Game night with Luke, 8th August

Luke popped round for an evening game and we played another Helldorado, this time with the terraforming rules for setting up the battle field. Luke set up all the terrain he could as crevasses between me and him to keep me away from him missile troops. Despite this it was not his evening, I managed to brave his fire and grab the objectives on one side, and on the other side managed to cut through the Dopplesoldiers and claim victory.

Despite this it was a fun little game, although I think I need to add to my Westerners to help Luke out.

Club Sunday 5th August

Luke and I headed up the club on a Sunday for the first time in quite a while to play the Ras-el-Madur scenario from Wargames Illustrated 263. We having been planning to run this for a while. We used the force list from the magazine, but the organisations and stats from Hellfire and back as more suitable for early war.

Luke took the defenders and I took the attackers. My initial advances went well as the defenders failed to see my troops and my pioneers cleared wire and minefields while my tanks knocked out MG pits. However as I advanced the going got tougher as I came in range of 2 and 25 pounder fire and began to lose tanks, while the artillery and small arms fire was beginning to inflict very heavy casualties on my pioneers.

However, although some reserves had arrived for the defenders, I had weathered and destroyed their ambush and the Italians has arrived. They were now moving up towards the battered defenders. The first unit tool heavy casualties and was wiped out, but not before damaging the defenders. I then launched the feared Italian tankettes (!) at the box, and got totally hung up on the wire. A second attempt was more successful and the box fell to the Italians as the tankettes occupied it followed up by their infantry.

To the left of the box the German armour was struggling on the inner minefield and covering 25 pounder, but to the right I was rolling up the MG pits and managed to destroy the 8th I needed to claim victory just as the nearly indestructible I tanks arrived (fortunately these kept breaking down keeping them away from me for as long as possible).

The Axis forces had just managed to claim victory, but it was a really tight game and great fin and proves that FoW can be used for historical scenarios as well as points battles and works just as well.

Above: Attacking the first box, below: Massed armour moves to outflank it

Above: Even of the first position is cleared there was much more to go, below: the Italians move up

Above: The last Aussies in the forward box await the next attack, Below: The last survivor is saved as the Italian tankettes get hung up on the wire

Below: The Italians take the position to claim victory

Club Night 3rd August

Mike arranged a big game of Space Hulk. I liked the idea of this, but was concerned how well it would work. We used the latest rules and tiles, but based the scenario on one from an older edition that linked a number of missions together into one massive board. In fact so massive that we had to have 'scrolling' terrain even with two copies of the box set. We have three players on each side, the Marine players having a squad each and with plenty of blips for the 'Stealers, including the options to have two brood lords!

Things started out well on my side as I combined with one of Mikes teams to advance on what appeared to be lightly held passages. However on thew other side all the enemy seemed to be attacking Steve H's Shadow Marines, and although his two assault cannons were holding them at bay, it was chewing through his ammunition. And then the inevitable happened and he ran out and then his men started to fall and had to fight to the front and rear as they tried to advance.

Then came the that moment of heroism that games like this need. The sole survivor of Steve's two squads got caught at a corner and was attacked by hordes from both directions, but kept holding them off, turning an cutting them down. Once finished he then hurried to catch up with the others.

Back on my side I was burning through Psi-Points trying to keep up a force barrier to prevent the Brood lord advancing on me as my firing was totally ineffective. I finally ran out and he advanced on me and I cut him down with surprising ease!

By now it was getting very late and the marines, although having taken casualties had advanced far enough to cut off the 'Stealer re-enforcements and they admitted defeat, not having enough blips left to counter the remaining terminator marines.

This was a great fun game and I was really pleased how well the big game worked.

Above: The marine starting posotions, below: Marines advance

Above: Blips await the Marines, Below: Steve's Shadow Marine survivor catches up with the others

Club night 27th July

I ran a couple of small (8-900 points) Flames of War games for David and Dan, two of our newer members. The first game was American Armour against German Panzers. David took the Germans and Dan the Americans. David won the roll off for table side and chose the side with the village, so stayed in good positions while the Americans tried to close to make their firing effective. Once the Americans on one flank had broken, the Germans began to advance and rolled up the surviving Yanks.

Having got the basics of moving, shooting and morale nailed down with just a few units we played a second game, this time with two infantry forces, adding artillery to the mix and objectives rather than just killing each other. Both players kept the same nation and the same table edge, but this time both had to move. On the US right the Yanks advanced on the village and got pinned down short engaging in a viscous firefight. On the other flank both sides advanced and the US artillery proved spectacularly effective, blowing great holes in the German lines. These were expanded by the following up infantry and once the Germans broke the Americans stormed forward to victory.

