The Fight at Jims Place

Down at the Deeside Defenders this Thursday a most tense and exhilarating action was fought between Rick, Chris and myself. We had considered a game of KOW...but I'd been mulling over something else for a while, and was keen to try it out.
 "Ok, Name the time and place" they said,
"Alright," I said, " 1879...Rorkes Drift."

So I gathered the Zulus (123 rather than "Faasands"), and mustered the Redcoats (80th Foot rather than 24th!), and worked out some rules.  Not from scratch I must add- I've been quite fancying the old Lord of the Rings Ruleset for skirmish games, so I just had to work out appropriate profiles for the various figures. In hindsight I'd modify them, this was very much a test game!
Scenery was whatever I could find that would do at a pinch! Two buildings from my napoleonic collection, some stone walls, bits of lichen, the redoubt of a bunch of gabions on a couple of box lids was the best I could do...

The Zulus:
120+ Warriors, armed with a variety of spears and firearms. For the first half the game casualties were recycled.
a Shaman ( didnt actually make it on to the table because I forgot to put him in the box of zulu reserves  after explaining all the rules)
A runner. To carry messages...
A Prince on a horse, with a proper rifle.
The runner could provide any warrior in the vicinity with a Might point to spend on heroic actions, The shaman came loaded with Fate (presumably he would already know that he was going to survive) and a bit of Might, and the Prince got a good rifle and the skills to use it ., with a couple of points of Fate and Might

The British:
14 Riflemen with rifles and bayonets
2 Sergeants.  ditto
1 Bugler...with a bugle.
1 Officer. with revolver and a stiff upper lip.
Sergeants got a Might point each, the bugler generated a Might point for any nearby officer/sergeant, the officer got two Might points, and a fate point. British Casualties would be placed in the storehouse/church where they would roll each turn - on a 1 they expired, 2-5 they were still recuperating, 6- Reynolds has patched them up and sent them back into the fight!

The first wave of Zulus came on in the SW corner of the field. Subsequent waves would come on from the west, then the north west and north of the position.

Chris took command of the Zulus, with the objective of destroying the British by Ten pm. Rick took command of the British. I umpired, until Rick had to leave at 9, then took over his command.  If there was anything left...

Zulus, approaching from the South West,  thousands of them.

The men on the South wall give the approaching Zulus a volley,
and set the standard for the days shooting, by missing with every shot.

"We're next boys, this is the blind spot!"  The Zulus head for western end of the
 position, where the ineffective British fire struggles to reach them. 

As the British fall back across the front of the Hospital
 the Zulus lap around to the South wall again

Eager to reach the redcoats the Zulus swarm over the roof of the Hospital which promptly collapses
 under the weight of so many pounding feet (seriously Chris, next time, go round!)  , several Zulus are put out
of action by the fall! 

The platoon on the southern wall hold back the first wave.

Covering fire from the Redoubt thins the horde a little.

Heeding the bugles call The garrison fall back on the next line of defence. Some good bayonet work puts off
their pursuers. Zulus take up position on the abandoned walls and give fire...

Zulus throw themselves at the North Wall.

The north west corner of the position now sees the fiercest fighting...

...as more Zulus close in from all sides!

Wary of being outflanked and unable to man the whole perimeter the British fall back on the redoubt and fire yet another ineffectual volley!

The Zulus swarm over the abandoned barricades, and there's more still coming...

Cornered, the British drive the Zulus back with cold steel and fire again, with no effect. 

"FIRE!"

The Zulus, encouraged by the lack of effect of the Redcoats puny weapons and storm the redoubt!
But this last effort takes its toll, exhausted, and with the few remaining British falling back on the Storehouse, they quit the field! 

 A cracking game full of drama and tension and desperate heroism!

