Napoleonic's: Capture the Gun

With the spy safely in their custody the British had determined that the information she held was in fact the location of a large amount of gold which had been stolen from their pay train. This was now in the hands of a local Spanish bandit leader who had it under guard at a strongly fortified post. In order to have a chance of getting the gold the attackers would need some serious firepower. Fortunately they had heard of the location of a Spanish artillery piece stuck in a bog which if liberated could be used. Somehow the French had also caught wind of this so both sides raced to take hold of the cannon.

The main objective was to seize hold of the cannon with bonus campaign points on offer for holding the gun powder stores at the end of the game. Both sides stuck with the same force composition as the last battle. 

Major Berkeley concentrated his forces to gain the cannon whilst Major de la Croix decided to try and contest all the objectives more evenly. 

The battle started with the British making moves on their left whilst the French also made the stronger advance on their left. 

Both sets of cavalry advanced up behind the cover of hills and faced by waiting infantry both would decide to dismount in order to offer a smaller target.

This ended badly for the British cavalry as cresting the hill on foot they met with a deadly volley of fire from the French and where forced to make a retreat having suffered 50% casualties.

On the British right both sides hung back from making the dash for the cannon and instead traded mostly ineffective fire. The British did have the greater numbers so did start to wear the French down a bit.

They even managed to send the Voltigeurs running for cover with a well delivered volley from their Grenadiers who had advanced in front of the light infantry. The French Hussars had also by this time dismounted and advanced onto the hill and met the same fate as their British counterparts.

On the French right some unusually accurate fire had taken it tole on the British and effectively knocked them out of the fight for the gun powder.

The British now pushed into the advance on their right whilst trying to maintain a steady fire on the French.

It was about this time that Major de la Croix seeking to inspire his men into the advance rode to the fore and with a cry of 'en avant vers la victoire' dashed across the road. Unfortunately for him a Grenadier levelled his musket and with a deadly shot knocked him from his mount.

Not to be outdone Major Berkeley had himself ridden to the front and single handily engaged the Voltigeurs. The suddenness of his appearance and the ferocity of his assault led them to panic and flee once more. 

So as night fell both sides consolidated their gains with the French firmly in control of the powder and the British holding the cannon.

This takes the campaign scores to 12-4 for the British as Major Berkeley managed his personal objective of spending at least 8 command points and Major de la Croix fell whilst trying to achieve his.

Kings Of War: Ambush

As a change of pace from painting Space Dwarfs I've moved over to spend a couple of weeks painting Abyssal Dwarfs instead. The models belong to Mr T and to help him get them onto the table I've taken some off his hands to paint and base.

The models I've done are almost enough for a 750 point KoW Ambush army. Ambush uses the same rules as normal KoW but is played at a much lower points total 750-100.

The models are almost all from Mantic Games apart from the two leaders who I bought for Mr T a while back, I can't recall who from though.

Many people go with a lava base scheme but I wanted something a little different so I went with a green based scheme inspired by my Chroneas I painted a few years ago. 

As the bases where going to be mostly black I went with a brighter scheme on the Dwarfs to make sure they stood out from the background, it seems to have worked.

That's all of these for the moment, I think Mr T has some on his painting table as well so we will see how many points he has once those are completed.

Napoleonic's: Spy Catcher, Part 2

After having failed to take the spy into custody both sides received fresh intelligence on the location of the now un-masked agent. She was traveling with a small escort towards the sanctuary of a local church. Determined to make sure they captured her this time each side was ordered to withhold their fire on any men near her but also to not spare the bayonet on anyone standing in their way.

The spy was setup on one table edge and would advance 6" each time a clock card was drawn from the deck, making her movement unpredictable. 

The spy was setup on one table edge and would advance 6" each time a clock card was drawn from the deck, making her movement unpredictable. Her escort would fight to defend her but not use their muskets for ranged attacks. 

Major Berkeley kept faith with his previous force composition and setup his slower troops nearer the spy's entry point. 

Major de la Croix opted to bring some extra line infantry in place of the dismounted Dragoons so fielded an additional Grenadier unit. 

In the early stages of the battle both sides advanced on the river flank with the French making greater progress in the centre as the British Grenadiers got off to a slow start.

At this point the spy hadn't made much of a move but the forces on the hunt for her had started to close the door on her line of escape.

The spy then suddenly started to make a dash for the church which carried her mostly past the French and British troops sent directly towards he starting position.

The action then started to hot up on the river flank with Major Berkeley charging forwards at the head of the 13th Light Dragoons towards the French 2nd Hussars.

Seizing the initiative the gallant Major led his men into the Hussars and running a man through himself led them to victory. The Dragoons lost one man and the Hussars a couple of men but then the French started a run of poor morale rolls ( 0, 1, 0) which saw the Hussars rout from the table. 

The action then centred on the river flank with the French Grenadiers launching a charge against Major Berkeley who like Lieutenant Darling last week beat off an assault on his own. This allowed the 13th to charge into the Grenadiers and caused them massive casualties. 

