DAK: Platoon Support

Since my last DAK post I've been working on the platoon support elements to back up the infantry and give them some more punch. I'm also rather under the weather at the moment so I'm not entirely sure what is going on with the colouration, it does look rather desert'y' though.

First up we have the scout section with their Kubelwagon, as with all the elements in this post they have a direct counterpart in the Commonwealth list. So we have three chaps packed into the Kubelwagon which is much smaller than the Jeep who are packing an LMG.

Then we have a medium mortar ready to rain down fire on the enemy. In the desert campaign the effects of artillery and mortars where amplified by the hardness of the ground (much of it was a thin layer of sand over rock) and the lack of objects to hide behind.

Whilst the German LMG is better than it's Commonwealth counterpart the MMG version has no such superiority. It still throws out 4D8 a shot though so can't be ignored.

Finally we have a PAK 38 light anti-tank gun. This should be strong enough to worry any armour we deploy onto the table. It was also somewhat easier to put together than the 6PDR the Indians are fielding.

Oh, and some spare crew!

Ill Tides: Icy Waters

 Armada/Icy Waters/ 250 points/ Abyssal Dwarf win

The Dwarves were jubilant.  The Elves were reeling with a bloody nose from Sycorax’s punch and now they had the chance to place their iron heeled boots squarely on the neck of the craven pirates.  

The mean hovels of the port were visible to the anonymous admiral, such a place was of little value even to those wretched scum whose livelihood depended on the water lapping at the shores.  Until now.  With the Elves seemingly in disarray the Squat Menace could compound their misery by slowly throttling them from the sea too…..The Twilight Kin - no fools - were only too aware of the danger and would look to thwart Sycorax’s strategem and damn the hubristic Ironcaster once and for all.  He was getting too big for his ridiculously heeled ‘clogs’ - if that were even possible for one so improbably short!

They were far north and the icy wind stabbed the lungs with every arrested intake of short breath, as if a Snow-Troll were ramming a nailed club down the throat…..This would be far from literal Plain Sailing the admiral smiled to himself, quite proud of his little quip.  These waters appeared relatively still with little swell but were dogged by icebergs which seemingly materialised out of nowhere to rip open the hull of any unsuspecting vessel and doom its crew to frigid oblivion.

The dwarven fleet approached from the south-east - the tried and tested Decimator, Angkor, Arbiter of Pain, Infernox and Katuschan.  The Elves were on an axis West-North-West,  a Butcher, Soulbane, Butcher, Impaler and a Goredrake to buzz the Dwarven ships from the metallic-blue skies.

As is often the way of things the Decimator led the Dwarven line heading for the Butcher at the North-West end of the Elven line despite the Soulbane bearing down on her.  The Dragon-Fire crew clearly fancied their chances against the vaunted ships of the elven fleet.  This foolhardy zeal was bordering on recklessness……However Ariagful’s liquid fire shot forth from the Dragon’s mouth and the Butcher was aflame!  The Decimator had scored a substantial hit as the Butcher was manoeuvring to try and ensnare the plucky Dwarf vessel. 

This would be her last and only action as the Butcher grappled her, a cruel punishment would be meted out for this insolence.  To make certain that Ariagful’s fire would be extinguished for good the Soulbane grappled the hapless Decimator on her port side - they would crush this upstart into matchsticks.  The Decimator’s crew fought valiantly but were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought to bear by the behemoths of the Elven fleet.  The Decimator was to have the final laugh, albeit from beyond the Watery Grave.  Having despatched the crew of the floating dwarven flame thrower the Butcher was casting about for her next victim however her crew expended so much effort putting the dwarves to the cutlass they had not seen the fire creeping towards the main magazine before it was too late and the illustrious Butcher was rent asunder as if Halpi’s Rift itself had opened beneath her,  The Soulbane,still grappled to the vanquished Decimator, was blasted with debris and deadly detritus and while it was severely battered it was not destroyed and continued to pose a lethal threat to the dwarven line.  

Meanwhile the Infernox and Arbiter of Pain bore down on the second Butcher.  As she closed the Arbiter of Pain let loose a volley from her prow guns and though damage was not serious the Butcher too found herself ablaze.  This did not deter the Raptor-like vessel harnessing herself to the doughty yet less robust Infernox and an epic struggle ensued.  The strength of the Butcher overcame the crew of the Infernox but not before much slaughter and damage was meted out to both sides.  The Arbiter of Pain sought to skewer the victorious Butcher with ram to her port side which though hit home she was unable to follow up and grapple the fired hulk and found herself passing by the stern of the vessel.  She too used her port side arsenal to good effect combining with the Angkor to whittle away at the Soulbane who was now left alone having witnessed the destruction of the Butcher and Decimator.

