Cara Al Sol...

...Los Camisas Neuvas!

Today I started building my Division Azul platoon for Chain of Command. The figures are the Warlord Games' plastic 'Blitzkrieg' German infantry 1939-42, and are pretty characterful. Reasonably easy to build, and ingenious touches like the one-piece pouches are great. I'm splitting them into three squads, each with a different set of poses - one standing firing, one charging (with grenade-throwing and bayonet) and one prone and kneeling, firing. So far I've made up a mere handful of men, but here they are on my painting table:

Yesterday evening I went with JY to a wargames and games club based in Coventry, where I played a very nice chap called Kevin at X-Wing. His tactics weren't brilliant, and I beat him 100-59 with my TIE swarm, and then we swapped sides and I beat him 100-0 with his X-Wing/Y-Wing flight. Here's the turn-by-turn pics from the first game:

 Setup - Obsidian Sqn in their usual two flight groups side-by-side. Note the Y-Wings in the Rebel centre and the X-Wings off to starboard.

 End Turn One: Obsidian Sqn and the Rebels move in, no-one in range. Asteroids ahoy; time to move.

 End Turn Two: I made a serious error here. 'B' Flight moved 2 Forwards rather than 3 Forwards, which meant that 'A' Flight ran into them. D'oh! However the Rebels were not in a position to capitalise on this; ion turrets hit O5 but Obsidian Sqn firing knocked an ion turret off one of the Grey Squadron ships.

 End Turn Three: The furball begins! TIEs manouvering as best they could; O5 causing some problems as it drifts under the effects of the Ion blast.

 End Turn Four: O5 goes west, but so has one of Grey Squadron and now I outnumber them 2:1 and have concentration of firepower too.

 End Turn Five: The Rebels break, my TIEs strip them of their shields as they lose formation.

 End Turn Six: Howlrunner down! But so is the second Y-Wing, and the X-Wings are separated.

 End Turn Seven: O2 has managed to K-Turn himself in front of one of the X-Wings - an error of judgement on my part. Miraculously he only took two damage rather than go BOOM.

 End Turn Eight: One X-Wing down, one to go, but O2 has gone. I now have a 4:1 advantage, but not for long...

 End Turn Nine: Another TIE breaks up under the punishing firepower of the X-Wing, in return for a point of hull damage.

End Turn Ten: And that's all she wrote. Outnumbered 3:1, the last X-Wing is shot down and the day belongs to the Empire. Score: 100 points to 59.

In the rematch I flew the Rebels as a single flight, splitting into two elements each of a Y-Wing and X-Wing about half-way through. Kevin's lack of experience with a TIE swarm told; he flew them in a ragged line which meant O2 and O3 (both PS5) were on their own and dispatched by turn three, followed shortly thereafter by Howlrunner (PS8) which then meant the PS4 Rebels were shooting first and able to concentrate their fire on a small number of fragile TIEs, often at ranges 1-2, maximising their shooting potential and minimising the TIE's agility advantage. The result there was a whitewash; I destroyed Obsidian Squadron for no losses (although I was down to one hull point on one of the Y-Wings)! I think Kevin may be a tougher opponent next time; he certainly had a pretty solid list!

The club were a friendly bunch and I took some photos of the other wargames going on in the same room:

 The "two Petes" and their Romans-versus-Britons DBA game in 15mm! I think the Romans won but I'm not certain.

 Simon and John setting up for their second X-Wing game. Interceptors versus B- and Y-Wings.

Gary and Tony, playing Pulp Alley! - a race against time to stop the Dastardly Nazis getting away with a Death Ray! No idea who won but lovely terrain, nice models and by the sound of it a jolly fun game.

Oh, and tonight I introduced SB to X-Wing and had a couple of games of Magic: The Gathering. Tomorrow, more Division Azul and probably a bit more X-Wing, because why not!

Ten Hours Of The Imperial March

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was intended to have been posted just before I left for Tunisia. I hit 'Save' instead and then forgot about it. AHURR DURR DERP-A-DERP.

I had a quick game of X-Wing (what else) with JY tonight - I took Soontir Fel with Push the Limit, Howlrunner, and four Obsidian Squadron TIE/ln fighters against Wedge with Swarm Tactics, a Rookie X-Wing pilot, and two B-Wings with Fire Control Systems.

