Ill Tides: Ragnarök

Kings of War: 3000 points of Control
Armada: 300 point fleets

Arlantrix grimaced, this was it, she'd managed to entice the short-arses into a pitched battle and now all she had to do was emerge victorious. In months of skirmishing on land and at sea neither side had managed to gain the upper hand (or paw in the case of the Dwarves) but with their last victory on land her forces where on the ascendancy. Now she had complete victory within her grasp and was determined to take it. Triumph here would make her foremost among the Crones of the Conclave.

Her grand army was arrayed against the enemy who had been forced into deploying units of Human slaves only recently taken prisoner and off shore she could see her reinforcing fleet arriving with even more units. The short-arses also had a fleet but Arlantrix had ordered Zor'damos and her Heartseeker to make sure they did not interfere with the land battle. 

Over to her left Arlantrix could see the fleets getting closer, most of her fleet headed towards the stinking-smoking Dwarven ships on an intercept course whilst the troops transports headed straight for the beaches. The Dwarves seemed to have decided on a similar plan and a clash seemed inevitable. 

Looking back to her front Arlantrix could sense that Sycorax had hesitated at this most vital junction so giving the signal to advance she urged her forces onwards towards the enemy lines hoping to force them onto the back foot. 

At sea her ships had miss-timed their approach to the enemy and allowed them to concentrate fire on the end Butcher, Arlantrix could see smoke pouring from it's gun ports and starting to lick the ends of the sails. She'd been in enough naval battles by now to know that the ship had but moments to avert disaster. But with both fleets heavily engaged their respective transports made full sail towards the coast, only the Heartseeker looked to have the speed to try and stop a transport.

But Arlantrix did not have the time to watch the naval engagement unfold her attention was now focued entirely on the land battle as the first units started to engage. Her Phantoms floated forwards with deceptive speed and caught first one then another unit of foul Gargoyles at the halt, allowing her slower infantry to push onwards into striking range. The advance was not without it's casualties however as concentrated Dwarven fire evaporated a entire regiment of Corsairs holding the right flank.

Arlantrix heard and felt the explosion of the Butcher but did not have time to look and see it's fiery death (*I seem to have forgotten to take the Armada photos*) but she could well imagine the pieces of the former ship being thrown high into the air in a massive fireball.

She could make out the first of the reinforcements coming ashore just as the main battle lines started to clash. As she had hoped her army still had the initiative and all the fighting was taking place with the short-arses well and truly on the back foot. Even the earlier loss of the Corsairs had not stopped her armies advance as the mighty Gordrake had launched itself into the gap left by their deaths.

Looking to her left Arlantrix could see more and more units pouring ashore on both sides of the port, including Zor'damos who should have been onboard the Heartseeker but who instead had been on one of the transports. No wonder the fleet was performing so badly and hadn't even managed to stop one enemy ship. Arlantrix promised to make her pay if she emerged victorious. 

Thanks to her leadership the land battle was going much better than the one at sea, after the initial clash of lines her forces had slowly started to break down the Dwarven lines with gaps now appearing all along the battle front as the cowardly short-arses broke and ran or where totally annihilated. 

The gaps in the enemy lines started to grow larger and larger as her units doubled up on the enemy and totally broke their formations. At last Arlantrix could start to relax with victory seeming to be totally within her grasp. Most of the enemy units where by now broken with just a single winged halfbreed left to cause a serious threat, best not to be eaten at the very moment of her triumph.

From atop a hill Arlantrix paused to gaze out to sea and surveyed the remains of the fleet. The second butcher had gone the way of the first at some point and a smoking hull was all that was left of the fearsome fighting vessel. The Dwarves had certainly gained the upper hand at sea but not without a few losses and their flag-ship was beached in easy reach of her land forces.

On land the victory was complete with hardly any Dwarves left standing, Sycorax looked like he was about to be taken prisoner and the winged halfbreed still flitted about but otherwise victory was total. Nothing would now stop her from ravaging what was left of the human lands and then returning in total triumph to her home lands. The campaign had been a success and she would return back with many slaves and large quantities of valuable materials to continue the reconstruction of Ileureleith, one day it would rise again and all of Panithor would bow to the Twilight Kin, and hopefully Arlantrix.

WW2 Desert: Transports

I'm now getting dangerously close to having painted up all the vehicles for V for Victory and then having a few Stuka's and some buildings to do for 02 Hundred Hours.

The first truck I picked up without really having a proper look at the box thinking it was a WW2 era Soviet truck, in fact it turned out to be a 1950's era one. In fairness it looks period appropriate and as it was going to play the part of a neutral vehicle hopefully no one will pick me up on my mistake! The truck is from Rubicon and a really detailed model, many parts of which I ended up leaving off. You don't really need a full drive train and under the body boxes if you are putting the model on a base.

I've also been busy painting up all the road sections that I printed off. These came out a little darker than my test section as I needed to use a black wash rather than a brown one (due to running out).

The Steyr kit for this model is also from Rubicon and again a highly detailed kit which was a little fiddly to get together but looks really nice once done. The Rubicon infantry models are more in scale with Perry than the Warlord ones so the driver doesn't look out of place.

The Steyr will most likely see action as a gun tow but I can also see it featuring in a scenario carrying a high ranking officer.

I have one more allied truck on the painting blocks which should be completed soon and then the two large Stuka's I printed the other day.

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.