The dark pirates were having greater success out to the West.  The Goredrake, with complete control of the skies, swooped and dived first against the Katuschan and combing expertly with the Impaler soon made short work of the irritating flee of a ship at the end of the dwarven line.  He then turned his attention to the Infernox and gave much needed support to the Butcher to see off a more sturdy challenger.  The skies were indubitably under the control of the elves; the seas…..well less so.

The Butcher was not to remain victorious for long and the Arbiter of Pain put her out of her lingering agony as she and the Angkor expertly navigated the by now numerous icebergs which were seemingly multiplying on the approaches to the harbour.  The dwarves were able to make for the harbour and secure the all important port while the remainder of the elvish fleet was rueing grievous misfortune and seeking a sheltered cove to regroup & repair.

Next time : KoW/1500 points/ Push

Embracing Tomorrow

3D printing has slowly been building in popularity in the wargames community as the technology has become easier to use and cheaper over the last few years. The power to produce your own miniatures or terrain has seduced many to dip their toes into what essentially a whole new hobby.

This last week I had a rush of blood to the head (and wallet) and joined the ranks of the 3D printing community. As we already have a resin printer in the family I opted to get a filament printer instead, these are more suited to  making terrain or other large pieces rather than the finer prints produced by resin printers. The printer I opted for is the well regarded Bambu Lab A1 which happened to be on sale and was delivered the next day after ordering on a Sunday. The only small issue was the filament itself which came via a separate delivery a couple of days later. This gave me ample time to put the printer together, a process which took around 45 minutes and was extremely straight forwards.

With it working by heating up a long string of plastic the A1 doesn't have the toxic materials associated with resin printing, but you still want the window open whilst the print jobs are going on.

The reviews I read all pointed out how the A1 was pretty much a plug and play printer with the software working out everything for you so the first things I printed where a tray to catch the waste filament (grey tray on the left of the printer) and then some rocks for our desert campaign.

I left the rocks on the default height setting which lead to some noticeable layering on the top which I've covered with some sand effect paste. If I wanted I could have gone back and reprinted them with a lower layer height, this just adds time onto the print job as it builds the piece up. But as it's unlikely you will be spending much time studying the rock formations (unless the battle is going very badly) I doubt I will. You don't need to do any prep before painting so I stuck them on a base and hit them with the various yellows I've been using so far.

Whilst waiting for the filament I'd also picked up some designs for dirt road sections so I printed out one of the straight sections so see how that looked. This section (and the rocks) needed resizing and again this was very simple to perform in the printer software. 

Now I know this works ok I'll need to print out a load more to create a proper road network. The files include a little clip to join the sections together so they don't get easily knocked apart.

One feature of the A1 bundle I purchased (and it's software) was the ability to load multiple filament spools onto it's holder system and then swap between them as the layers go down. Whilst waiting I also picked up some files for terrain designed to fit in the 3" cubes of a Deadzone / Halo table and thought I'd give this feature a try as well. With the way the filament layers go down it's much better to have a horizontal line of colour than a vertical one as it only has one nozzle and needs to extrude waste filament between changing colours. 

I did have one failure during the print process but fortunately it was almost complete so I still had a useable item. The A1 comes with a built in camera so you can watch (and cancel/pause) your printing from your PC or smartphone. Very handy for keeping an eye on things.

It also come with built in layer settings, with the standard layer height (on the left below) being 0.20mm. You can go down to 0.12mm (on the right) and even 0.08mm, and up to 0.28mm for the fastest and roughest prints.

As things had been going so well I thought I'd throw something hard at it and grabbed a free Stuka file which I scaled up and used the auto-angle and auto-supports buttons to let the software work it all out and then hit print. Five hours later I had a perfectly respectable Stuka to put out on the table to be blown up by the SAS.

All in all I've been very impressed with how easy this has all been. I have more roads to print off and another Stuka or two and then I want to start thinking about a special project to work towards. I've had in my mind for a while a Stalingrad game based on the Deadzone rules, the issue has always been getting the terrain, until now that is.

Halo Flashpoint: This is Sparta!

Having complete one fireteam before Christmas I've taken the chance to paint up another one so we can actually have a game if required. As each fireteam is only 3 or 4 models strong then it's a quick job to get one done.

I've stuck with a metallics theme for the first Spartan team but mixed up the colours rather than making them uniform. Spartans are super-soldiers created to combat Earth's enemies and have advanced through several different phases with different armour patterns as well. 

The Spartans I've painted up are all wearing the same pattern armour (MK VII I believe) and form a balanced fireteam. 

