Marauders: Commando Platoon

The third and final 10 Marauder section has been completed this week to make a total of thirty Commando's ready to see action. Being an old historical wargamer I do like to see a proper platoon of infantry on the table making up the backbone of a force, even a sci-fi one.

The Marauders are naturally quite good in melee with 2 dice per model and I've bumped up the ranged threat with the addition of a HMG and Missile Launcher to the squad. The HMG automatically adds Pinning to the squads fire output and the Missile Launcher has AA & AT capabilities and can (if required) fire at a different target to the rest of the squad.

Painting up the models has been a bit of a chore as despite this being a new hard plastic kit the sides of the models have almost no detail on them so you end up having to guess where the detail is and try to paint it on. The heads have also been cast in such a way that they have the seem down the middle of the face. Fortunately I had some resin heads printed off which did not have this issue. The one plus was that the arms for the weapons go together really well so I had none of the faff often associated with weapons being held by two hands.

The whole gang painted so far including my Deadzone Strike Team

Marauders: First Squad

A good backbone of solid infantry is (in my view) the best place to start any army so here is the first of three planned Commando squads which will make up core of my Marauder force.

This is a 'new' sprue released a couple of years ago to replace the old restic models which made up my first Marauders strike team. TBH I much preferred the style of the old Marauders and having gotten hold of the hard plastic kit the detail isn't great. Especially on the sides of the models the detail is really poor and almost needs to be painted on as it doesn't exist. The 3d printed versions I've already painted up aren't much better but at least you don't need to guess at details on them.

But, I've got one squad done and I've gone for two different heavy weapons in the squad to add some flexibility. The HMG adds Pinning in and the Missile Launcher gives some AT/AA threat to my basic unit.

Marauders: Rippermech

Imported from Warpath Epic the Rippermech is probably the largest ground vehicle that Firefight has. It came out as the three year Vault reward a few months ago and I've been working on it on and off since then.

I'm not sure it will be a regular feature in a 1500 points list but could perhaps be more useable at a larger points game. It counts as both a Command and Support option and comes in at 190 points with the additional Flamethrower.

It has reasonable firepower and comes with an orange command dice with it's command aura giving re-roll 1's to shooting and melee for Goblin units. If you are going to make use of that order you need to be rolling a decent number of dice so it's probably only Gruntbots in melee who roll enough dice to justify 2 command points.

As you can see it is a big beast and certainly towers over it's shorted cousins.

Deadzone: Marauder Strike Team

Having completed most of the strike team the other week it's good to have gotten the Commando units completed this week.

These are all resin prints from the Vault and printed as single pieces apart from the heads.

I had a couple of extra regular Commando infantry printed off as it's nice to have spares but the 200 point list only requires two to go alongside the three Mawbeasts as unlocks. 

I prefer to have a list with a bit of everything and whilst this is more melee focused it has a decent ranged component and some fast 2/3 models for grabbing early objectives or rushing into the enemy lines.

Test of Honour & Hedges

I've not been doing much on the hobby front in the last couple of weeks especially this week as it's been too damned hot. I did manage to get some Test of Honour in with Stu on Wednesday which is probably the hottest wargame I've ever played.

The game followed on from the last one where my hero captured an enemy spy and this time needed to escort her to safety in a nearby fort.

With a reduction in movement for the person escorting the spy the game descended into a mass brawl in the middle of the table with my men coming out on top. As the temperature rose we called in a Samurai win over the Monks.

Next up are some hedges from Warbases. MDF terrain has always had the advantage of being cheap and  quick to assemble but didn't always look the best once on the table. But over the last couple of years various manufacturers have been experimenting with colour printed MDF which whilst being more expensive is still quick to get on the table and looks good.

With Silver Bayonet being our next game I wanted to get some hedges to use so when Warbases released their Table Ready walls and hedges range to add to their growing range of coloured MDF I puit an order in. These go together really quickly with just some PVA glue and the only addition I've made is to add some saw-dust flock to the top of the hedge and along the join at the base.

Deadzone: New Marauders

Way back in December I thought I'd build up my Marauders to a Firefight size force and having lots of yellow paint from the WW2 project still to use decided to go for a desert theme.

So I printed off some of the bigger pieces on my A1 and ordered up a couple of resin leaders and two army boxes from a store I use. Stu over at Cirencester did some resin bits for me as well. With the next event coming up at South Ox in August and the end of painting all the Samurai I thought I'd crack on with painting up at least a Deadzone size force. 

One issue with this is that so far from that order I've only received the two resin leaders, so no Commandoes or Rainmaker models to build up and paint.

So this has somewhat shaped the list I'm aiming to take with most of it being taken up by the prints that I've gotten done so far. The Stunt & Grunt-bots are a reasonable size so I've put on a WW2 German inspired camo scheme somewhat altered for the desert terrain as they tended to just paint everything yellow in the DAK.

The Mawbeasts came from Stu's resin printers and I've not had to worry about the camo here, they make up the majority of the Troop choices in the list.

I picked up some nice Hornet decals online and fished out some 15mm WW2 numbers from my decal box to give the big stuff some extra detailing.

Fox & the Rat: Day 12: The Finale

 After the previous bloody reverse during the direct assault on Benghazi Capt. Rohrstock had realised an alternate plan was required to force the British and their allies out of the town. So he'd massed his men slightly down the coastal road in order to cut the defenders off from their supplies. Victory here would sufficiently weaken the enemy for the following main column of DAK troops to easily capture Benghazi.

Once the allies had realised his plan they'd quickly thrown all available troops into the race to secure the vital road. Once more the Stuka's had flown over his advancing troops and Rohrstock was delighted to see a think cloud of black smoke rise from the advancing enemy lines as a vehicle was knocked out. 

Less welcome was the sighting of multiple armoured enemy vehicles as his infantry rushed forwards towards the objectives. Firstly a Humber armoured car sped forwards and poured fire into the leading infantry section but with little effect. It was then startled by a high velocity anti-tank shell from the gun Rohrstock had ordered along to deal with any enemy armour.

The startled driver thrust the vehicle into a rapid advance which took it clean through the German lines and in to the rear of their forces. At the same time an Indian Pattern Carrier joined the advance and menaced the SDKFZ 251 which with it's machine gun had no real answer to it's armour.

All the while the infantry on both sides tried to advance with his troops seizing the central building Rohrstock felt confident his men had the upper hand.

Then things changed in an instance, firstly the Pak 38 and Humber had exchanged fire with the Humber missing it's mark only in turn to be destroyed by the AT gun which could then turn towards the IPC. It however had put it's AT rifle to good use and blown up the 251. using this as cover a section of Sikh's had also charged and destroyed the MG team occupying the house.

Despite their valiant efforts to capture the house this opened the Sikh's up to a withering fusillade of fire from Rohrstock's veteran men who soon had them grovelling on the floor of the building unable and unwilling to advance further.

They also lost the support of the IPC as it feared the Pak 38 and it too sped off forwards at high speed avoiding incoming shells.

Capt Rohrstock was unworried as one lone carrier could cause little trouble and his men had decisively worn down the fighting ability of the enemy who could only sit and cower in their positions as his men seized the objectives and won the day.

So there we are, at the end of a long campaign the DAK have proved victorious with the 8th Army having struggled to make significant headway. I'm sure we will return to the desert again in the future with Mr T painting up some Italians and I've got my eye on some French Foreign Legion.