Tanksgiving 2023

 It's been a while since I attended a Tanksgiving event, but made the trek on Saturday for an afternoon of gaming with a group. I didn't actively play anything, I just GM'ed a game of my Stardust: Ground sci-fi battle game. I set up a four-player game, in teams of two. The setup...

Investigation at Spiritreach

Or

The Spiritreach Standoff

a Stardust: Ground scenario

Miners at Spiritreach outpost have recently uncovered ancient tablets containing Contaminant markings. The people of Spiritreach have slowly succumbed to the dangerous whispers released by the unearthed tablets. Not only have civilians in the mining community been turned by the powers of Contaminant, but the Red Guard posted nearby have been twisted and see nothing wrong with what’s going on. Outsiders of course have sensed the change and know it cannot be allowed to continue.

Dawgs of course are naturally quite sensitive to the Contaminant and after a few weeks of being released, Khanate forces were aware of what was happening at Spiritreach. Likewise, Brother-Chaplian Tobias of the Imperial Space Marines also sensed the disturbance. Both forces dispatched troops to investigate and end the threat. The erstwhile foes encountered each other en route. The leaders met and it wasn’t long before BigDawg Moonrunner and Space Marine Lieutenant Secundus entered into an agreement to enter the outpost and eliminate the threat.

It’s dusk so expect it to get dark soon.

Defenders’ Orders and Situation

Why can’t those nosy troublemakers leave us alone? We’re doing our own thing and they’re still getting their shipments of unobtanium. Well, it looks like they want a fight so we aim to give ‘em one!

Your forces are deployed around the mining outpost. You might be able to play a bit of cat-and mouse hiding among the buildings for the early parts of the battle. The Red Guard have two VTOLs that each carry a squad of infantry. Those enter the game as reinforcements and should catch your opponents by surprise. The VTOLs are transports, not fighter-bombers, so be careful with them!

The Cultist Demolishers and Red Guard Lancers are both very capable heavy tanks. The Harrier is more of a specialist and the Catapult tanks are rocket artillery vehicles more useful against infantry than vehicles. The Python Walker is quite strong, particularly in close combat and targeting the flanks of enemy vehicles. Its Elite status can allow it to activate twice in a turn, a very rare capability. Keep it hidden so you don’t lose it quickly to lucky shot.

Yadin played the Red Guard and David commanded the Cultists.

Attackers’ Orders and Situation

These rubes never learn… you play around with ancient writings, you get mutated and lose your eternal soul. What’s so hard to remember about that?

Aside from neutralizing any resistance, there are three locations within the outpost that are likely to house the unholy tablets. Finding those tablets is a high priority. The GM will let you know those locations that should be searched.

Your forces include Space Marine Terminators. They can deploy onto the battlefield via Teleporter. When you’re ready to deploy them, give them an Order and place the Terminators anywhere on the battlefield in base contact with one another and not within 5” of any friendly or enemy unit.. Yeah, it’s just that easy. They may immediately take their action. This sudden appearance should be a nasty surprise for the defenders! The Captain must remain with the squad; unfortunately this means his Elite ability won’t be available.

The Dawg’s Brawler tanks are very powerful heavy tanks, but your force, overall, is quite outnumbered in the tank department. Terminators are good for anti-tank work in close combat as are the Dreadnoughts. Keeping the Dreadnoughts healthy during their transit could be difficult.

Disembark the Space Marines from the Rhinos once they’ve made some good progress onto the battlefield. Marines are quite difficult to kill while on foot due to their Veteran status.

 Wayne B was the Dawg Commander while Ziggy ran the Marines.

 

Our battlefiled. The Cultists and Red Guard occupied the big hill and buildings while the Marines and Dawgs joined the battle from the far end of the table.

I didn't take many pictures, especially early into the game as I was GMing and helping my players understand the process.

Ziggy's Terminators teleported in atop the hill and assaulted a squad of cultists in the large building. The terminators were in-turn assaulted by a second group of cultists. Terminators, being the most powerful infantry unit in Stardust, were able to handle the challenge without much trouble. They entered the gray building a turn later and searched for the tablets they were hunting. Of course, they found them sitting right there on the coffee table being used as coasters!

The battle continued to rage all over the tabletop. Batteries must've been weak and gunpowder wet because for all the shooting, there were remarkably few casualties. 

But melee was a different story. The Python walker vehicle was manhandled by a unit of Space Marines!

