"Bows and Arrows against the Lightning" - Part 2

With a few weeks before the next England Invaded outing....

Factories continue to produce weopons for the war effort.

Essex Crew and QRF Guns.
The extra heavy guns will have a Fire Factor of 8 within the Martian Empire rules and will be available to purchase at a cost of 160 points.

I have added a couple of limbers to pad out the order....
There is no call for them in the Martian Empire rules but they do look nice on the table...

The final packs of reinforcements for mankind arrived a few days ago.... I found some nice peices in Eureka's ranges which are fit for purpose (more of these later).

I painted up an additional command stand as a taster... 

Standing 18mm tall they are largered than the other figures in the collection, but look fine once painted and based.

That's all for now folks....

A walk in the jungle - Zikanga Campaign AAR #5

It's been over 12 months since the last trip to Zikanga.

With the skirmish at the bridge a stalement for both Kwaz Nwazutha and PetroCorp both sides looked to make alternative probes of the out lying defences.

Lacking any suitable maps of the region, scouts from both sides were sent out to see if a back road could be found. Sure enough the village of Swooty Naaadds provided a potential crossing route avoiding the river and the bridge.

Both sides sent out recon elements looking to secure the village. From the North two sections of Professional Mercs in the pay of PetroCorp, from the South a the Beast sent out three groups of gun men with promise of loot and plunder....

The village of Swooty Naaadds, the sides holding the most buildings at the end of the night would be the winner.

We decided to give Chris Peers - At close Quarters rules a run out again, the Merc pushed down the centre of the "Highway" whilst the rabble flood the bush either side of the village.

The PetroCorp men reach the cente of the village, their professional status allows them to fire first, but could the bring enough fire to bear to shut down the Kwaz Nwazutha militiamen?

Having seen many a western on Zikanga late night TV, Bobby Muzuto steps forward to challange the Company men, it was high noon in Swooty Naaadds.

The militia rush forward, whilst unable to aim they are able to left off several RPG rounds which unsettle the PetroCorp men, recovering from a number of pin markers they return fire pinning several of the untrained gun men.

Caught in a cross fire, Operator Johnson takes a round to the chest and is Out of Action, the Merc's dodge down the alley to avoid the increasing fire on the main road.

The Action moves from the main road to the flanks, the Merc's swing right and catch one of the gunmen bands before it can fully deploy, several aimed shots, kill half a dozen and force the rest from the table...... Pistols and shotguns are no match for an M16....

Kwaz Nwazutha reinforcements rush into the village but are met by a hail of bullets forcing them to ground, with only one pin roll per turn it would be a while before they could get organised again.

Meanwhile on the main track the Merc's have fallen back rushing to find safer ground at the end of the village.

Ouch - seeing the Mercs fall back without laying down any covering fire, the milita for once take careful aim and blaze away with their rusty AK's knocking two of the Company men to the ground - Victory to the local Warlord......

Not quite ---- the risky move of standing in the open to aim made them easy targets for the two flanking fire teams who kill several of the celebrating militia, seeing their comrades fall the rest take to their heels.....

A cracking little outing which was touch and go for several turns, the rabble are great as long as they have numbers, but a well positioned fire team can soon put them under pressure if they stay calm.

I can feel a few more African outings taking place soon......

RJW Scenario - Luosen Temple

I meant to post this a few weeks ago but events over took me, the RJW is one of those collections that can always be relied upon to fill a club night. This outing was no exception.

February 1904 the Japanese are on the move crossing into Russian held territory catching the Russians off guard however the Russians are more numerous than their opponents and are soon moving additional reinforcements into the fray.....

The scenario victory points are as follows.

The Japanese need to accumulate 8 Victory Points.
1 point for each Russian Big Man killed, wounded or broken.
1 Point for each Victory  area controlled.

The Russians need to achieve the following.
Destroy or break 3 of the Japanese Units
Control 2 of the 3 Victory Areas.

