Club Night 17th July

Just a Brief post, and I forgot to take any snaps. Played a Flames of War with Rick, Mike and Colin. I took the German Panzergrenadiers with Rick against the Americans under Mike and Colin.

We played the meeting engagement scenario and this made an immense difference in how the game played. it flowed more like World War 2, looked better and opened up a whole new set of tactical challenges. This has always been my concern up until now, that although the rules are easy and fun, they don't feel right, but playing this scenario has overcome this and I look forward to trying some more scenarios.

The Americans took the first turn and advanced their light tanks across the table, while their infantry occupied the farm to their front. The Germans emerged from behind the ridge and opened fire on the infantry and artillery, pinning the infantry and killing the platoon commander.

The Stuarts continued their advance while the artillery and leaderless infantry platoon put ineffective fore into the German half-tracks and tanks. With the Stuarts now on the objective the Germans Panzers were forced to turned right and engage them, destroying them easily with their powerful guns. meanwhile the Panzergrenadiers stayed in the half-tracks and drove straight into the farm and forced the Americans back.

The American armour arrived and with the artillery firing directly opened up on the exposed flanks of the German Armour, while their 2iC restored command to the infantry. But the Germans responded again, turning their tanks back around and engaging and destroying a pair of Shermans, and the infantry pressed forward out of the farm and rove back and dispersed the American infantry.

Although the second unit of Shermans arrived and inflicted a fearful toll on the exposed Panzergrenadiers and their half tracks, the immense casualties where too much for the Americans and the company withdrew, leaving the battlefield in German hands.

Mike's Place

As I had a week off work I took the opportunity to have a relaxing few days up in Derbyshire with Mike Blake from the Skirmish Wargamers.

On Monday after I arrived Mike helped me convert some command groups for my ongoing Saratoga project in 54mm, using primarily Armies in Plastic (AIP) figures.

On Tuesday we headed to Leeds and the Royal Armouries for some historical sight seeing. Rather than post all the pictures here, I have uploaded them to Flickr and they can be seen here.

On Wednesday, after a trip to Caliver books where I picked up my own copy of the Impetus rules, we spent the rest of the day modelling. Initially Mike finished off the green stuff wings and backpacks for my British Grenadiers, while I did the Bases for the Al Andalusia figures he has been doing and are on show at Devizes Show this weekend, we then swapped roles and I started paining some of my British and Mike finished off the Moors.

Another lovely , relaxing break in the Derbyshire Dales. Now back to normality!

Club Night 10th July

A little delay in updating as I have been away and not been able to. I'm going to add my last week as separate blog entries so they are a bit more manageable. We'll start with last weeks Napoleons Battles game.

This game was a bit over subscribed, so I took the Russian Cavalry and worked my way round to the French left, linked up with Bob and Scott's Corp and then failed my two very late charges.

Overall though a good game that resulted in Victory for the Russians as we had taken the bridge behind the village and cut off one of the French Corps.

Club Night 3rd July

Friday saw me playing another 40k, this time pitting my Eldar against Rick and Mike with a force of Imperial Guard.

With a Dawn of War deployment rolled, I placed a Storm Guardian squad and an Dire Avenger unit supported by a Farseer. Against this I found myself facing Commissar Yarrick, a veteran section in a Chimera and a platoon consisting of 5 squads and 3 heavy weapon squads. Already very out gunned!

Taking the first turn I immediately attempted to take the fight to the guard by running most of force on to the board and closing the range, relying on the cover of night to protect me. In response the Guard reinforced their positions with a Basilisk, Manticore and Leman Russ tank squadron. As my Scorpions infiltrated in to one flank, and the Jetbikes tried to gun down the heavy weapon squads on the other flank, my Wraithguard and Wraithlord fearlessly advanced toward the guns of the Imperial tanks.

But everything was going according to plan, assisted by lucky dice rolling, and the most appalling luck for my opponents I turned the flanks, used deep striking Warp Spiders with their S6 weaponry to fire into the flanks of the support vehicles and assaulted the command squad with my Storm Guardian squad, enhanced by a Warlock at the earliest opportunity to deny the enemy their orders.

A retaliatory deep strike by Imperial Storm troopers destroyed my Fire Dragons and my most potent anti tank weaponry, they paid dearly as the Avatar avenged the Aspect Warriors. However by now the supporting heavy weapons teams and artillery had been destroyed or driven back, the guard where being attacked by Dark reapers and the Avatar to their front and Swooping Hawks to the rear and my opponents could still only roil buckets of misses, so we called it an evening.

Despite their despondence, I still think the Guard have the potential to be a devastating force. I personally would not have taken Yarrick, but taken a Command squad and split my platoon in two. I probably also would not have bothered with the artillery against Eldar, there is too few of them and they are too spread out to hit them regularly enough to be worth while. However they think in defences they should be safe so a planet strike beckons!

Club Night 2nd July

5 of us gathered up the club to play a multi-player 40k game. Once we had all arrived, set up a table and established who was on which side we set up. Steve and his Shadow marine and Simon and his Eldar set up first as the defenders, picking 3 objectives on the table. The other three armies arrived using the planet strike reserve rolls and needed to hold 2 out of 3 objectives at the end to claim the win.

We chose to enter the side the Eldar held objective was, with the plan to quickly seize this with Les' Orks and Mike's Chaos Marines, with the more mobile elements striking across the table to take the other building, this one held by the shadow marines. My Blood Angels embraced Chaos and joined these two armies by deep striking directly into the defensive lines around the final objective

My force had little chance of survival, especially if this highly risky manoeuvre failed, but my main role was to occupy the heavy weapons troops occupying the defences and prevent them reinforcing or supporting either of the other objectives.

And this is exactly what I did, despite losing 3 death company landing on the roof of one of the bunkers, during their second deep strike, having survived a mishap the first time, and the weight of fire from 2 Devastator squads and a tactical squad, I managed to keep them occupied, despite the intervention of some Howling Banshees for the entire game, even if I did leave a few enemy surviving within the defence line after I was finally wiped out.

Meanwhile my allies managed to make hard work of the first objective, the Khornate terminators struggling to shift the Dire Avengers, but finally broke through, leading a spectacular mechanised assault on the second objective. As the game came to a close we managed to hold two objectives, so were able to claim a hard fought victory.