In the attacker's backfield, the Red Guard sent two airborne infantry units. One of the VTOLs was hit by AAA and crash-landed, but only one of the infantry stands was taken out. Not pictured... moments later, the Dawgs called in artillery on the downed VTOL, wiping out the squad except for the medic! 

Darkness fell and of course visibility was now a major issue. True to form, weapons fire was still almost completely ineffective.

Dawgs and Cult Fanatics mix it up!

It was a bad day for fliers! The Red Guard airborne troops assault and destroy the immobilized Marine Dreadnought. They'll take all the kills the can find.

The last shots of the game. The Guard's tanks fire another barrage of plasma at another immobilized Dreadnought. More misses. More failures to cause meaningful damage! Yadin had spent 3/4 of the game shooting at that thing all all he could muster was a mobility kill. It truly was amazing.

We decided to call the game. The attackers, Wayne B and Ziggy won handily but all the players enjoyed themselves. The two who'd never played before (Yadin and Wayne B) both were quite happy with their choice of a day's entertainment so that makes me feel good as a game designer and scenario maker. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tanksgiving 2019

Last Saturday Mike hosted his annual Tanksgiving get-together down in Waycross. David, Ziggy and I journeyed down to be part of the day of gaming. Mike was setting up a game of Ogre miniatures using Dystopian Wars minis when we arrived. With six players, it looked a bit crowded, so I opted for and intro game of Command and Colors Medieval. I'd never played C&C and read so much about it so it was nice to get an opportunity to play.

I helped command the Byzantine Roman army with Randy (the game's owner and our teacher). Our Hun opponents were Wayne and Max. Max also has experience with C&C so we weren't facing two greenhorns.

Our opponents. Wayne and Max.

Randy and me, fumbling through a selfie.

We Yin-Yang'ed for a bit, both sides pushing on their left flanks and exchanging bow fire.

Then a bit of success on our right, although the marauding heavy infantry over there (with leader) eventually wound down. It's fine, they served well.

So we were dealt the card to make the left flank go bananas, and bananas we went. We out-Hunned the Huns and our cataphracts stormed forward.

Smash, smash, smash. Super Heavy Cataphracts + Leader + appropriate cards to lay down the smack = loads of dead Huns. General Flatus and company go legend.

Comidus Flatus clears the flank.

Towards the end of the game... We'd done a fine job of corralling the invaders from the steppe. I think our heavy infantry off to the right actually bagged the ninth kill kill for us. A resounding victory for Rome!

I rather enjoyed Command and Colors. It's easier to like a game when you have a very successful first outing but it does a fine job of ticking all the right boxes. C&C (any flavor) made it on my Christmas list after this outing.

The next game was Rate of Fire. This was a re-fight of the battle Ziggy and I played a few weeks prior. Mid-1943, Germans trying to capture a road intersection with plenty of Soviet resistance. I GM'ed. Wayne and Randy took command of the Germans while Max handled the Russians himself (with a little advice from me).

The German recce elements get a move on.

Amusingly, the 8-Rad gets hung up in the concertina wire, but does manage to locate the Zis-3 ATG gun the hard way! One survivor bails out.

Ze Germans appear in force. Stugs, halftracks and panzers, oh my! They're much more spread out than the way Ziggy played it.

The Zis-3 claims another victim! A Panzer IV is taken out. Towards the bottom of the frame, infantry begin exchanging rifle and machinegun fire. Wayne's hand of cheese commands the truck driver to park his Opel Blitz in front of the Russian machinegun position to block its line of sight! The truck and driver are disabled in short order.

The halftack in the center next to the Stug gets barbed wire wrapped up in it's running gear. Smirk. The Stug is smashed by a shot from the ATG and the gunner and assistant are killed. It can only move and spot now.

Max's first two reserve rolls hit paydirt and by turn five he's got two T-34s added to his mix, like he needs it!

And in no time, another Panzer is taken out! The driver survives.

The other T-34 immobilizes another Panzer IV. It's a bloodbath!

Many infantry reveal themselves. Gross. The Panzer driver (upper left) hails an Uber in the form of a Schwimmwagen.

The stationary Stug gets its act together and take out a T-34.

The craziest group of Germans you're likely to meet charges forward! The reds have four firing units that can blast away at the grenadiers. They only take a few casualties but of course are suppressed, preventing them from assaulting the machinegun position in the woods which was of course their goal.