It went badly from the British from the off, whole turns went by without a Zulu casualty! Musketry was ineffective despite needing only 3's to hit, and the Redcoats couldnt win a melee roll off to save their lives. Only the barricades saved them from being overrun almost immediately, but even their good fortune there vanished half way into the game and the Redcoats dropped like flies. Most of the Garrison was being cared for by Reynolds in the Storehouse, with 4 dead out right. Barely 30 Zulus fell in total, which was why they stopped getting recycled- there wasn't any point!  Chris could have done as well with half the numbers he had. And another turn or two and he'd have had it in the bag.

I'd like to play this again but with a single modification- The redoubt needs to be harder to get into, due to its height: we just used the same rules as for the walls which had proved quite tough, but the redoubt fell quicker than it aught.  I have not decided on a solution though.

Stats for the troops I would do as follows- these have been modified a little as a result of the battle.

Zulus-
Prince        F4/3+   S4   D3  A2   W2   C6   Fate 2,  Might 1.
Shaman     F3         S3   D3  A1   W2   C5   Fate 2 . Any Zulu within 6" auto passes courage tests
Warrior     F4/5+    S3   D3  A1   W1   C4
Runner      F3         S3   D3  A1   W1   C3   Generates 1 Might per turn which a warrior within 2" may use for a heroic action
All Warriors armed with either throwing spears (range 8", S2, no move penalty), primitive musket (range 18" S3, full move penalty), Hide Shield (may use a 2nd Fight dice but if wins cannot strike a blow, doesnt increase D.)  Prince carries Breach loading Rifle (Range 30" S4, half move penalty) and rides a horse.

N.B I would have included more heroes for the Zulus but lacked any figures that stood out of the crowd.

British-
Officer      F4/3+   S3   D3  A2   W2   C6    Fate 1  Might 2
Sergeant    F4/3+   S4   D3  A1   W1   C5    Might 1
Private      F4/3+   S3   D3  A1   W1   C4  
Bugler      F4/3+   S3   D3  A1   W1   C4     Generates 1 Might point per turn which any officer  or Sergeant within 2" may use for a Heroic Action

Officer armed with revolver (Range 8", S3, no move penalty) , all others are armed with Breach Loading Rifle (range 30", S4, Half move penalty) and Bayonet (Fights as if spear armed i.e can fight through a friend in base contact) . All British Soldiers auto pass a courage test if there is a friend with 2".


There, that should do.

The Unending Swarm

Commander Peribon Krate leaned against the walls of the ruined building, and looked across the valley floor- behind him he could hear a litany of grumbles and curses as Number Three section worked their way through the ruins. The rest of the Grenadiers were strung out across the valley, advancing carefully across the remains of an ancient city. They weren't far from the gleaming dome of Outpost 219 now; it towered over the ruins, but Krate wasn't taking any chances- the last known communication from the Outpost had been abruptly cut short, and he didn't want to lead the Trevuntular Grenadiers into a trap. 

The comm-link in his ear crackled- "Arklay here, something moving out there. 1500 meters and closing, moving fast, over."

"Roger that, Sergeant. Grenadiers; hold your positions and take cover, contact imminent."  Krate turned to the Comms Operator, "Get on the line to Brigade, tell them we've found the scum!"

Been a while...Rick decided he wanted to play a game of 2nd ed 40k with his Tyranids. As we both had a day off work he came round and I set up a table, and dug out the Grenadiers. He insisted on playing the Tyranid Attack mission, which allows him to recycle all his figures, but requires him to wipe my forces out; a single Grenadier still standing at the end wins me the game! We played 1000 points aside.

The Trevuntular Grenadiers
Commander Peribon Krate, with laspistol, powersword and stasis grenade
HQ with banner and grenade launcher
3 infantry sections with an array of plasma guns, lascannons, heavy bolter and flamer.
Missile launcher squad split into 3 PIAT teams.
Wolverine MBT, with battlecannon, heavy bolter, and heavy stubber.
Wolfhound armoured car with autocannon and heavy stubber

Myself and the Grenadiers.

