the second MG team apart.

From the western buildings Fasolini's infantry came, they assulted the Eisenfaust and the mobile APC as mortar rounds fell upon the Republican infantry blowing 2 infantry TU's apart.

An Fasolini gun system opened up from the hills destroying the weapon on the command vehicle, and the close assults had little effect on the vehicles.

The infantry that had disembarked from the immobilised APC advanced on the gun system, infantry from the second APC disembarked and swamped the merc infantry attacking their vehicle but their victory was short lived as mortars rained down on them causing heavy casualties.

The infantry assulting the MBT were successful and destroyed the tank.

And with that i had lost over 50% of my forces, game over.

There was little i could do as most of my infantry were destroyed, Eisenfaust destroyed and the APC's were slowly aquiring damage.

We were impressed at the ease and speed of the game, one thing we would like to change is the board size as ranges in the Crucible are huge and the game was played pretty much at short range so next time we will use a bigger board.