I managed to get two turns' flying in formation then I made a critical error and broke my TIE pack in two seperate directions. This enabled JY to get his two X-Wings and surviving B-Wing onto the tail of Howlrunner and Obsidian 5, blowing them outta the sky! This really screwed my game, or so I thought, but luckily Baron Soontir Fel proved he was the best pilot in the Galaxy by going on to survive the game, helping to shoot down both Wedge and the Rookie, and outflying the last B-Wing who managed to K-Turn off the board!

Today I get my Firespray and another Interceptor. I'm excited.

Oh, and the title? Well, I played this while we were gaming:

JY was not best pleased!

And just because I could, have some fiction:

Kinlochan Highway, Aderaband Province, 06:15 Local Time

Lieutenant Posbrak spat a phlegmy clump of dust over the side of the Chimera’s turret and sighed. His little patrol group, Sierra-Five, had left Fort Terek an hour ago, with the first rays of dawn breaking over the horizon. Since then, nothing but dust and a faint, half-hearted drizzle, that simply made the dust sticky. The dull olive and grey green foliage that ran - thick and miserable in the heat - alongside the highway meant that he was relying on his scanners and the mad Lifeguard Sentinel driver racing on up ahead for even the most basic information about his surroundings.

He upped the gain on his goggles’ built-in magnifier, and raised himself higher in the turret to see what lay ahead. He could just see the curious gait of the old, white-and-purple Sentinel as it loped along half a kilometer ahead, almost lost in the haze of heat, rain and dust. Other than that; nothing. Turning, he looked back along the road towards the rest of the patrol. The crazy Aderaband militia sergeant was sitting, cross-legged, between the heavy stubber and searchlight of his unit’s Rhino, his comrades lounging against the sides of the top hatch, their lasrifles pointing in all directions as they gazed listlessly around them, squinting against the weather and the omnipresent summer dust. Further back still came the rest of his platoon – a single Chimera with seven men in. It was buttoned up, its turret rotated to face the way they’d come. He grimaced. 

Not even half way into this patrol and he was concerned about hitting mines on the way back into Terek.

Suddenly, there was a soft plang against the turret hatch by his head, and he jerked back, cracking his spine on the rim of the turret. A bullet! Then - another, whak, into the turret armour, and he dropped into the safety of the fighting compartment, half-shouting, half-screaming into his vox-link, “Contact! Contact! This is Sierra-Five Actual, I say again, contact! Wait one! Over!”

Things

So in the month since I last posted, I've been to Tunisia (hot, dry, amazing), and amicably split from S.

Both of which have pretty much killed my modelling and painting. I've still managed to get a few games in, and there's a new shop opened in Leamington Spa called BAM! Comics, which is very friendly and deserves your support.

As to what I have been up to, well...

I've played a few games of X-Wing, losing some and winning some, played Firefly: the game (and lost), won a game of Talisman, and joined a games club in Coventry with my friend JY (his uncle and two lecturers from his college attend, and he had no idea, which is pretty funny).

Oh, and I finally got some Germans to paint up as Division Azul troops to fight my Soviets. Except, as I discovered, 30 figures isn't quite enough to represent a full-strength Wehrmacht-organised infantry platoon from 1942. I need another 19 figures for that - another 10 man squad, a platoon CO, platoon sergeant, three runners (one with a sniper rifle), a sanitats, and a 5cm mortar team of three. Ah well, it's a start!

Anyway, here's some pictures:

 A game of X-Wing against JY, early on, before I lost both TIE bombers by being run over by the Dodonna's Pride (the big bloody thing on the right!), and before my Lambda managed to pop Wedge(?) with its heavy laser cannon. My interceptors are busy looking cool and dishing out the pain.

Arrrgh! The death of Iorek the Shamed, my Dragon Age pen-and-paper RPG character, to a Shade, on the road from the Lothering graveyard. Poor sod. He slaughtered his way through a graveyard full of demon-possessed skeletons, only to run up against this thing against whom his battle axe was not effective and his mighty armour useless. So he fought, and died, after realising he couldn't escape. Still, it means I get to make a new character! Happy days!

 Setting up a game of X-Wing at BAM! Comics (£2.50 an hour to use a table, not each, per table. Jolly reasonably priced and you can play anything you want; there was a game of Magic going on behind us and then that turned into Conquistador). Me with Obsidian Squadron and JY flailing about trying to write a list.

 The forces. Seven TIE/ln versus two X-Wings and two A-Wings.

 Setup. Two flights ('A' on the right, with the blank space behind O2, and 'B' on the left, O4-O7) against one. Prepare to die, Rebel scum!

 End turn one. Moving in for the kill.