 The Swarm
Hive Tyrant with whip and venom cannon
Carnifex
3 termagant broods
2 hormagant broods
1 warrior brood
1 spore mine launcher thing with 4 mines.

Rick and the Gribbly Horde

The Grenadiers deploy for battle

The Grenadiers right flank

The Tyranid menace advances 

1st shot of the game comes from the Hive Tyrants Venom cannon,
which penetrates the Wolverine MBT and destroys it!

The steady volleys of the Grenadiers completely fail to slow the Tyranid advance.

The Wolfhound armoured car attracts the attention of the Hive Tyrant but is unharmed

The PIAT team are roughed up by the Hormagants, but
Peribon Krate is on hand to to turn the tide!

Number Three Section's flamer thins the horde slightly...

In the centre Number One Section takes the fight to the enemy,
their surprise assault destroying a Termagant Brood... 

...pity about the Carnifex really.

The Grenadiers around the ruins give it their best shot, mowing down
the smaller 'nids, but a few strays make it into melee.

The carnifex proves imperious to bayonets.

The Wolfhound charges around the enemy flank, only suffering minor inconvenience from a gribbly thing
that had snuck into the vehicle, and start giving the 'nid horde the benefit of their three sustained fire dice!

The next wave gets closer, and there's barely a Grenadier to stand against them now!

The defence of the ruins gives way as the 'gaunts close in.

The last few Grenadiers on the right go down fighting with their backs to the wall!

The wolfhound is opened up by the next wave of warriors. I didn't know
they could be recycled too!

So many 'nids, so few guns left to stop them!

The Tyranids move to finish off the last of the Grenadiers...

...but Peribon Krate, and two of his men, remain standing!

 Peribon Krate rammed his laspistol into the maw of the obscene creature and held down the trigger till its head was nothing but mist, he turned and brought his sword round in an arc that bit deep into the head of another alien abomonation , the Grenadier next to him exploded in a mass of writhing tentacles, and he snapped off a few shots at the 'nids swarming along the side of the building. At his feet the abandoned comms unit was chattering to itself; he grabbed the headset and pressed it to his ear "...age repeats, this is Nightreaper, mark your positions with orange smoke..." He dropped the headset and yelled the instructions into the grenadiers comm-net, diving for cover, his men at his heels. The orange smoke was already billowing above his head as his ears were filled with the roar of jet engines, and his nose was filled with the smell of napalm...

Great game, with some heroics and desperate fighting from the Grenadiers who proved themselves able to halt the unending swarm! 

You might have noticed an unusual vehicle in the pictures above- here it is again:

The Wolfhound Armoured Car- a repainted eaglemoss 1/43 model
of a French WW2 Panhard armoured car, with bigger guns and stowage added.

And it was only the start of a day of gaming- we had a go at Eight Minute Empire, a nice little game which Rick won. And then it was off to the gaming club to play Xwing for the evening, picking up a Y-Wing from the model shop on the way! Two games resulted in victories over Chris and his Imperial lackeys - that Y-Wing turned out to be a great buy with its Ion Turret forcing the TIE fighters and Interceptors to fly in very short straight lines whilst the X-wing and Headhunter lined up the killing shots! Also it proved impossible to kill- even with multiple enemies targeting it they still struggled to remove its shields!

Anyway, I've done a fair bit of painting this last few months. Ill try and get pics on here soon!

Thats all folks!

Daleks and Daemons

Hello!

Last night I went down to the local club to play Chris at a spot of 40k. On a whim I decided to take a slightly different force to usual- I recalled my Daleks hadn't been out for a while, and so, digging out the necron army list, I put together a little 1100 point force-
A Dalek Supreme, 4 teams of 5 Daleks, and 4 drones (scarabs).
Chris decided to throw a slight curve ball with an Daemon world force- A Daemon Prince special Character (430 points of monster that I didn't have a weapon strong enough to hurt!) and a collection of beastmen, minotaurs, and frenzied chaos warriors.

