The Defense of New Charon pt. 5

 I managed to get off my butt and play a spontaneous game the other night. It was quick, a little bit lame, half hearted by myself, and stopped when I started paying more attention to the TV show "This Is Us", that my wife was watching, and I was kind of half keeping up with. Great show so far (2 episodes in). 

New Charon Militia:
P2 Mech HQ Unit
P2 Mech - heavy hitters
P3 Heavy cavalry
P1 Light infantry x5

NCU
P2 Mech HQ unit
P2 Mech
P2 Light cavalry
P2 Light cavalry
P1 Light infantry x4

A frontier on a frontier. That is how Natalya Phillips would describe this place. New Charon was meant to be an escape, a fresh start for so many. It was out of the way enough to avoid UCS attention, and for those who wanted to avoid even the centralisation of a few settlements coming together to govern each other it was possible to pack up and drive off into the sunset, find somewhere, irrigate, grow, harvest and live a simple life. The handful of locals left in this community called it Sprucewald, but did a landing pad and a few prefabs really need a name? 

As part of the ongoing hunt for the mysterious invaders, Natalya's job was to rest here, refit and await resupply. Her militia were weary of the seemingly endless skirmishes, wary that there was no end in sight, and hoping to be taken off the line (if it could really be called a line). 

Suddenly shells begin bouncing off a prefab. The sentries within jump on the comms back to Natalya. 

"We need you up at this end, incoming fire".

Natalya responds, ordering all of her militia up to the edge of the settlement to return fire. 

An exchange of fire between the sentries and the enemy vehicle causes a little damage and a casualty, but nothing too serious.

Dunn Harrison, prowling on the left flank sends HEAT rounds punching into another enemy vehicle, smashing through the armour, damaging important components.

The enemy responds by trying to get out of sight and close the gap to make their armour piercing chain guns more effective. Infantry rushes forward in an attempt to flank Sprucewald and take the militia in a wicked crossfire.

The militiamen garrisoning the prefab keep the enemy armour engaged in long range sniping, shells bouncing off of the outer walls. They just need to keep them distracted until Natalya and the rest appear.

Natalya and some more footmen arrive, Natalya charging into the village to support the infantry, while the footmen move up to support Dunn.

Dunn exchanges fire with the advancing infantry, taking some damage to his vehicle, but manages to lay down enough HE to scatter an enemy squad.

Natalya lets rip with her CSMP, sending off rockets that tear the enemy vehicle to pieces. No-one was seen leaving the wreckage. At this point the remaining enemy withdraw. This short, sharp skirmish just another in the seemingly endless short, sharp skirmishes taking place out beyond the Reaches. Another firefight, another report for Natalya to write up and send off to Command. Just what she needed on a Tuesday.

Not the most exciting game. It was more about having an evening where I wasn't playing World of Tanks Blitz and didn't feel like painting. This was a fun game to put together, but I want to work harder on making better scenarios.

The Defense of New Charon pt. 4.

I haven't played a game of Horizon Wars in over a year, similarly I haven't played in the New Charon campaign in over a year. Time to get back into it. I had avoided it because my Sci Fi miniatures took some damage in the summer of 2019 from the kids who used them during Activities Week.

I have two forces of 14 Presence. 

Neo Christian Union

2Pt Command Mech with the "Short" range upgrade, which removes 6 from the range to target.

3Pt Heavy Cav. x2 I used Command Resources to upgrade the D stat from 1 to 2. (the dice you roll to attempt to cancel incoming fire)

2Pt Light Cav.

1Pt Light Infantry x4

New Charon Militia

2Pt Command Mech

2Pt mechs x2

3Pt Heavy Cav. I used Command Resources to upgrade the D from 1 to 2, A from 5 to 6 and F from 5 to 6. It is a beast.

1Pt Light Infantry x5

I played a few things possibly wrong.

1. Not sure if I am allowed to spend Command Resources on multiple things on the same vehicle.

2. When units entered the board from reserves, I think you are meant to spend an action getting them on there, but I didn't.

It had been a slog. Months and months of mopping up pockets of resistance. Natalya Phillips was sick of it. These seemingly pointless engagements were wearing on the soul. Too many friends gone. Hoping for an end to this conflict, Phillips had been tasked with another mopping up operation. The big foreheads were still trying to work out who these people were, and what they wanted. 