 End turn two. At this point I've lost O4 to X-Wing fire, while the A-Wings' assault missiles both missed, doing (thankfully) no damage at all to my closely packed TIE swarm.

 End turn three. One A-Wing downed, a few bumps as my 'A' flight run into the X-Wings which are now neatly on the tail of 'B' flight who had run into them earlier on, trapping them into facing the wrong way... aiee!

 End turn four. Bloody asteroids! Amazingly I've only lost one other TIE but I don't like these odds of 5:3...

 End turn five. I'm facing the wrong way with everything, and his X-Wings... aren't. Curses!

 End turn six. Predictable results really. Now one-on-one with TIEs against barely damaged Rebel ships; there's no way out for the remains of Obsidian Squadron now!

 End turn seven. Another TIE's bitten the dust. Still three rebel ships. The end is nigh.

And that's that! Taken milliseconds before the surviving TIE disintegrates under a hail of cannon fire from the X-Wings. A well-flown victory for JY, helped enormously by bad positioning and terrible dice rolls from me.

 Rematch. I got my own back in a 150 point game immediately afterwards where I took two Black Squadron pilots, Vader, and three Interceptors led by Baron Fel. This is the point at which JY gave up, having had all his X-Wings destroyed for the loss of one TIE, and the Falcon about to go down under a hail of fire.

A game of Talisman with CH! He took a monk who became EEEEEEVILLLL really early on (and became massively strong, a base attack of 22!), and I ended up with a thief who snuck into the Valley of Fear and seized the Crown of Command despite nearly dying along the way. Yipes! I love this game and really must get some of the expansions. And paint the figures. Must paint the figures.

And a game of Firefly in progress with SB, NR, NV, and AC. AC won, damn his eyes, but at least I got to fly in the 'verse and I was very nearly the winner. Very nearly. I just misjudged things a teeny weeny bit and ended up having to sack Inara from my crew! Sad times!

I have done some other bits and pieces, like some work on an Eversor assassin, starting to repaint the Rhino from the Aderaband Home Defence Militia, and that sort of thing, but really since I got back from North Africa I've just been gaming.

In The Empire's Name

Well, I've done it. Or at least, started it. I'm condensing my 40K stuff to a single basing scheme, and from now on my battles will be fought on a single, mostly desert, world. Name and story to be determined. I know that it produces promethium in vast algae-farms, it has a religious shrine of some importance, and is also a net exporter of food and mineral-glass as well as some luxury items.

What this means is that 2nd Edition 40K is going to be my go-to system for the forseeable future, and that any army that doesn't fit with this is going... including the Darendarans. I'm going to parcel out their tanks to the Rigellians and Drokharan Taureg Legion, and the leftovers are going to be sold on.

Money raised from this will probably go towards fuelling my X-Wing addiction, which has recently seen me expand my Imperial starfighter group by two more TIE/ln fighters and a Lambda-class shuttle:

Which has brought me up to eight TIE fighters, enabling me to field Academy Squadron. I'm aiming to get a full squadron of TIEs, supported by a bomber flight, interceptor flight, and an element each of Defenders and Phantoms. I'll only need the one Advanced (because it's Darth Vader's personal ship) and one Lambda, so really I'm not far off completing my little group and starting on the Rebels (for which I currently have one X-Wing).

I played a game of X-Wing against JY today; Scenario 6 from the Lambda class shuttle pack. This is part-way through the first turn's activation phase; my Omicron Group shuttle has headed over to a stranded Imperial ship to pick up the dignitaries while Black Squadron TIEs fly escort. I ended up winning (just), with only one ship lost on each side. The Lambda looks cool and flies very differently to everything else I have.

I'll be ordering a Firespray (Slave 1 - Boba Fett's ship) and another Interceptor later today, and then I'll put a stop to the madness until at least July as I'm off to Tunisia for a week with S, my partner, so that'll be taking the rest of June's disposable income!

Lock Achieved - Weapons Hot - Fox One, Fox Two, Missiles Away

Today I received two TIE bombers in the post, which was jolly fun. Lots of little resealable bags to keep all the cardboard tokens in, and more options for my Imperial Navy starfighter force in X-Wing, which now stands at 10 little ships, which are really quite lovely pieces.

TIE Advanced-X1, as flown by Darth Vader:

TIE Interceptor:

TIE fighters:

TIE bombers:

The starfighter group so far:

Hopefully my next purchase will be less twin ion engine and a bit bigger. We shall see!

In other news, I've sold off my Armageddon Steel Legion infantry, and have put eBay auctions up for:

A Baneblade super-heavy tank of the Balurian IX Armoured - auction here.