This was a fun couple of games that just proves that you don't have to use big armies and hopefully has got two new members more involved and keen to try some more games.

Above: US infantry line, below: German line (the big white squares are labels for terrain to help out the new players)

Massive Updates

Over the past couple of weeks I have posted a lot of updates. Most of these where half finished posts I have got round to completing, or uploading the accompanying photos. Now I am up to date again I will try to keep up to date. Hope you are all still enjoying the blog, please share your comments.

Game night with Luke, 24th July

Luke and I managed to fit in our first mid-week game for quite a while and went back to the good old Flames of War. We decided to ply mid war, and by coincidence both try out something different. I took a Compangnia Carri with some allied Panzers and Luke took an Infantry company with I tank support.We played a no retreat mission.

I decided to mass most of my forces down one flank in a single-minded drive for one objective (above), while Luke spread his force more evenly, with slightly more against my main attack, but the other side had a town to complicate matters (below)

As I launched my main attack I quickly encountered problems. We play that we roll a general terrain type up from the 2nd ed. rule book and then roll for type when contacted using the tables from Hellfire and Back. This meant I knew that there were wrecks in front of me, but it was only as I moved forward I discovered most of them were actually minefield which channelled my force even further. To make matters worse my first assault by armoured cars was driven back by defencive fire.

On the other flank I had discovered the 2pdrs in ambush and attempt to assault them but was repelled, so my armour swept to support the other flank. Here I had managed to assault again, but was again repelled except for the last platoon I could attack with, that managed to drive the Brits out of their defences.

There now started a couple of bitter turns of fighting as Luke desperately tried to hold on and prevent my victory while waiting for reserves. It was now a race for me to drive him off properly before the I-tanks arrived and stared rolling me up as I had very little that could cope with them. Fortunately I as just able to drive him off, they had arrived, but had not got near enough to be a threat. The burning wrecks surrounded the objective (below), but the Italians had captured it and won very a hard fought battle.

Club Night 20th July

I met up with Matt and Mike to try out the new 40k 6th edition. Like many gamers I get frustrated by the constant changes, but I understand the need for it as a business. They key thing however is that the rules must be a genuine improvement, and not change for changes sake. From what I had read they had taken a few elements from fantasy battle, which should be good, and tweaked the vehicles rules so hopefully we will get more bodies on the ground again.

I took a force of Eldar, with some allied Tau, to try out the allies rule and to get some more varied troops to experiment with. However my first problem was that I was facing Necrons and Orks. Now in all fairness they had told me that and I remembered as soon as they said, but I had forgotten when I picked the army and was expecting Grey Knights and some kind of Imperial allies. Never mind. Lets see how the rules work and how my mismatched army fairs.

I deployed the Tau on the flanks, fire warriors on one and sniper drones on the other, while the Falcon, dire avengers and war walkers held the centre. I then planned to advance on the flanks with Jet bikes and warp spiders on one and Jain Zar and her banshees on the other. Against this I had a mass of large war machines on one flank with some ork boyz, a mass of Necron warriors in the centre and more Orks on the other flank.

On my left flank my fire warriors deployed but were quickly overrun by the Ork mob, while the fire from their support saw off the Warp Spiders and forced the Jet bikes back and eventually destroyed them.

On the other flank the sniper drones pinned down the Orks enabling the banshees to charge them and avoid their snap fire and wipe them out.

In the centre I poured fire into the advancing hordes but seemed to be having very little affect. When the mega-armoured Nobz smashed through in their truck I knew I was in trouble as they smashed through my centre, which was also be attacked from the flank where the Tau had been overrun. However not everything went their way, although the Scarabs had taken weakened the Falcon allowing it to be taken down, they were destroyed by the Banshees sweeping in from their victorious flank. They were then all mowed down by the Necrontyr, except for Jain who single-handedly attacked, broke and wiped them out.This however was the end of the game and I had been soundly beaten, A combination of spreading too thin, some poor dice rolling and really the wrong tools for the job. Having said that, the Banshees were my best unit by far and would probably have been the last unit I would have picked if I had remembered who my opponents were!

The rules seemed good. I think I need to get my own set, although hopefully for less than the £45RRP and have a good read of them and then play some more games.