The Panzer with the fouled running gear takes out one of the Russian tanks!

The Grenadiers on the left flank shoot up the Russian mortar team. Meanwhile, the Uber has arrived at it's destination - the Stug that's got no driver. The Panzer driver hops out of the Schwimmwagen and offers to drive. I allow it.

The lone survivor of the most recently destroyed Soviet tank gets his dander up and rushes the nearest German infantry squad. He kills one with his pistol and causes the squad to become suppressed! Chuck Norris, eat your heart out.

I didn't take any action shots, but the little Russian field gun killed a halftrack then got wiped out by angry return fire. The Stug pushed out of the wire and the Russian infantry that had been in the woods next to Stug ran towards the intersection.

That was the end of ten turns. The Germans had just run out of time, a Soviet win! The Russian infantry in the woods nearest the intersection were the squad holding the objective and I couldn't rationalize an unoccupied halftrack being able to contest it.

Wow, what an amusing game. I did allow a few Hollywood moments for the sake of awesome. The Poor German players made no friends of the dice and suffered some miserable fortune much of the game. German artillery was successfully called in ONE time in ten turns, needing a 3+ each time. Russian morale stayed reliable enough to eke out a win.

Everyone enjoyed themselves and it was nice being able to show off the 1/72nds to folks who've never played with them. Wayne may be a convert - he's been looking for a good WW2 skirmish scale and let's face it, 1/72 has EVERYTHING and is budget-friendly.

Thanks Mike for hosting and I look forward to returning the favor next Memorial Day!

Thanksgiving Week!

It's Thanksgiving Week. Woohoo, the best week of the year. Hopefully, work will leave me alone since, as usual, I've taken this week off. I'm looking forward to lots of gaming and a feast on Thursday. I've gotten a little painting done in the last week and completed the assembly of a few models.

Here are those models...

1/72 Germans for the collection. The Panzer IIIJs are from Armourfast and came two to a kit. They went together super fast and with ZERO hassle. Would buy again. These are definitely designed for tabletop gamers. The Elefant is a very detailed kit from Trumpeter and took ten times as long to assemble as the other two combined. In the end, I'm quite happy with the additions and look forward to zapping them with my airbrush this week. Until then, they'll sit in the queue.

I also flipped an Infinity model around in under 24 hours. He's an Ariadna Chasseur . It was a model I didn't already have in the collection and more importantly, he's got a flamethrower. Bwahaha!

His "tiger-stripe" pants call back to the other Chasseur in the group. The jacket appears to have come from an army surplus store.

We had another D&D session last evening. With four kids at the table in addition to the grown-ups, it got a bit chaotic.We broke up what appeared to be a cult ceremony / sacrifice and save the old wizard Cameron we had journeyed with previously. After ending whatever it was they there trying to so, my character touched some religious artifacts that put me on a spirit journey for a few minutes and some draconic being set me on a not-very-clear mission. We exited the underground tunnels and caves and ended up in an enormous mansion. It appears that the old man living in the mansion is a ghost who doesn't realize he's dead. He's friendly but I don't think we're going to get fed.

I've got a game of X-Wing lined up for this afternoon with David then a Tuesday morning game with Mark J. Yes. Vacation. Tuesday morning gaming. We're going to play that X Files game of mine, this time with the FBI and Army vs. Zombies (and werewolves). Next weekend is TANKSgiving at Mike's. I think Ogre minis (using Dystopian Wars models) is on the menu along with the RoF WWII 1/72 I'm taking. Mark is probably going to set up AQMF and I'm not sure what the fourth game will be. Typically we've run two pairs of game.

Tanksgiving 2018 - A Pair of AARs

It's that time of year again (funny how that happens), time for Mike to host a TANKSgiving get together at his place. Zig and I made the trek to Waycross yesterday to eat, drink, throw dice and push models for a few hours. I had put together a Cold War Commander scenario a week or so ago at Mike's request, so I took my 6mm West Germans and WarPac along for the ride.

When we arrived, Mark J was setting up All Quite on the Martian Front and Mike was setting up an entirely too huge Ogre layout. When it became apparent that Mike would only have four for Ogre, we cut the board's dimensions in half and ended up with a much more manageable game. The scenario was this:

There were seven reactors scattered about the battlefield. Each team had to recover as many as possible and exit them off their table corner. Reactors could only be picked up by unarmed and poorly protected transport trucks.