The Victory Areas
The Frontier crossing.
One of the two houses.
The T Junction at the far end of the table leading to the Luosen Temple.

The Russians come straight off blind hoping to pile some early shock on the advancing Japanese who have broken through the frontier wire and are already heading for the village.

Chinese irregular cavalry are the first to deploy looking for a target to engage.

The Japanese are unmasked and the Russians bombardment begins of the advancing Japanese.

The Chinese cavalry skirt the village to avoid the Russian artillery and flank the Russian Infantry as it advances upon the village. 

Charge - The cavalry clatter into the advancing infantry driving them back, but not before several of the Chinese are broken and unhorsed.

The Russians press their advantage advancing ever closer to the village, only for members of the Chinese Imperial army to appear for once determined to defend their country from the two invaders...

As the night draws to a close both sides are battered and brusied the Japanese are forced to acknowledge defeat having failed to capture enough of the objectives and keep enough officers alive....

"Bows and Arrows against the Lightning" - Human Reinforcements

Geoff over at QRF was having a sale.....

I was looking for a couple of items to support the war effort against the Martian invader.

These 60 Pdr's seemed to fit the bill.

Having re-read the book again looking for those minor passages of inspiration the following leaps out at me. "...long wire guns of 95 tons..."

I envisage these to be the type of guns found in the coastal forts such as Dover, removed from their housing and transported by rail to the front lines.

The extra heavy guns will have a Fire Factor of 8 within the Martian Empire rules and will be available to purchase at a cost of 160 points.

The supporting crew and limbers are from Essex Miniatures FPW - German limbers, whilst not technically needed they add to the overall feel for the game and at a later date might consider some supply rules?

Whilst I wait for the PVA to dry, I also finished off a couple of light pieces for the Naval Brigade from Peter Pig's Sudan range - these really are "Bows and Arrows against the lightening"

Quite a difference in size to the newer pieces, HM land forces are outgunned they are not by any means defenseless and given the right weapons, correctly deployed can I am sure inflict crippling losses on the out of world invaders, assuming they get painted of course.

Right back to the brushes.....

Starship Troopers - Desert Patrol.- "At close quarters"....

A little behind on posts over recent weeks, real life keeps getting in the way of game time.....

After several outings of the Martian Empire games, recent conversations have turned to more modern gaming several months ago we gave Chris Peers rules "At close quarters"... a run out they had a good feel to them, keeping figures on the table rather than seeing those freshly painted mini's back in the case after 5 mins, when they have taken 4 hours to paint.

We wanted to see if a well motivated insurgent force can take on a well armed regulars with armour support.

Time to dust off the Mobile Infantry for a stroll in the desert of some unnamed frontier planet....

Back in August last year I painted up some Denizen Miniatures K'hiff as wanted to create a new Race for the MI to take on rather than nasty bugs --- enter the Limmikin which I took from the Native American name for men who shifted into wolves, very apt given the K'hiff wolf like appearance.

The sceanario was a simple one, the MI have lost communication with the Oxygen Production Plant and a patrol of MI are sent to investigate, two 10 man squads and APC's.

 

The rules are based on troops being classified into 6 classes.

Elite, Professional, Fanatic, Regular, Militia, Rabble Each troop classifiaction has a rough organisation structure with the better quality units having less troops within each unit. e.g. Elite might be 4 SAS troopers, whilst a militia unit might be 25 figures.

In this encounter we classed the Limmikin as Professional in 4 man teams plus a single unit as a sniper, whilst the MI were Regulars, fearing an ambush the MI debus fearing a trap.

Players take it in turns moving one unit at a time, then shooting is resolved for all. But the professional class always shoot before the regulars. The nice thing about the rules is that you can place the figures on the table but they can't be seen if you are stationary or moving in sneak mode - very handy if you are the ambusher.... 

I opened up looking to pin the column in the gorge, pinning a number of the MI including the squad leader, who was unable to motivate his section to use aimed fire, in hindsight the insurgents should have had more RPG's.....

