AAR - Dystopian Wars: Europe Ablaze!

Ziggy, David and I got the Dystopian Wars toys out Saturday evening for a Central Europe slaughterfest. Zig and David paired up as Team East - Poles and Russians. I was The Westside Boys - using French and  Scandanavian forces. Each force was nominally 600 points.

Our deployments. We left the SAS out of the game - they do tend to slow things down and have a way of "cancelling each other out" when numbers are even. This would mark the first time since Ziggy started playing Dystopian Wars in 2010 that he played with a completely painted force!

Early into the action my Reckes and Marteaus got to work on the central medium tank squadron.

My Metzger was the "Hell on Legs" St. Michael variant that the STO has access to. It's a massive improvement over it's predecessors and actually worth using.

One of the Reckes gets pummeled by the Rarog. The Fausts quickly disembark from the other!

Those Kamchatka medium tanks lined up for the broadside shot back there creamed one of the Schildtragers early - one-shotting it with a Mag Explosion. Rather sad.

One turn two, they repeated their performance, killing the other medium robot. Seriously? What the heck?

My remaining Faust, although on fire and "disordered" (which robots ignore) charged into one of the  Polish mediums in the squadron that killed his mates. A couple very lucky rolls later, the tank was done. Huzzah!

The wounded Ragog puts a remarkable amount of fire on an unfortunate French small tank group.

But Stompy returns the favor.

The French mediums (with an attached Grele flak tank) has their way with a Polish squadron. They blasted two and boarded a third, ruining their opposite numbers.

I had the Recke wreck the Rarog. I seriously considered smashing it in close combat with the bog robot, but decided his firepower would be better used elsewhere.

Firmly in control over the right side of the table, I start to focus towards the Russians.

The Metzger and Liege get to work on the Kamchatkas and Minsks. My Robot got set the heck on fire but was still in decent shape.

After three turns, we tallied the score - I had eked out 665 points (including all of their Larges) and the Polish/Russian force was at 525. They had three more small tanks of mine to destroy and they'd have achieved their objective. It was a close affair for sure - my Schiltragers and the Recke going out early really hurt. I think one Russian squadron on the right side to prop it up would have made a big difference. I really liked the French/STO combination. The Liege continues to make me smile and the St. Mike is a Metzger worth using.

AAR - Dragon Rampant

My bride and I (she's becoming quite the regular gaming buddy these days) put Dragon Rampant on the kitchen table Saturday evening. She hadn't played and it's been many moons since I'd played. We kept the battle as a simple killfest to get familiar with the rules. Minis are 15mm and we played on a 36" X 36" battlefield.

The Time Travelers
Witchy Poo (7) - Light Foot + Spellcaster
Musketeers (4) - Heavy Missiles
Amazons (6) - Heavy Foot + Mystical Armor
Merry Men (2) - Scouts
Roman Cavalry (5) - Heavy Riders + Enchanted Weapons

The Undead
Archers (4) - Light Missiles + Undead
Warriors (6) - Heavy Foot + Offensive + Undead
Spirits (7) - Lesser Warbeasts + Invisibility + Undead
Skelephant (7) - Greater Warbeast + Undead + Ponderous

Witchy Poo's band, from left to right : Cavalry, Amazons, Musketeers, Wizard, Scouts.

 

The shambling horde : Warriors, Archers, War Elephant, Spirits. The stray ghost in front is more of a cheerleader than anything...

 

My activation rolls are great and everything pushes forward.

 

The musketeers loose a volley at the archers in the distance, killing two.

And the scouts do the same, killing two more!

The equites smash into the skeleton warriors!

 

But it's not all fun and games - both sides lose two models. The skeletons have the number to absorb that kind of loss while my horsemen certainly do not!

 

A more broad view of things. The undead archers have moved to a safer position. The skelephant is still stuck in neutral.

 

The age of flash photography is ushered in! My gang continues to push forward to weed out the unholy menace.

Second verse, same as the first! Another 2 to 2 exchange leaves my cavalry in dire straights. The do pass their courage test though.

 

Things officially go off the tracks for Witchy Poo and Co. The beast from the east finally wakes up and trudges across the wide open central avenue unscathed.

 

The cavalry uses its speed to get away from the monstrosity. My Amazons, a solid defensive fortress of a unit, receives the mighty but silent charge!

 

And it's a bloodbath. The Amazons down, although they did take a strength point of the monster. The warrior women promptly failed their courage test and fled.

 

Witchy Poo cast "sharper blades" on the Amazons who failed to rally. They were again charged by the elephant with very familiar results.

 

Run away, run away! That elephant might as well have been Muad'Dib.

The ladies' reputation is naught but smoke and mirrors. I've had better results out of Red Army conscripts. I continue to fail courage tests and the Amazons' shoes continue to get a work out.

Icing on the cake - the skeletal archers send a volley at the Merry Men, killing two. They promptly fail their morale test, with the leader standing right damn there. She would not forget this. Dark elves have long memories.

The lousy Amazons bomb another courage test, this time severely resulting in them quitting the battlefield. Good job gals. It's been a while since I had a unit, in any game, perform that miserably.

 

The elephant and skeleton warriors go on the offensive, attacking my musketeers and sorceress.

 

It didn't turn out badly - sure, they traded damage, but it was quite acceptable.

 

My cavalry re-appear. They'd been in skulk mode but now that the ele' was quite damaged, they charged in to finish it off. They managed it quite well. Woo hoo!

 

The archers and musketeers thrash the skeleton warriors with two solid volleys, eliminating them.

 

The cavalry is the first to reach the graveyard. Although they smash the archers quite handily...

 

The long dormant spirits waste no time killing the riders.

