Sunday 30 December 2012

Urban War - VASA Finished

I was going to try and title with another of my cunning puns, but in the end thought this deserved an obvious one.

Neura and Archangel Sergeant

It's been pretty quiet posting wise on the blog. A combination of Christmas preparations, the usual rush at work to get things finished before the turn of the year and finally I was trying to finish off the last of my Urban War VASA before the self imposed deadline of 2013.

Suppressors with batons & Gauss rifles, Grenade launchers
and Snipers.

So 10 Suppressor types, an Archangel Sergeant, Commander Neura and a Pacifier Clau later here we are, all done. This force hasn't had any rhyme nor reason to its composition. It's been made up entirely from a starter box and whatever came in a Ebay job lot.
Pacifier CLAU

The final VASA pool is:

  • Core Suppressors (4 baton, 10 Gauss rifle) and one Sergeant
  • 4 Grenade Launchers
  • 4 Snipers
  • 6 Archangels and one Archangel Sergeant)
  • 2 Black Legion
  • Commander Konrad
  • Commander Neura
  • Commander Kali
  • Pacifier Clau
This should be enough for varied Strike Team Actions games and also the odd STA:Clau games.

It's always nice to finish a project/army, but it wouldn't be finished without the family group photo...






Monday 10 December 2012

SoBH Campaign 3 - Battle 5

Battlefield: Echo Pass Mountains
Weather: Snow
Scenario: Avalanche
Defender: Barbarians.

Forces:
New additions marked in purple italics

Dwarves (397 pts):
  • Valgen Maest: DWARF COMMANDER 95 Pts, XP: 1/4
    Free Disengage. [Brain Damaged:Savage for battle]
  • Falster Vonlyr: ELITE WARRIOR 52 Pts, XP: 1/4
    Free Disengage 
  • Halgar Snowbeard: WARRIOR 42 Pts, XP: 1/4
    Opportunistic
  • Manon Hardfoot: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 0
    Quality 3+ Combat 4, Short Move
  • Rod Grimiron: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 1/4
    C4
  • Hono Pickbattler: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 0/3
    C4
  • Cerri Crakshot: CROSSBOWMAN 24 Pts, XP: 2
  • Slii Shadesmith: THIEF 30 Pts, XP: 1
  • Boindel Beaststrider: BEAR CAVALRY 52 Pts, XP: 2
Barbarians (321 pts):
  • Ardaric Blackmaul: BARBARIAN COMMANDER 72 Pts, XP: 1/4
  • Ooko: ELEMENTALIST 34 Pts (+ 75 Pts Summoning pool), XP: 1/4
    Item: Healing Potion
  • Erwig Bonetooth: ARCHER 56 Pts, XP: 1/4
  • Rodulf Wolfhowl: WARRIOR 42 Pts, XP: 1/4
  • Remos Arcfur: WARRIOR 42 Pts, XP: 0/3
    Steadfast

Setup:

The Avalanche moves a random distance at the end of the second players turn (coming in from the east). The games ends when it reaches Long of the opposite side of the table. To complicate matters the ground is covered in snow, reducing everyone's movement by one category. Predictably both warbands set up close to the Western side of the table.


The first 3 turns saw the dwarves advance in a strong line along the narrow "safe" corridor.


The Barbarians did likewise, with Ooko summoning Elementals to hopefully form some sort of front line, the warband having not been able to replace casualties from the last couple of battles.


But the avalanche was moving in - 2 long and a medium in the first 3 rounds.


The battle lines were being drawn. A tough line of dwarven warriors moved forward as one whilst the bear cavalry used it's better speed to hopefully distract the barbarians. They now had a front line of two fire elementals, with humans up in support.


With the distances between the forces still too great, Biondel decided to bring his bear back towards the main group. Just in time as well, as the Avalanche suddenly surged forward 2 long, completely covering his old position.