Firing is then either aimed or unaimed. Only aimed fire can inflict casualties, unaimed fire will supress an enemy forcing it to pass several dice before it can move forwards or fire.

Most weapons fire in two different modes Single shot or Auto this dectates the range and number of dice rolled. Firing is carried out using a D20 dice with modifers for your class, militia for example suffer a minus penalty.

A modified score of 18+ means the target is killed. A roll of 15-17 means the target is pinned.

Unfortunately the heavy cannon's in the APC's don't have to worry about aiming and several rounds into the sniper position silenced him.

 

Everytime your unit suffers a kill you have to pass a morale test, 2 fails and your whole unit is pinned, causing you to seek deeper cover whilst you try to recover each fighter.

Bad luck on the insurgents side, having missed with the RPG, but they did killed several of the MI foolish to be caught in the open before they were forced back as the APC's were brought to bear....

The rules had the right feel the initial ambush left the heavily armed regulars pretty worried for several turns.

Martian Empires - Indirect Artillery Rules

Just a quick posting this evening, after last weeks outing, I thought I would produce some inhouse rules for the use of Indirect Artillery fire for the Martian Empire rule set, due largely to the fact that I picked up these Heliograph teams from Peter Pig several years ago but they have finally made their way to the summit of lead mountain.

So the rules.

I have pointed them out at a cost of 50 points with a limit of 1 per 1000 points being fielded.

They will require an order to send a message from their position to the gun section. 

The gun section must have a command element within sight of the heliograph team and be within command radius of the guns to be able to command it to fire. 

Heliograph teams are treated like Officers and Characters for the purposes of movement and actions, they may be attached to a unit if charged but will not influence that unit in any way for morale or fire purposes.

Now back to the brushes.....

London in Danger - War of the Worlds - Campaign Game 5

Sunday night saw a Martian probe of the defences of London.

The Times reports.

The approaches to the Capital the mighty Thames so often a barrier to earthly armies is no obstacle to the Martian invader, the Human forces are able to deploy in secret from the railway line backwards, whilst the Martians must seek out the human defences unless they fire or move.

Refugees choke the roads heading towards the capital away from the out of world invaders.

After several days of hammering from their pits, the Martians have built a fighting machine which emerges from the early morning mist striding towards the river line, smaller scout machines screen the fighting maching looking for hidden units looking to ambush the invaders.

The 1st London Artillery unmasks from their earth works and fire a salvo towards the mighty titan, the Crown has a short window of opportunity before the Martians are able to close the range and use their heat ray.

As the stream of civilians cross the bridge, artillery fire strikes the Martian tripod but it has no effect and the alien strides over the river towards the artillery battery.

Luck is with the humans tonight, oily black smoke has no effect on the gunners as they man handle the guns to fire on the advancing tripod, the heat ray fails to produce a kill and the gunners avoid disruption.

The Grenadier Guards reveal themselves from the ruins and fire a volley into the flank of the fighting machine damaging it's smoke generator, a second volley effects the giants steering sending it in a random direct until repaired...

Turn 10 and the Yeomanry arrive falling back from Berkshire and looking to consolidate in the Capital before the defences can be breached.

The militia form into line, and begin their advance into the woods to engage with the Martian Infantry. 

The damaged out of contol fighting machine moves towards the western table edge straight into the massed ranks of militia, the Yeomanry fire several rounds damaging the machine still further but falling just short of felling the massive machine.
The Martian commander looks worried.

As if things could get any worse for the invaders a salvo from the artillery strikes one of the scout machines and destroys it, lady luck was not with the Martians.

As the night draws to a close the Martians withdraw from the table, losses had been minimal with only a single loss in two hours of fighting.

Confidence in the human camp is high..... initiative shifts to the forces of the Crown as they seek to strike a blow for mankind and shrink the red stain on dear old Britannia.

The Martians are consolidated in the South and West of England, London is surrounded an island of humanity against the creatures from the red planet.