In the orange armour we have the MK VII who carries a decent ranged weapon which he shoots with on a 4+. He also fights on a 4+ and the Spartan knife is excellent and slicing through armour (AP2) and shields (ESD1) so he's pretty dangerous up close as well. His main benefit is the extra Tactician dice he adds to the standard pool of 2. The more dice you have the more extra things you can do.

The Deadeye is dressed to kill in the gold armour and as a sniper type he benefits from a 3+ shoot, his fight is only 5+ though. His biggest plus though is the Fast Transition ability which allows him to shoot another ranged weapon (once picked up) in the same shoot action, twice the bullets for twice the killing.

Someone who is happy to get in close is the Brawler, in his green armour. Fighting on a 3+ with the normal combat knife is pretty tasty but there are more powerful melee weapons in the game for him to grab.

Lastly we have the Zvezda who at speed 1/3 is a bit slower than the other Spartans (2/3) but he does have Scout to get an extra move in before the game starts and he has the best save (4+) of the team so could be a bit more tanky than the others.

I have another copy of these models and also a second variant with the same Spartan archetypes carrying different weapons. So I'll paint up the other variant next.

DAK: My Little Tank

Everyone loves a little tank and despite not being Lt Gruber's famous 222 this is very much a little tank.

The kit comes from Perry and has only a few metal parts that need to be attached to the resin turret / body. I had completed the main paint job in time for our first game last week but was waiting on some decals to arrive before calling it complete. Now with the decals in place it's a proud member of the 15th Panzer Division.

Mr T has bought an M3 Honey so with the Panzer II only sporting a 20mm cannon as it's main gun it will need to out manoeuvre the 37mm armed Honey rather than take it head on.

I've also completed the third infantry squad bringing the platoon up to full strength. I do have some reinforcements to paint as well if we want to fill out the sections, but I'll be working on the heavy weapons before those.

One 'heavy' weapon I did complete is the A/T rifle team, they should be able to trouble the Indian Pattern Carrier but probably will struggle with anything heavier.

 

Ill Tides: Smoke & Mirrors

 KoW/ 1500 points/ Smoke & Mirrors/ Abyssal Dwarf Win

The Gods were now smiling on Sycorax.  The blundering Admiral had failed to secure the unfathomable treasure but had at least stopped it tumbling into the greedy claws of the Twilight Kin, something to be thankful for he grudgingly conceded.  But now another chance to grab stupefying wealth had arisen and Sycorax wasn’t going to entrust this to some snivelling underling.  This was his time!

Rumour of the vast riches had travelled and the hated Dark Elves were amassing to steal away Sycorax’s future.  So typical of the foul and traitorous race.

He surveyed the plain to his front - but where was the prize?  It wasn’t obvious to him even though he communed with Ariagful Herself.  The Elves though would have the same blindness he consoled himself.  His only chance therefore would be to vanquish the Piratical Scum from the field and then freely claim the gleaming horde.  It was ever thus he allowed himself to smirk.

He arrayed his force with his left flank anchored on a wood relying on Basu’su’s Children and the monstrous Abyssal Grotesques to blunt, or at least slow the Elven advance.  Meanwhile his centre would overwhelm the Corsairs - here he had Blacksouls, Decimators and Immortal Guard - a formidable foe if ever there was one.  They were supported by The Hex Caster and Infernox.  On the right were the beastly hounds of hell straining at their chains covering the monolithic bloc of the stone giants.  In between these and the Immortal Guard were placed the fearsome liquid fire of the Dragon Fire team.  Sycorax was only too well aware how the Elves despised fire power the Dwarves could bring to bear.

The Elves, on Sycorax’s left, had the Phantoms and one unit of flying chariots along with an apocalyptic Souldbane on his spectral beast.  The centre was crammed with an array of Pirates, so-called Fleetwardens, covering the much-vaunted Impalers cowering at the rear of the battle line.  At least their Void Captain knew what it was to stand up and be counted, placing themself in the front rank.  Also cowering was the wiccan, The Summoner Crone, with her cruel tricksy magick.  Finally on Sycorax’s right a second unit of flying chariots, Void-Skiffs he believed they were known as.  He wasn’t interested in their odious nomenclature.

The Dwarves commenced a measured advance, much was at stake for Sycorax, and he knew the foul Elves were masters of trickery and craven deception.  The Phantoms surged forward goading the Abyssal Grotesques to commit themselves.  Sycorax knew this was a ploy to allow the flying wains to counter and blunt his misfigured brutes.  Nevertheless he thought he’d be able to thwart this.  The brutes made short work of the Phantoms and the Gargoyles threatened the Void-Skiffs.  Sycorax had miscalculated though!  The Disfigured brutes tower above Basu’sus vile breed allowing the chariots and Soulbane to crash into his tortured yet beloved children.  Sycorax’s venture could be snuffed out before the first trembling finger of light had stretched towards the darkness……he momentarily dared not breathe!  The Abyssal Grotesques were battered mercilessly but held!