With the crushing force of snow rapidly approaching there wasn't much time to engage the enemy. Erwin moved forward and loosed an arrow at Snowbeard, who was knocked down onto the snowy surface. The fire elementals also moved forward and spat fireballs at the dwarven line, knocking back two of them.

Rod Grimiron then stepped forward and attacked, but was knocked back and Cerri fired his crossbow but missed. Falster decided enough was enough and left the field of battle.

The avalanche then moved in again close enough to the edge to force the battles end.

Battle Outcome: There were no kills, but 1 VP per 20 points of models still on the board were awarded: Barbarian Win (19VP to 14VP)

Saturday 8 December 2012

Urban Bollards

Better late than never.
Another educational game of Urban war was had at the weekend. Still 3-way but this time there was a focus objective of a piece of terrain (some tank traps mid table). Due to some unfortunate delays I had to come in after turn 3. I thought this may leave me in a meat-grinder situation, but in fact left me with a numerical advantage as the others had set up and started posturing towards each other.



It was the first game that Close Combat had properly reared it's head. Once we'd sorted the modifiers and confused ourselves with rolling targets we wondered while this was the first time that we hadn't just used the table reference like all the other actions.

Is there someone on the roof?

Neura turns back time and pins the Syntha into cover
with a deadly hail of sniper fire.
One of the learning objectives was also to have some non-zero Cal figures and seeing what impact that would have. Afterwards we discovered that we were all fielding illegal forces with regards to the "Cal pyramid" force construction model - nevermind we'll know next time. Also we didn't notice Ian was stuck in version 1 mode and had Neura blasting away Syntha every turn with her extra Cal actions instead of using them ONCE per game.

Vasa close into the objective under fire from the
Syntha chaingun.
On the positive, the fact we are noticing the rule mistakes probably means we are becoming more comfortable with the rules now. We've enjoyed every game so far anyway, which at the end of the day is the main objective.

Saturday 1 December 2012

SoBH Campaign 3 - Battle 4

Battlefield: The Grand Library
Weather: Heavy Rain
Scenario: Raiding The Library
Defender: Dwarves.

Forces:
New additions marked in purple italics

Dwarves (363 pts):
  • Valgen Maest: DWARF COMMANDER 95 Pts, XP: 3
    Brain Damaged: Q+1 for battle
  • Falster Vonlyr: ELITE WARRIOR 46 Pts, XP: 3
  • Tungdil Sunbeard: ELITE WARRIOR 40 Pts, XP: 1
  • Halgar Snowbeard: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 3
  • Rod Grimiron: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP: 3
  • Hono Pickbattler: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP:2
  • Cerri Crakshot: CROSSBOWMAN 24 Pts, XP: 3
  • Slii Shadesmith: THIEF 24 Pts, XP: 2
  • Boindel Beaststrider: BEAR CAVALRY 52 Pts, XP: 1
Barbarians (366 pts):
  • Ardaric Blackmaul: BARBARIAN COMMANDER 66 Pts, XP: 0/3
    Steadfast
  • Ooko: ELEMENTALIST 34 Pts (+ 75 Pts Summoning pool), XP: 0/3
    Item: Healing Potion
  • Erwig Bonetooth: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 0/3
    Forester
  • Totila Roastlaw: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 0/3
    Forester
  • Rodulf Wolfhowl: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 0/3
    Steadfast
  • Remos Arcfur: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 2
    Moderate Injury: Q+1 for battle

Setup:


The table is set up with mostly open ground with the Great Library in the centre, entrances in the East and West walls, with the warbands deploying along the North and South table edges. There were a number of expensive magical tomes still inside the library, and the warbands would be rewarded hansomely for any they took off their starting edge. The victory conditions were VPs for kills, not for books.


The two warbands set up and headed for opposite ends of the library (with the Bear cavalry looking to harass the foe)
The slippery conditions were making goings underfoot treacherous though with numerous slips (on a rolled "1")

The barbarians managed to rush inside first, even with some slipping in their hurry to get through the door, and immediately went looking for books.