Mike had four small slightly different forces set out so each of us simply took one and we were off!

My red horde struggles to cross the stream but the GEVs and trucks make haste towards the nearest reactor facility.

Ziggy and Mike start scrapping on their side of the table. Ziggy's blue GEVs next to the reactor turn in a great round of shooting, causing Mike's attack to seize up.

Ziggy points something out to Mike while my first reactor grab has gone swimmingly. The truck the the fireball marker on it (lower left) is the getaway vehicle.

Mark, my opponent to the right wasn't being ignored. I had sent my squadron of four GEVs over as a distraction and it worked out very nicely. The intention was for them to cut roads slowing down the transports' escape. Mark ended up diverting a good chunk of his forces to deal with them.

A good overview of the action. Zig's blue forces have snagged one reactor and are on the way to their second on the far left. Mike grabbed one (upper left) and are on their way to taking the second in the center. My reds are on their second reactor while some of Mark's APCs and infantry skulk nearby.

SCOREBOARD!

Mark's swine ambushed my contractors removing the toxic reactor, preventing me from grabbing a second objective. Meanwhile, Mike had manged to grab his second from the center facility.

Waaaay over to the left, Ziggy has nabbed a second reactor core but Mike has sent a lone GEV to hunt it down (the green one). I've formed an agreement with Mark that north of the river we will not fight each other and instead focus on preventing Mike from scoring two objectives. You can see my one remaining GEV hiding from Mike's view behind the building.

Ziggy's second reactor is destroyed by Mike's GEV which is in turn taken out by infantry and one of Z's GEVs.

Pew pew! My GEV zips out and takes a few quick shots at Mike's truck carrying the loot, wrecking it. A glorious four-way tie! We had each nabbed one objective and the other three were all destroyed in transit.

That was a fun scenario - small manageable forces, interesting and challenging victory conditions and enough elbow room to allow for proper maneuvering. We all really enjoyed the game.

After the first session games were cleaned up, Mike and I began setting up for round 2. He was setting up an Eastern Front Blitzkrieg Commander game while I got my CWC stuff ready. The scenario I'd selected was "Assault" with the West Germans defending a town. They had to hold on for eight turns against a much larger Soviet force. Max took command of the FRG forces and Ziggy (a newbie to CWC) helmed the Reds.

Max's setup. Nothing too crazy really. I'd have put the Marders in the middle with tanks on both flanks.

The armor arrives in force! That's 12 T-55s on the lower left and 6 T-64s + 6 BMP-2s just up from them. Max is nervous. Ziggy has held a group of T-72s for Flank deployment.

And they waste no time! Twelve T-72s roll in immediately on turn 1, deep on the German right flank. If Max was nervous before, now he had very good reason!

A Leopard and Jaguar are taken out in short order. The Leopards quickly redeploy to the other side of the wall.

The German left flank is in serious trouble as the T-64 and BMP group bursts out of the woods.

A bit of relief for the NATO forces as some air support streaks in and smashes the front of the T-72 formation. The Jaguars in the town would have felt the sting as well, had they not already been taken out. That was a little close there, Fritz!

After some terrific command / activation rolls another visit from Mr. Phantom...

Max had completely wiped out the T-72 threat on his right flank! In a blink, the whole complexion of the battle changed.

The other side of the town was still in deep trouble though. The BMPs pushed around to engage the Marders, with a large group of T-55s close behind.

I didn't take much convincing for the Marder teams to redeploy into the town. The Leopards also redeployed to help out on this side - the potato field had already been captured!

The T-55s arrive and take up positions in a gunline to winkle out the defenders. Just then, a jet streaks overhead!

The Su-17 pilot was a little edgy after having made it past the NATO air cover and dropped his bombs a bit early, giving his countrymen below reason to fear.

Not longer after, the casualties sustained by the FRG defenders became untenable and they retreated south, past the still burning hulks of the T-72s. The battle was over.

A tough win for Ziggy and the Polish/Russian horde. It was set up to be a cakewalk early as the flankers arrived and Max couldn't pass a command roll to save his life. Once Max's dice problems resolved themselves, it became a much different affair. Zig doesn't often push the commie hordes and I think he rather enjoyed having a massive manpower advantage for a change. I enjoyed GMing and just keeping the game on track.

We packed up for the two hour ride back home while the WWII battle was still raging in the other room - I have no idea how that one turned out. Another enjoyable Tanksgiving get together; Thanks Mike!