Firefight: Steel Warriors

The backbone of any Forge Father strike force is likely to be made up of Steel Warriors. You get 30 of these chaps in the army box with options to make up to six of each special weapon. When I did the Deadzone team I'd not built any of the standard Steel Warriors with Hailstorm Rifle which have now been added to the options avaliable.

Firefight uses squads as the basic unit of the game which tend to range in size from 5 - 10 models. Units fit into one of the following unit types: Troop, Specialist, Support or Command. Buying Troop options allows you to unlock Specialist or Command options (the first Command option is a free unlock) and then multiples of three Troop/Specialist/Command are used to unlock Support options. This is an easy way to make sure you end up with plenty of line troop selections in your force.

An individual unit is made up of a leader model from which all measuring is carried out and then a number of squad members. Models in a unit don't need to have the same weapons so you can end up with a variety within one unit.

After asking for some advice on the Firefight Facebook page I went with building five more missile launchers to go with the one we already had to make up three squads of six Steel Warriors two of which had the missile launcher. 

Firefight uses D8 for it's tests

As you need plenty of Troop options to unlock the more powerful Specialist & Support options the Forge Fathers probably need to go for smaller units as they are individually more expensive. The missile launcher gives them long range capability which is good against armour and armoured opponents. The missile launchers can also split their fire onto a second target from the rest of the squad so you get a good amount of flexibility in picking targets as well.

I expect these chaps will want to get into cover to try and reduce the effectiveness of incoming fire but no doubt their tough Forge Father armour will keep them in the fight should they come under pressure.

Firefight: Something to Fight Over

Continuing on with the new terrain for Firefight I've completed some area / blocking terrain pieces. The oil pump and tank, walls and almost all the barrels are from Fogou Models. Chris at Fogou makes a great range of scenery and I've bought a fair bit of his product line over the years. The concrete walls are also his and I even managed to snag a few pre-production short wall pieces from him. I have some more of the very short pieces to one side to use with the Veer-myn.

Using the pump, tank and barrels I decided to put together a few pieces themed around an pumping operation that probably shouldn't have gone ahead. No doubt a GCPS corporation had been operating outside the limits of what was legal and used shoddy processes to maximise profit. 

The radioactive spillage is a mixture of LIT powder, gloss gel medium and some green contrast paint. This was then topped with a wash of green paint once dry. As the LIT powder is luminescent it glows in the dark but also has a vivid green colour even in daylight.

The large red containers are repurposed from Covid testing kits having previously held the fluid reagent. Chopping the top off gave a good sized container to go with the rest of the terrain.

The big tanks are some plastic containers I'd kept to one side with some added bits from a Fogou set and an old bit of pipe. I also had some Green Stuff World decals that I'd bought a while back to add onto them.

The  rocky ground markers are made out of cork chunks from Geek Gaming who also supplied the copious amounts of red sand used.

Along with the Ogres I showed last week I'd also purchased a turret as part of the TT Combat Kickstarter and this has been turned into a strong-point. Firefight doesn't have any rules for this sort of thing so it may just be blocking terrain until I can think some scenario based rules up.

Lastly we have the Fogou Models concrete barricades, very useful for anyone/thing looking to put something solid between themselves and incoming fire.

And as I had the bits out I put together a little scene showing some Forge Fathers coming under Veer-myn attack as they try to make off with material that probably killed the original human prospectors. 

Deadzone: Team Ogre

Earlier this year I backed a Kickstarter campaign by TT Combat for Halflings in Space. I didn't actually get any of the Halfling models but I did get some Ogres to use as Ogre Terminators in Deadzone. As I've been working on Firefight terrain I also had these on the table (along with something else I got in the KSer) as a side project.

They are resin models and it was only £12 for all three which is excellent value. They went together very well apart from the ammo belt which needed heating and bending to try and get to fit.

I very much doubt you would want to run all three at once but if you did you could do that and still have a decent number of bodies on the table.

Napoleonic's: Campaign Gear-up

This week we played The Wayward Cannoneers scenario I trialled a while back as we built up towards starting a campaign. 

I opted to leave out any line infantry from my force and went with a skirmisher heavy composition. This had the advantage of meaning all my troops moved a minimum of 5" rather than 4" and all apart from the cavalry would not be slowed down by fences or rough ground. I included the cavalry as a counter-measure against the French Hussars that Mr T had been playing, though in the end he did not field any.

1 * Light Officer

2 * 6 Light Infantry (Sharpshooter)

1 * 4 Riflemen

1 * Guerrilla Leader

2 * 8 Maquisards

1 * Light Cav Officer

1 * 8 Cav

The French opted to use dismounted Dragoons instead of the Hussars alongside their normal compliment of line infantry and Voltigeurs. 

The idea for the campaign is a simple one based around the achieving of extra objectives over the course of the games. I've not decided 100% but I think we will be drawing two objectives and then deciding which one we want to try and achieve. Winning the battle will give you 1 VP and completing the bonus objective will also give 1 VP. Below is the list of objectives I've drawn up, most are centred around the leader of the force. 

The overall framework for the campaign will be a series of actions being undertaken by the scouting forces of two encamped armies who aren't yet ready to undertake a pitched engagement. The actual scenarios will be decided on a week by week basis with us both hopefully coming up with something interesting as we go along.

In the game we played I managed to secure the right hand cannoneer by dashing my cavalry forwards and then beating a retreat whilst the French did much the same on the British left with their Voltigeurs.  

The British cavalry managed a round of fire followed by a charge into the French Grenadiers which caused heavy French losses. They they suffered heavy casualties from French fire and the remaining men fled the field.

In the middle both sides moved forwards with the British Lights causing heavy losses to the Fusiliers but that was not enough to stop the Dragoons escorting their prisoner to the cannon and taking control of it and securing the victory for the Emperors men.