 

Witchy Poo's Dark Elf side is made plain as she order the scouts to get between the ghosts and her. The ghosts, having "wild charge" are forced to attack the nearest unit.

 

The scouts debt of earlier cowardice is paid and the sorceress strides in amongst the unsuspecting spirits, dismissing them!

 

Witchy Poo (and her loyal musketeers) are victorious!

 

The undead, back where they belong.

That was a close affair for a while! I think if she'd gotten the spirits out, working together with the elephant, it would have been really sad for me. As it was, my wife wanted to see us fight in the graveyard. We're both looking forward to another chapter of this!

Quick Post

I have another game date with my wife this evening - we're going to play Dragon Rampant. I haven't played in a while, frankly just having forgotten about it. My wife's a huge fan of dead things so she won't have any trouble at all loving the undead warband.

I, of course, will be using my Time Travelers. This morning I re-based some Roman cavalry on single bases to make them fit in a bit better with the rest of the crew,

These guys will replace the hounds in my line up. The hounds were fine but didn't quite mesh with the theme of the army. The horsemen are much more appropriate.

We saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 last night. Good stuff - go check it out!

Rubber and Lead - Status Update

Just a quick status update post. 

I am actively working on re-writing the rules to Rubber and Lead. Much has been added since March when it got a thorough workout at Gnomecon. I have completely overhauled the movement templates since the first iterations. There are a few entirely new mechanisms that quite honestly turn the game up to 11. I know there are a few people who peek at the blog occasionally for R&L info and this is just one of those "yes, yes, I'm working on it" posts.

At my geeky gamer heart, I'm a perfectionist. I had this talk with Mike a few weeks ago. Mike has played more games than I ever will and I value his opinion more than probably anyone else's. He's of the opinion that I should publish and let the public playtest it for me. Hell, GW and Spartan sure as hell operate that way. He says what I've done with StarDust and StarDust: Ground are more comprehensive and sensical than most the rules he's ever paid for. With StarDust and SD:G it's thorough playtesting and contingencies that I struggle to account for in the rules; in R&L it's making sure I've remembered to put everything in. I know SD and SDG will invariably leave some situation unexplained. With R&L, I can't abide that - cars zipping around a track is a simple, universal concept anyone can get behind. With the comparatively limited scope, it must be perfect.

Is that too much to ask of oneself?😁

Park Anywhere

I bought some el cheapo toy cars at Dollar Tree Sunday. Three for a buck. They're a smidgen smaller than Hot Wheels and I figured would make nice "road dressing" for 15mm modern and sci-fi. Having just played AK47R, it was fresh in my mind.

The cars popped apart very easily - no rivets here! I sprayed the bodies, some white and some black, and super glued the wheels in place. I hand-painted the colors and windows then just threw a quick coat of magic wash at them.

Not bad for not much effort. My roads should look a little more "lived in" from now on.

Roll up the window, roll it up!

AAR: AK47 - Back in the Jungle

Wifey and I put AK47 on the kitchen table Saturday evening. It's been well over a year since we played AK47 Republic and with the new AA assets, it seemed like a fine idea. We used our traditional Litumsian forces - my wife, the communist insurgent Militia Campaign for the New Congress and me, President for Life Johnson's Worker's Party Army.

My WPA forces were the attackers for this battle. I placed objectives on the garage, train/road crossing and the bridge.

My wife deployed her jeep-mounted defectors, the Hyena Company, straddling the far road and blocking the crossing objective. A large group of militia covered the route toward the bridge, while the tanks were deployed on the bridge. Another large group of militia covered the garage and workshop.

I got to start with two infantry groups which were deployed wide out on the flanks and my cannon battery which deployed a bit closer to center on the left to pummel the Hyenas.

My gunline takes aim but there are next to no casualties - just one pin.

The firefight on my right goes poorly for me.

Another volley from the cannons doubles the earlier result. 😕

A blurry shot of the left side shows my infantry making some good progress towards the hangar - both groups are taking casualties though.

The platoon on my right begins rounding the hill. They rolled "out of ammo" two turns in a row and their shooting has been just useless.

Now there we go! The recoilless rifle jeep get "A-Teamed" as does another jeep (without riders though). The cannons have finally gotten it together!

But bad news from the right side as the tanks fire at my platoon by the hill. Their morale falters and it's Good Night, Nurse!

A similar scene unfolds for the MCC grunts holding the buildings - they abandon their post leaving it virtually undefended! Good thing for them the Hyenas, in their jeeps, are close by to pick up the slack.

We both get reinforcements! The MCC gets an armored car and AA APC while I got another group of infantry with a recoilless-armed armored car. The reinforcements are quickly piled up in "action central" on the left flank.

The remaining Hyenas de-bus and prepare to defend the objective while my cannon battery drives quickly towards the rail crossing to nab it!

My infantry are caught between the AFVs and the MCC elites in the building. Of course my bazooka team can't locate a rocket quickly enough!

My cavalry finally arrives. Day late, dollar short.

The MCC tank crews finally decide to crank their engines and help out after the Hyenas are wiped out. My battery starts to get battered.

Battered and deep-fried! They've had enough and leave.

And time expired. I had only captured one ten-point objective. The rail crossing was 20 and the bridge 30. I really messed that up, didn't I? Final score was 69-45 in favor of my wife's MCC. Rebel scum. At least if my artillery had hung in there it would have only been a negligible 4-point loss.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday evening and I swear, one of these days I'll win a game of AK47. It's become my Moby Dick.I was disappointed that the Little Bird showed up so late - it was the first time I'd included it in an AK47 list and it never got to play. My wife's "arrival" rolls were fantastic, getting four of her five units on the table to start. Looking forward to the next round!