At this point the Voltigeurs opened up a galling fire and with men dropping from their saddles the British cavalry started to retreat towards cover. 

The action then switched to the centre where the French Fusiliers had failed to capture the spy despite charging her outnumbered guard. This allowed one of the British Light Infantry units the chance to leap over a wall and charge themselves, this time capturing the spy.

By now the British Grenadiers had reached the action and one unit unleashed a volley that felled Major de la Croix from his horse, but caused little other damage.

The French Fusiliers then launched another charge and routed the British Lights and themselves seized control of the spy. With the light failing all they needed to do was hold on for darkness so they could make their escape.

This lead to a series of desperate British assaults on the Fusiliers led initially by Major Berkeley who was felled from his horse and then the remaining 13th Light Dragoons who where repulsed. 

With the last move of the game the remaining British Lights managed to charge in and the Fusiliers courage finally failed them as they suffered more casualties and finally retired empty handed. This must have been a bitter pill for the French to swallow as they'd almost held out for victory and then had it snatched away at the last moment.

This leaves the British in control of the spy and also leading 9 - 2 in the overall standings. Major Berkeley achieved his personal goal by killing a Frenchman in melee whilst Major de la Croix did not achieve his goal.

Napoleonic's: The Redoubt

This weeks encounter saw the French trying to dislodge the British from a redoubt they had been sent to occupy.

The French seized the early initiative and pushed their forces forwards on both flanks trying to avoid the troops stationed in the redoubt itself. 

Unfortunately the French Hussars misjudged their moved and after a deadly volley from the British Grenadiers they few remaining cavalrymen fled the field. 

On the flanks the French continued to advance and some accurate fire forced a unit of British Light Infantry to flee from their wood.

On the other flank the brave French Dragoons pushed on unsupported towards one of the objectives.

Further French fire into the retreating British infantry kept them moving backwards and things looked bleak for the British as French Grenadiers advanced on their position whilst the Voltigeurs and Fusiliers poured in fire.

The tide was turned and the flank saved when the French Grenadiers ran into the Light Infantry officer Lieutenant Darling. In full view of his men he single handily repulsed the French and sent them realing back into the woods. 

Spurred on by his success his fleeing men rallied and those who had stood firm unleashed an accurate fire into the French ranks.

This spelled the end of the encounter with the British retaining control of the redoubt and the French given a decent mauling.

This means the British now lead 6 points to 2 points as both sides achieved there personal objective and the British took home the scenario win.

Firefight: Ready for Battle

It's always nice to get to the end of project and I have completed all the Firefight models and terrain I started back at the end of October. So I got all the models and some of the terrain out and took a few photos. Both armies had a decent core of models from their Deadzone counterparts so not everything has been painted in that time, but a sizeable majority has.

Looking at the size of game people are currently playing in the Facebook group it seem 1000-1500 points is the most popular, I think I should have around 3000 points for each side.

The Forge Fathers are mostly a shooting focused faction and with the addition of an extra 30 Steel Warriors and their missile launchers they should be able to put down good quality shots. They don't pump out lots of shoot dice so perhaps the Weapons Platforms with quad hailstorms and the all cannon armed Iron Ancestor can help with that. 

The addition of the Thorgarim and expanding the Brokkr up to ten models has given the force a strong melee component for when the enemy get close. The Rekkhyr with their flamethrowers should generate a good number of fire dice (2 per model) but the short range of their weapon means they will need to be careful against foes who will often have a longer charge / shooting range.

The tank looks like it should be largely indestructible against Veer-myn so it should provide a solid anchor for the force. I'm also interested to see how the Forge Guard in their heavy armour perform, again they should be very hard to shift and with the number of special weapons they can field an adaptable fire-base.

The Veer-myn on the other hand a melee focused army, lacking good ranged troops they instead want to get in close and mix it up in claw to hand combat. To the base Deadzone strike team I've added a lots more Stalkers and Nightmares who form the main melee fighting component of the army. I've also added several units of Crawlers, the ranged basic troop type. The Crawlers aren't good at shooting but they do bring the option to field smoke launchers. This gives the rest of the army a height 4 screen to move up behind, and the toxic version can even damage the enemy. My suspicion is that I may need some more Stalkers in the future but some games will need to be played first to confirm that.

The other trick the Veer-myn have to get close is their subterranean deployment units, the Tunneller and Tunnel Runners. The Tunneller is an impressive model and you can buy transport sections to increase it's carrying capacity. Up to two sections can be added at an extra ten capacity each, so that could be 30 Veer-myn being deployed at just over 6" from the enemy. The one area of weakness for the Veer-myn is a relative lack of anti-aircraft weapons which is OK against the Forge Fathers but could be an issue in a tournament setting. But they do have the Rumblers which I think are much more characterful models than the Forge Father equivalent. 

I'm looking forward to getting the models on the table and playing some games, I expect that Firefight will be up next once we have finished the current Napoleonic's campaign.

I've also finally based up the flyer I got from TT Combat at the same time as the Ogres, it was part of their sci-fi halflings campaign. It's quite small so could make a good Forge Father flyer perhaps in the future.