Once inside the humans were able to take advantage of the dwarves slower progress and penetrate into the library, some taking up books whilst the archers pushed forward to lie in wait for the dwarves.


Ramos and Rodulf had picked up a couple of books and moved to guard the southern passageways.


Meanwhile though the dwarven force had started to enter en-mass (even if Falster did slightly lose a bit of dignity on the slippery flagstones).


The barbarian archers, Erwin and Totila took up position to get a jump on any dwarves looking to come into the library.


The remaining dwarves tried to gather round the library door to guard the exit. The force indoors burst through the doors, Tungdil leading two other warriors towards the archers, whilst Valgen and retinue headed towards a bookcase on the southern wall.

Totila was ready for the dwarven charge and fired at Tungdil.

The Elite Warrior hit the ground, dead.


But with numerical superiority the Dwarven warriors rushed in from all sides. The long range of the archers being hampered by the building walls meant that they couldn't manoeuver away from the threat. Snowbeard rushed into Erwin, but was too hasty and was knocked to the ground.


The humans countered. Despite the attentions of a young beardling Erwig finished off Snowbeard. Totila faired less well, finding himself at the feet of his young foe.

Totila was finished off, whilst Erwig could only fall under the power of his other attacker.


Suddenly it became apparent that time was almost up, and no-one had started to head home with their books. Valgen tried to hot foot it home, whilst the humans did likewise at the other end of the library.

Erwig managed to stand up, battle off his assailant and move away from the approaching youngster, his axe still wet.

This was the last action of the game, with no time left for any escape with tomes.

Battle Outcome:

  • Dwarf Kills: 50pts = 2VP
  • Barbarian Kills: 74pts = 3VP
  • BARBARIAN WIN

Thursday 29 November 2012

More Barbarians & Elementals

Managed finally to get some re-enforcements done for my Barbarian Warband. "Fortunately" my campaign warband have been earning so little money for replacements that I had more painting time than expected.


Figures 1,3 and 5 are old Grenadier sculpts (from EM4 in this case) and 2 and 4 are Hasslefree figures "Conran" and "Wolf" respectively.

And also a couple of Wind Elementals:


The right hand one is an old Citadel Elemental whilst the one on the left is a vintage 1979 Ral Partha figure. They have a slight blue wash to them that the camera (or probably more precisely my camera skills) hasn't picked up.



Friday 23 November 2012

Urban Education

My learning curve at Urban war continues to progress, with the help of two players at my local club (Bill and Ian). After our quick introduction a couple of weeks earlier they had continued to play the following week and we joined up again for another run through. Despite being "a week behind" the experiences and rule book thumbing the previous week were passed on to me. We also ramped up the game a bit to around 250pts and upped the CAL of some of the figures to see what effect the larger game and the extra CAL boosts had.

Play was still slowed but fun. As a pitched battle between 3 forces (Bill - Syntha, Ian - VASA, myself - VASA) we all ended up fighting on two fronts.

Starting force positions. Syntha top left, Ian's VASA top right and my VASA bottom middle (jump troops on roof and Suppressors hiding in the building bottom left to avoid the gravbike!)

Ian tried to push his VASA across the ruined square to take on the Syntha. Lessons we learned: You can die on turn 1, and remember to hide on the furthest side of the wall from you enemy.

With Ian being pinned down by the Syntha in cover, Bill pushes his biomechs with supporting gravbike) towards the slowly advancing Suppressors. Lessons learned: When a group hide in a crowded derelict building watch for shots coming through the door (Biomech firing through 2 doorways nearly caught out a suppressor!)

My jump troops advance up the right flank towards Ian's sniper post. Lessons learned: Being on a roof doesn't necessarily give you LOS all round the building.

After his initial failed push towards the Syntha Ian regrouped with Neura eagerly waiting in overwatch from a window. Lessons learned: A good cal sniper in a good covered vantage point can be deadly, as Bill found out as Neura took out a couple of his Syntha that were heading towards my forces.