With one side screaming EXTERMINATE! and the other bellowing BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! in an attempt to cause severe hearing loss on all sides we were expecting absolute carnage!  And, boy, were we to be disappointed...

When this veritable horde bounced off the startline and screamed towards my daleks I was a little worried- With no vehicles and shooting on his side he had no reason to hang back, and my Drones were useless. My opening volleys did precisely nothing. This didn't look good.

In a bid to slow the advance the Drones went forward to stop march moves, the daleks backing off to get some space. The Daemon Prince charged the nearest Daleks, and the rest of the army charged the Drones, eager to clear these annoyances away.

It was then that we discovered something weird. The Drones (or scarabs) are T8. With nothing higher than S4 he couldn't touch them. Almost the entire chaos army was tied up in combats they simply couldn't win...A few minotaurs dashed forward to break the Dalek line, but they went down quickly to cries of EXTERMINATE! The Daemon Prince found its own opponents were less than obliging. Refusing to engage him in honourable combat it was forced to fight them one at a time- though the outcome was inevitable it took one of the most powerful creatures in the 41st Millenium the whole game to knock down 5 Daleks, and even then he only killed two of them!

The Dalek Supreme led the rest of the Daleks towards the enemy deployment zone ( I had the dawn raid mission ), taking pot shots as they went, though most of their efforts bounced off the invulnerable Drones! Eventually, Chris tried some desperate tactics to rectify the situation- he decided to disengage from the the three drones he had rashly charged- he managed to do this without loss, but all three units were fleeing, The drones charged the routing units and they headed for the hills, but managed to rally to a man on the table edge! The drones charged again, and this time the Khornate loonies stood, having found that being in melee with shots bouncing off the drones was fare safer than letting the Daleks use them for target practice.

Thus the game ended, with minimal casualties, some very bored looking Daleks and ridiculous combats in which the two sides were so hopelessly mismatched there was no chance of either side actually winning!  In light of this The Dalek Emperor and Khorne have both decreed their respective taglines must change to WOULD-YOU-LIKE-A-CUDDLE? and HUGS-FOR-THE-HUGS-GOD! Bloody pathetic 'aint it?

Push and go Panzer IV platoon

A few years ago I found a push and go panzer IV in a gift shop on a caravan park.  It came in a box with a bunch of Abrams...  The Panzer IV at least looked like it might be close to 1/56 scale. So, as it was only £3.50 I bought one. And it was.  

Earlier this year, at a different caravan park, I was able to pick up two more.

I removed the motors, and wheels. and the strange lugs under the turret- as bought the turret didnt turn, it merely wiggled from side to side as it moved. The top deck was rebuilt, with a central hole, and a new lug on the turret for a proper pivot.

They are not the most detailed models ever, the detail being a little soft, but its good enough that its clearly and unmistakably a panzer IV.

The camo scheme is taken from an image of a tank right at the end of the war. Im guessing here but I suspect that by this point the paint available to the jerries was little more than coloured water, as it looked very thin and hastily washed on. I quite liked the effect and watered down my paint to try and mimic it.

All in all , not bad for a little over a tenner for 3 tanks!

Of Wizards Towers and Kings of War...

Hello again, and welcome to another installment of me building, painting and playing with toy soldiers.

Since my last post the action has been all Kings of War. With the death of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the question went around the group "What will our orcs do now!?" We had hardly played the last couple of editions of WHFB- they were fairly dire and the constant codex creep and having to keep up with the Jones' was a pain in the bum, and hadn't played Fantasy at all for ages for this reason. There were better games to be playing, but the fantasy itch was always there at the back of our collective minds waiting, biding its time.

And its time has come! We'd discussed a few possibilities. Modding Hail Caeser, renovating an older edition of WHFB etc. But little agreement in how to go about it. And then Warhammer was killed off...and Mantic announced Kings of War 2nd ed would be released soon. We had a look. We liked what we saw. And we dusted off the old fantasy figures and sat back for 2nd edition to hit. I pre-ordered the gamers edition almost immediately, and to get us going we downloaded the various Beta and Free versions of the lists and tried a few kick abouts.