It was time to force the centre.  Now in range Sycorax unleashed hell against the cowering pirates who were showing no appetite for the struggle, reluctant to move forward.  The Blacksouls propelled their ravenous Mastiff at the Void Captain who was stalled and winded but remained resolute.  The Infernox and Decimators poured infernal rage into a block of the Corsairs.  Despite heavy losses they stayed their fraying nerves but like the Void Captain were temporarily paralysed and hesitated.  The Dragon Fire team sought to incinerate these pirates too but barely singed their foes.  The Elven line was buckling but stayed firm.

This shook the Twilight Kin from their watchful slumber.  A troop of Fleet Wardens crashed into the flank of the Abyssal Grotesques which those tortured beasts would not survive this time.  However the Gargoyles had nimbly manoeuvred to the rear of the Elvish Hammer, the flying wains, and imbued with Basu’sus Vile Brood managed to overcome and vanquish these elite warriors.

A second troop of Fleetwardens flattened the Dragon Fire team who were seeking shelter behind a wall but were in turn pummelled by the Stone Giants .

The Soulbane now threatened the Hex Caster who proved no match.  His spectral beast trampled the mangle corpse of the valiant caster and into the flank of the Decimators who were covering part of the uncovered treasure secreted within a marshy bog.

The second flying wains had decided now was the time to act and hurled themselves against the Molten Menace.  Like cooling lava he was rooted to the very earth and would not yield.  A regiment of Fleetwardens did their best to uproot this micro-volcano and targeted his flank yet this impertinence just made him more resolute.  The Immortal Guards removed the strain of the Void-Skiffs from the Molten Menace by charging their front and the Decimators had survived the initial surge of the Soulbane and now became embattled this Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Meanwhile the Stone Giants had continued their inexorable flow forwards.  The Summoner Crone had sought to blunt this with her withering Alchemist’s Curse but for once it fizzed and whizzed but barely a scratch was made.  Relief for Sycorax, she had the power to seriously trouble the pride of his battle line.

The Golems were now able to smash the flank of the Void-Skiff while the Immortal Guard gripped their front in a lethal vice nothing could survive and they were crushed to splinters and dust.  The Mastiffs now emerged from the wood on the Elves’ left and charged like the wild beasts they were into Fleet Wardens protecting the Impalers.  The Elves though, with pikes were able to withstand the beastial ferocity and the Mastiffs’ effort was for nought. 

The Souldbane overcame the Decimators and was able to claim the marshy treasure.  Towards the centre of the field was more of the glittering prize but what remained of the Twilight Kin were pushing forwards over this.

Sycorax could feel his very being twisting and shrinking inside him.  The treasure was literally slipping through his fingers.  His forces were exhausted and on the brink of collapse…..He joined the line and with the fury of Ariagful vanquished the wiccan with fire.  This act momentarily revived his troops.  The Golems overran the Fleet Wardens, so recently victors against the dogs, while the Infernox turned to face his craven attackers, yet more Fleet Wardens, who he put to the vengeful sword.

The scarring and fracturing of the landscape was now giving up the the secrets of the golden horde.  Unless Sycorax could exhort his battered force for one last push all would be utterly lost….

The Impalers now roused themselves from their own slumber and charged the exhausted Molten Menace.  He had stood firm against so many foes this day he knew, as did Sycorax, the Impalers, cream of the Pirate force, would overwhelm him.  And so they did!  And in doing so had uncovered a mountain of gold.

It had come to one last desperate gamble or Sycorax would lose and would be lost, supplanted by one of any number of wolfish Ironcasters too cowardly to stand with him this day.

He unleashed a rock and molten fury against the Soulbane who had been content to sit atop the half-submerged horde, the fool, and condemned him and his foul beast to nothing more that hissing steam rising from what had become a bubbling cauldron of a marsh, so intense was the heat of the fireball.

And now his Immortal Guard hurled themselves against the immense shields of the Impalers.  The Infernox, though vanquished, had done just enough to chink the armour of these seemingly impregnable beings and the Immortal Guard were able to first push, then prize and then burst open those armoured sentinels and fall upon them in such fury there was nothing to be hauled away as grizzly prizes…..

The rest of the Elvish host, that which remained, had no stomach to continue this slaughter and Sycorax had achieved a most stunning and profitable triumph.  He collapsed.

Next time: Armada/ 250 points/ Icy Waters