Jump troop rooftop assault. Lessons learned: Archangels can be powerful when the suddenly pop up short range, and if expecting an imminent assault it maybe better to be on overwatch and at least get a shot in.

Time ran out due to book flicking and rule discussion. Ian took most losses (we maybe missed a 50% force morale check somewhere) but the last turn was very experimental with forces being pushed into combat to see what they could do and high cal figures rushing around to see how effective using the cal extra actions was (very as it turned out!).

We look forward to the next game, and maybe even a scenario...

Saturday 17 November 2012

SoBH Campaign 3 - Battle 3

Battlefield: Twisted Bow Forrest
Weather:
Scenario: Tainted Copse
Defender: Dwarve

Forces:
New additions marked in purple italics

Dwarves (363 pts):
  • Valgen Maest: DWARF COMMANDER 95 Pts, XP: 2
  • Falster Vonlyr: ELITE WARRIOR 46 Pts, XP: 2
  • Tungdil Sunbeard: ELITE WARRIOR 40 Pts, XP: 0, Quality 3+ Combat 4Short Move, Fearless
  • Halgar Snowbeard: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 2
  • Rod Grimiron: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP: 2
  • Hono Pickbattler: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP:1
  • Cerri Crakshot: CROSSBOWMAN 24 Pts, XP: 2
  • Slii Shadesmith: THIEF 24 Pts, XP: 1
  • Boindel Beaststrider: BEAR CAVALRY 52 Pts, XP: 0 , Quality 3+ Combat 4Normal Move, Mounted
Barbarians (366 pts):
  • Ardaric Blackmaul: BARBARIAN COMMANDER 66 Pts, XP: 2
  • Ooko: ELEMENTALIST 34 Pts (+ 50 Pts Summoning pool), XP: 2
    Item: Healing Potion
  • Erwig Bonetooth: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 2
  • Totila Roastlaw: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 2
  • Rodulf Wolfhowl: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 2
  • Remos Arcfur: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 1
  • Wolfan Silentfoot: SCOUT 44 Pts, XP: 0, Quality 3+ Combat 3
    Stealth, Shooter (Medium)

Setup:

Both warbands started by heading up the table. Quickly the effect of the shifting forest could be seen.
Valgen and his retinue were propelled halfway up the battle ground towards their objective.
The dwarves tried to regroup, with Valgen et al decamping from their "transport".
The Barbarians were now caught in two minds about what to do. With the dwarven force suddenly so far up the table do they go and stop them or try and rush up the ground? Ardaric decided to send in a Fire Elemental and scout to block any quick passage and skirt round the swamp away from his foes. Unfortunately the forest section they found themselves in rotated and they found themselves closer to their own starting postions again!
The Dwarves headed up the table. Snowbeard found himself out on a limb as the forest section drifted back towards his own starting direction.
A mistake in placement left the new barbarian scout exposed, and the bear cavalry rushed into contact.
The woods drifted again, over the floundering humans...
Before the copse Ardaric & co was in swapped up the other end of the table, right on top of one of their foe.
Meanwhile the action was starting to get tasty. Wolfan the scout had decided that the best form of defence was attack. Unfortunately this left him on the ground, with bear fangs drooled over him. Valgen and Falster had decided that there was some fire needing extinguished.
Unfathomed by his sudden predicament, the young dwarf went on the attack and took down Remos.
Meanwhile, Snowbeard suddenly found himself flanked as another forest movement took a twist,
The end finally came for Wolfan to the bear. His first action was to be his last.
But the Dwarves battle against the fire elementals was going less well. Falster was knocked back, and Valgen's attack left him on his back, looking up into a fiery maw.
To save Ardaric the difficult choice of fighting an equal foe, the woods drifted away.
Valgen, once down, got burned and out.
A quick forest move suddenly brought Snowbeard and his left flank battle into the centre of the table, giving him possible help against the barbarians.

But the Dwarves decided, with no time and no chance of exiting the forest, to group together - safety in numbers and the fighting was over.

Battle Outcome: 4 VP each and no exits, so a DRAW!