A small force of invaders were holding a village beyond the Reaches. Phillips' job was to get in and smash them before they had a chance to regroup and push closer to the sector capitol.

Advancing in order to flank the village, the heavily upgraded militia tank came under some ineffective fire from the infantry garrisoned in the buildings. 

Having shown themselves, Natalya in her CSMP and some militamen opened fire, but the protection of the hab held out enough. Garrisoning a building had proved a good tactical move.

After taking some fire, the infantry returned fire to great effect, catching them in the open... 

...causing them to break and run. Natalya found herself holding the flank on her own. 

"Get more support up here!" Natalya yelled down the comms.

The NCU command mech opened fire at Natalya, but was unable to cause any damage, thankfully.

At this point I decided that I would re-set the activation dice at the end of each round. So the NCM have all their actions, then I give them their dice back to enable them to react. This is probably the correct way of doing it anyway.

Natalya advanced up to a thicket of trees and opened fire on the same infantry. A hail of rocket fire launched across the open ground...

...tearing the infantry unit apart. 

So far I have rolled a lot of critical hits. If you roll a natural 12 then the attacker gets to place the damage. Light infantry have an A value of 1, when it hits 0 the unit is destroyed. Thus, rolling a critical hit against light infantry is an instant kill.

Advancing up the flank, Malcolm Kennett opened fire on the other enemy infantry squad. Rockets smashed the building, and tore holes in the squad to the point where they broke.

Militia reinforcements arrive to help support Natalya and to cover the centre.

"Open up on the village," ordered Natalya to Dunn Harrison, tank commander. Dunn responded by putting a couple of rounds through the central building. The collapse killed enough soldiers to make that squad combat ineffective. 

Just some perspective, this is the dice. Tank rolled enough for two hits. the three 12s meant the infantry had to roll three 12s with four dice to save themselves. Amazingly they managed to roll two of them. But not enough. 

A long shot, but a good one. The NCU commander fired at Kennett's mech, damaging the legs again. 

"When am I going to catch a break? Back off to the quartermasters when this is all over," said Kennett to no-one in particular.

Armoured reinforcements arrived and began pounding at Dunn and his crew. He took a few hits, some minor damage to the tracks, but nothing too serious.

"We need to press the attack," called Natalya over the comms, and began directing her forces forwards.

In game terms, we have finished turn two. The defenders lose if the turn ends with them having two or fewer combat effective units on table. The defenders win if they have four or more, whose Presence is worth double that of their advanced force. They need 10 on table to win.

Natalya and the infantry exchange fire with the command mech, seriously damaging it, immobilizing it even. But it could still fire, and was going to pose a threat to that flank until it could be completely obliterated. 

Dunn and Kennett opened fire on the enemy armour, causing significant damage, but not doing enough to kill it outright. It could still fight on.

At this point, the militia have ended their side of turn 3. The NCU are getting reinforcements that will bring their total presence on board to 11, meaning they will technically win the engagement unless the militia can kill 2 presence worth of units. It felt a bit gamey. 

Dunn reacted to the NCU armour manuvering. His shot rang true but only caused minor damage again.

In an exchange of fire, Dunn found himself having to button up. "Sir, things aren't going so well here," he reported back to Natalya. 

The NCU armour then rounded the rocky outcrop and opened fire on Kennett, although caused no damage. Kennett would live to fight another day, although his mech would need some work again.

The NCU commander, unable to move, took fire and fired upon Natalya. This exchange did little, but was successful in holding up the militia attack even further.

NCU reinforcements entered the fray to further delay the militia advance. Natalya had to call for further reinforcements and needed to order her supporting infantry to dig in in a defensive line and wait. 

"We will hold them here, and wait it out," she ordered. "Central is sending down some heavier guns to help us dislodge this lot."

 

And this is how it ended. I mean, the NCU took more casualties. But the militia didn't advance quickly enough nor do enough damage. I was sad not to get the chance to use my smoke plumes that seem often attached to StuG IIIs. I look forward to playing again. Although I will admit, having played Battlegroup, I miss the idea of pinning units, as opposed to "hit point" sort of systems. Unless I further abstract what the stats of units are while making the narrative up?