An Imperial Knight Titan - auction here.

Captain Cato Sicarius of the Ultramarines 2nd Battle Company - auction here.

And a small Warhammer Fantasy Battle Warriors of Chaos army:

Chaos Lord and Tzeentchian Wizard - auction here.

Marauders of Slaanesh, wielding either hand weapon and shield or flails, depending on who you put in the front rank. Auction here.

Chaos Warriors. Long OOP, these are the original multi-part plastic warriors. Auction here.

Daemonettes - led by Dechala the Denied One, a now long out of production special character figure, and with a Juan Diaz Daemonette too! Auction here.

There'll be more auctions to come in the near future, too. Watch this space!

Learning By Error

Yesterday I played two games of X-Wing, primarily because yet another TIE fighter expansion and the first TIE Interceptor expansion arrived. The first was a training simulation with CH, the second was me and CH against JY's rebel scum.

I made a lot of illegal moves in the first game with Soontir Fel; I didn't realise that you couldn't do the same manoeuvre twice in a row and I did an awful lot of barrel rolling. Oops! I still lost, anyway. We played a 72 point game, with me taking Darth Vader and Soontir Fel, and CH flying six Academy Pilots. Fel got shot down and Vader was whittled down to just one hull point before flying into an asteroid. D'oh. There were some amazing examples of precision flying in that game though:

 Academy Squadron engages in some precision crashing. Here the frontmost Academy pilot has moved in from the right of picture, only for his comrade at the rear of the image to attempt to occupy quite literally exactly the same space!

 Moments later, Lord Vader, inspired by their heroic display of expert precision, himself flies alongside the hapless pilots.

The end. Darth Vader flies his TIE Advanced X1 into an asteroid to avoid the shame of being shot down by Academy cadets...

After that display of finesse from the Empire's finest, JY came over and we had a 160 point game. He took:

The Millenium Falcon flown by the Galaxy's smoothest man, Lando Calrissian, and crewed by  Luke Skywalker,
Tycho Celchu in an A-Wing with Assault Missiles
Green Squadron A-Wing with Assault Missiles
Rookie Squadron X-Wing
Rookie Squadron X-Wing

He had some other upgrades but I can't remember what they were.

I was flying:

Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, in TIE Advanced X1 with Shield Upgrade, Cluster Missiles and Marksman
Soontir Fel, Finest Pilot In The Navy, in TIE Interceptor with Push the Limit and Stealth Device

CH took:

Howlrunner in TIE
Night Beast in TIE
Winged Gundark in TIE
Obsidian Squadron TIE
Obsidian Squadron TIE
Obsidian Squadron TIE

 Deployment. Obsidian Squadron spreads out. L-R (Imperial): Fel, Vader, Howlrunner, Night Beast, Winged Gundark, O4, O5, O6. L-R (Rebel): Rookie, Rookie, Tycho, Lando, Green.

End turn 1. Fel and Vader zoom up the left flank, followed by Howlrunner, while Night Beast goes BOOM thanks to Tycho's Assault Missiles and Lando's shooting. 

End turn 2. Fel and Vader put paid to a Rookie with some help from Howlrunner, O4 gets it in the neck from the Falcon and Green Squadron, but several shields go down on the Rebel side.

End turn 3. The flights pass through each other. Winged Gundark goes down but more shields do too, particularly from the Falcon... and Green Squadron gets critically hit, preventing it from using its Assault Missiles!

 End Turn 4. The Rookie tries to get away while Tycho and Green Squadron end up out in the mix. 

End turn 5 (and end game, too, because apparently not everyone wanted to play X-Wing). Rookie got killed by Vader, who had just bumped into Tycho, and then everything else fired at the Falcon, putting it on just three Hull Points. At which point we called the game as an Imperial Victory. Hurrah!

After packing up, JY, CH, LR, JF, AC and I sat down to play Munchkin! Much stabbing in the face ensued, mostly of party members rather than monsters, before LR's High Elder Halfling Legendary Elite Cleric won by combined a filthy number of bonuses and using a Doppleganger card to defeat a collection of monsters with a total Combat Value of 43. Much fun was had by all!

 Munchkin (and ChessTime) in progress. Clockwise from the top of my head: JF, CH, AF, JY, LR.

Victory goes to LR! In the foreground you can see my Halfling Thief, riding his tiger (with plastic nun to make it immune from curses), wearing Mithril armour and equipped with a pike and foot mace. Not to mention the false beard...

A good afternoon and evening of playing games in excellent company.