Ill Tides: Grand Finale

This week if work allows we plan to kick off the final battle of our mini-campaign. The Ill Tides campaign has seen the Twilight Kin led by Arlantrix fighting on land and at sea with the Abyssal Dwarfs led by Sycorax Ironjawz. It has been a keenly contested campaign with both sides winning stunning victories and also some hard fought draws.

The plan is to fight a combined Armada and Kings of War battle across either two or three weeks to determine the over-all winner. We will play a turn of Armada and then a turn of Kings of War with the result of the KoW game using the Control scenario determining the outcome.

Both sides will be fielding 300 points of Armada and 3000 points of KoW with around 700 points of KoW starting on the ships of their respective Armada fleets. The fleets will be trying to transport their cargo of troops to the battlefield where they will then be able to take part in the battle. Do the Admirals play it safe and try to deliver their troops onto their own half of the table or try to setup a flank attack by landing in the enemy half? Of course each fleet will also have a chance to disrupt the other and potentially send much needed enemy reinforcements to the bottom of the sea.

As this is going to be very much a continuation of the narrative campaign I've not got all the details ironed out and things are subject to change but some ideas have formed:

• Fliers may not cross from Armada to KoW or vice-versa. Nor can ships fire onto the land battle or KoW units fire onto the ships at sea.
• Ships land their troops by beaching, destroyed ships lose their troops if not beached. Troops landed arrive on the table in the next KoW turn (on the controlling players go) that is played but cannot charge or double. If the ship carrying the troops is destroyed by the beaching then the unit(s) it is carrying suffer 2D6 damage each.
• Small ships can carry a troop's worth of units, medium a regiments, large a horde's worth. Any number of characters can be carried.
• Whilst boarded a troop adds 1CS to a ships combat strength, a regiment 2CS and a horde 3CS.

Otherwise I think we can just play as normal and see what happens.

Recently won trophy acts as terrain. 

Armada: Great Oxfordshire Boat Race

This Sunday saw us return to the lovely chaps at the South Oxfordshire Wargames club who where running their Armada event for the second year. I've had a look back and don't seem to have done a post about our previous visit, presumably because I forgot to take any photos and didn't win a prize! Whilst it is officially a competition as scores are kept and prizes handed out it really has the feel of a club day as many of the participants are local and the general vibe is relaxed with people looking to have some fun rather than crush their opponent.

This year was a little different as I both managed to snag a couple of pictures and actually won something. As I've been playing a lot of Twilight Kin I took my Orcs along as it gave me a chance to play something different and get an XL onto the table. In the end the XL was the only ship not to get sunk at least once across the three games we played.

I kept the list simple as by the time you hit the third game of the day you don't want to be thinking about complicated synergies or trying to recall special rules which inevitably you forget. So I went with two big hitters who wanted to shoot a bit at close range and then board and kick the hell out of the opposition. The Bloodrunners generally ran interference and tried to block clear shots on my big ships and otherwise disrupt the enemy fleet.

My first game was against Todd who I first met several years ago when I went up to my first ever event in Nottingham. He was my last game in a two day Deadzone event and a thoroughly nice chap, so I took the chance to challenge him to a first round game. Todd also brough along Orcs, in fact four of the twelve lists turned out to be Orcs.

The first game was essentially kill but considering the fighty nature of both fleets we didn't actually do much boarding. I did however manage to isolate his Smasher and pick off two other ships for the loss of just one of my Bloodrunners so came out on top.

The second game I of course forget to get a picture of, but it was against some Dwarfs pretending to be Abyssal Dwarfs and a really interesting list. The main punch was provided by four Katsuchan with and extra front IDW. This meant 12 shots flying at you every turn with a range of 22", potentially very nasty. I feared the worst when I lost one of my Bloodrunners. However I did manage to fight back and sink both the Infernox's and one Katsuchan. The scenario involved carrying some tokens across the table and my XL managed to carry 3 points worth with Mike managing just 2 so I had another win.

The third game saw me up against Alan and his normal Dwarfs and we had to pick up loot tokens floating in the ocean. I managed to grab enough loot tokens in the start to take the lead and then we had a proper scrum on one edge of the board. At one point we had four ships lashed to each other with my Orcs only just coming out on top in the tussle. In the end I actually managed to clear up Alan's entire fleet with all his ships either sunk or surrendered. It was a brutal encounter in which I somehow managed to not loose a single ship. So a third win!