See you next time.

Western Alliance and Mercenaries on the way.

Finished up some regular Western Alliance forces to battle it out with the PAC.

Brigade Models generic infantry; Heroics and Ros Challenger IIs (one with a Ground Zero Games gun on it); Heroics and Ros Australian APCs (the name of which escapes me).

A rag-tag band of mercenaries, originally meant to be the Crimson Skulls. I got bored of giving them all red helmets though so might move away from that.

An assortment of Ground Zero Games infantry.

Below we see my first experiment with hedges in 6mm. Lolly sticks. Clump foliage mixed in with PVA glue and stuck to the sticks. It was a messy, annoying process, and it completely did not feel like the foliage would stay stuck. However, when checking in the morning the whole thing had solidified pretty well. Just need to paint the lolly sticks then.

Sunspoke Security and Rebasing

I have some updates.

The Sunspoke Mining Company has a system where it transplants an entire semi self-sustaining colony onto a planet in order to save costs with having to deliver as many supplies across the vast expanse. Sometimes, however, the venture can prove unsuccessful and the company pulls out, taking with it as many people as want to go. 

These people are members of Sunspoke security, or were until the company pulled off this rock. They decided to remain to help provide law enforcement to the other settlers who decided to remain. Many of those settlers were farmers, who provided the nourishment element of the self sustaining colony. 

Below are other miniatures who I have spent the weekend re-basing. I used a cheap craft paint from The Works, I guess it is beige. I then used Agrax Earth wash quite heavily and as it stands I am very pleased with them. They are generic enough that they will fit in many settings, and don't just look like I couldn't be bothered to finish painting after texturing the base.

I have re-based every single individually based 6mm Sci Fi miniature that I own, and have also begun painting a lot of civilians, some "jedi" type figures, and some individually based New Vesta Security.

Pleased to be getting back on track.

UCS Marines and NVD Forces flocked and loaded.

What a difference some static grass makes. I love these now and cannot wait to get them to table. Then next challenge will be to base up and paint some individual infantry for use with Starport Scum.

Seven infantry elements of the UCS Marine corps. These guys are the highest trained infantry in the Commonwealth, and possibly in known space.

Colonial Defence Force.

There exist some solar systems where colonization has taken a firm hold. If you are lucky enough to have the financial backing and find a system with a couple of planets in the Goldilocks zone, you stood a chance at finding your colonies booming due to resource trade, tourism, or even wealthy expats wanting to live in luxury and being willing to pay for it.

Here are some photographs of squads of the New Vesta Defence Force. I will be flocking the bases this week and will post pictures when done. New Vesta is a small group of moderately wealthy independent colonies who have found that they can support themselves very well and have no need for outside trade. This trade still happens, but if necessary they can cut themselves off from the surrounding systems.

The populations range from the mega-rich to the agrarian workers. Defence forces are necessary to keep peace and show that these colonies are not to be messed with. 

I have also finally finished the command stand for my UCS Marine detachment. Still needs to be flocked though.

CinC Solar Empire Marines Miniatures

 I ordered a selection of CinC Solar Empire Marines miniatures, and others from that range. Unfortunately on their website they don't have pictures of all the miniatures so a couple of the packets were a bit of a gamble. I am now posting photos of the miniatures so they are available.

The first photo is the Command strip. You will get these with most packets of actual Solar Empire Marines. They are awesome.






These are the three poses of riflemen in the standard infantry pack. 15 of each and some commanders. 51 miniatures in total. Lovely.











SEM Light Infantry Support Weapons. Fantastic miniatures, with various weapons. Also include some commanders.

 SEM 43 Marines in action packet 2. There are some great poses here, but there was no picture online. This pack has 51 miniatures and quite a lot of them are the kneeling pose.

 Civilians. These are brilliant. I have a couple of gunslingers and random people to populate my worlds. I may base a few of these together to make refugee stands for Horizon Wars.

 Imperial Guard. Inspired by the Star Wars Legacy comics? Either way, useful for me. None of these will be based for Horizon Wars, these are all Starport Scum.

 I feel like the militia are who I was mostly interested in getting. These support weapons will be very nice.

And finally the milita. Good for security in planetary orbital platforms, or just generally anywhere.