What we have found is a game with a deceptively simple system, the rules are clear and concise, and don't try to be to detailed (which is unnecessary anyway when your dealing with armies with a couple of hundred figures!). We learnt to play within the first couple of turns of a 90 minute game. It doesn't take much longer to get a handle on the various special rules and unit profiles in play. The tactics are a little trickier!  And it is tactical- its a game that rewards attempting to out deploy and outmaneuver your opponent. There are gimmicks like magic swords and spells and monsters and warmachines that you can use to try and "herohammer" your way to victory, but the benefits gained for outflanking your enemy or getting behind him outweigh these by miles! Attacking in the flank doubles your attacks, in the rear it triples them. A good magic artefact might do nothing more than give you a slight advantage over an otherwise equal enemy unit. Outmaneuver your enemy and even fairly modest units can inflict a lot of damage!

Like Hail Caeser the game has fixed unit sizes and worries more about the overall footprint of a unit rather than individual models. Much better suited to a mass battle game. But dont get too hung up on your troops not being on exactly the right size base, we havn't gone and rebased all our figures and it doesn't appear to matter in the slightest.

It is proving a popular game in these parts and folk are flocking to the banners! So far my various fantasy armies have fought all manner of deamonic forces, Ogres and Samurai and I'm looking forward to many more games of this soon! And maybe a campaign...

In other news I've been building some scenery.

May I present a a wizards tower built specially for my Necromancer, Sirius Dictian.  The Core of the tower is simply a Pringles can with polystyrene built around its base. The stonework is milliput- each stone formed individually. Wood work is matchsticks, Window and door frames are built up with plasticard and then the stonework milliputted on. The Roof is a card cone, with lots of little bits of roughly shaped card glued on in rows. The whole thing took about 2 weeks.

Unfortunatly this last few months has seen a lot less painting than normal. A few extra elves were painted, Work has begun on what might eventually be a war elephant.  A tank arrived in the post- something called a bronekorpus tank, from a Russian company, only £3.50ish, and not bad for the price, It comes with a lot of bits so you can pick and choose from a variety of weapons. and assamble them in a variety of ways. Mine got the same colour scheme as the Cataphracts, as seen in their recent battle against necrons. It will count as a Predator, though with a different weapons fit- a Conversion Beamer and a Missile Launcher. I'm not entirely happy with the paintwork- something weird happened when I varnished it and a lot of the paint bubbled up. No matter, it was cheap and cheerful and it will go well with the Cataphracts.

Also on the painting table- an array of odds and ends mostly- a couple of beastmen, a pair of riflemen (thanks Rick!) a handful of Romano-British horsemen, and a few stray medieval chaps. Also some tanks. I picked up a couple of the new zvezda models- the Grant and the Stuart. And very nice they are too. The Grants went together a bit easier than the Stuarts but a bit of pushing and trimming and they went together ok. They are quite a lot smaller than my battlefront Grants and Stuarts, so they wont be joining those companies but may be the beginning of new forces. Did you know in FOW midwar that you can fit two British armoured Squadrons of 16 Honey Stuarts each into a 1500 point force? Thats 32 fast tanks.  Food for thought perhaps...

. 

On a recent trip to South Wales I picked up a pair of 1/56th Panzer IV's. I'd already got one of these models from a caravan site in Yorkshire, and was pleased to find another two to go with it. They were a mere £3.50 each, and it was the work of moments to remove the push and go mechanism, and rebuild the turret ring so the turret rotates properly. Once I'd done that with the new pair I went back and did it with the original one too, (I'd previously only glued it in place!). Now all three are undercoated and on the painting table awaiting a suitable latewar paint job. I don't do a lot of 28mm wargaming for ww2 these days but I'm sure I'll find a use for them, and you can't really say no to a 1/56 scale panzer platoon for around a tenner can you?