So in the end I came out on top and won my first general/admiral prize, having won a few best sports in the past. The prize support was excellent and I got a book, voucher and nifty statue to commemorate my maiden tournament victory. Our little group had a good day in all with Stu coming in fourth in his first ever competitive outing and Mr T coming in sixth (though he did place third last year).

The Winning Fleet and my prizes.

8th Army: Iron Fortress

Continuing with the extra armoured vehicles for WW2 here we have an M3 Grant used by the British in the desert war. This model is once again from Perry Miniatures and features a cast resin hull with separate turret and guns for both. The turret did need a fair bit of filling to get it to fit into the hull without being too tight. 

As with the other tanks it is once again a nice model and given it's large size should be a focal point on the battlefield.

As the V for Victory rules are mainly focused on the 44-45 European war there aren't any stats for the Grant so I've had to make some up. I'm slightly undecided on if the 75mm gun should be rated as a medium anti-tank gun or medium howitzer, but that can be tweaked as we do some play testing.

Here you can see how much  taller the Grant is than the Panzer III and get an idea of how much larger it's cross-section is. 

I've also completed a 25pdr for the Commonwealth forces with this being a Rubicon Models kit. This is a proper old fashioned kit with lots of parts. But the instructions are clear so whilst it took a while to build it all slotted together just fine. 

I suspect this most likely end up as a scenario objective (like the DAK 88mm) so I left most of the crew as separate parts rather than mounting them on the guns base.

DAK: Anti-tank

With the core forces for both sides completed I've started working on some extras (I may have gotten a little excited with the online ordering) to add to the table.

Having enjoyed painting up the Panzer II I thought I'd move up a model to the Panzer III and so ordered one from Perry. The kit is mostly resin with a few metal details and went together nice and easily.

I used the same scheme as for the Panzer II and went with a slightly liberal sprinkling of decals to finish it off. It's a nice looking tank and once I have the M3 Grant completed it will have a worthy foe to spare with.

The other model I completed is a famous Flak 36, which was much feared by allied tank crews. Much as in the bocage war were every tank faced was a Tiger, in the desert the Flak 36's reputation probably out sized it's actual presence.

In any event this is probably too powerful a gun to be used in normal V for Victory game but it is of course useful as an objective or for a special scenario. I can certainly see it being something allied commandoes need to knock out in an 02 Hundred Hours game.

This is a Warlord Games kit which I picked up second hand, it was in a bit of a bad way but it glued back together ok and all the crew where present. The kit was missing the decals, so no kill markings for this one. The crew themselves have a good bit of character and aren't massively over-sized like later Warlord Games kits.

DAK: Ready for Combat

Having recovered sufficiently from my consumption to sit down and do some painting I've completed the last of the extra infantry I had and a couple of dogs. The dogs are to be used in the 0200 Hours games so I doubt will be seen in the V for Victory games.

As with the Commonwealth list you can swap one rifleman out to allow you to replace up to four other riflemen with SMG's and can also buy riflemen reinforcements with a Star. This allows you to tailor your infantry sections to specific roles. I can certainly see the case for an 7 or 8 man section with mostly SMG's for assaulting enemy positions. 

That means I now have a similar sized force for both sides so once we get playing we should be able to ramp up the game size to a reasonable level and still have a decent range of force compositions. 

I still have a some vehicles and guns to paint up and lots of road pieces as well so I've still got a fair few weeks even months of painting to go before everything is done. I'll also need to resist the temptation to print out more terrain or vehicles to add to the forces.

Halo Flashpoint: Master Chief

One bit of painting I have managed over the last couple of weeks is to complete all the models I got for Halo Flashpoint, I now just need to paint up the terrain and objective pieces I got.

These are repeats of models I've already painted so it would allow you to field multiples of the same model and weapon combination, which as we will see could be useful. For these I steered away from the metallic paints and went with the GW contrasts instead.

One model which is different is that of the Master Chief, one of the original Spartans he's normally the hero of any Halo video game I believe.

He has his own special ability which is to be able to use multiple command dice during his activation, normally you can only use one of fire, fight, or move per model each turn. As he gives an extra 3 command dice in addition to the base 2 you could be doing a lot of fighting or shooting each turn with him. Looking at his stats you can see that he's a prime candidate for a ranged weapon pickup during the game and no slouch in melee either with his energy sword.

Whilst he takes up two spaces in your roster you could pair him with two Mk. VII's who each bring 1 extra command dice to give you a potential of 7 command dice each turn. You wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that I suspect.