Tedrion III part 3: The Airfield

See parts one and two for more information.

Tedrion City is besieged. The roads are locked down by PAC forces, the jungle too impassable for large scale escape. The troops of the Western Alliance are faced with defending to the last man, starving to death, or attempting to break out. The Alliance commanders have promised a supply drop to an airfield near the PAC lines. If it can be secured, supplies and reinforcements may be able to be dropped in to surprise the PAC attackers. It falls to a unit of Alliance regulars to attempt to secure this airfield.

 The control tower of the airfield on the right is an objective. Another objective is the backup generator over on the left.

 The airfield with it's four landing pads that needs to be secured.

 The Alliance mech fires on the advancing PAC mech dealing severe damage to its armour. First blood in this engagement is drawn.

 Further engagements around the generator. The fighting on the left flank is getting heavier and drawing in more of the Alliance mecha and tanks.

 Alliance infantry and armour advance on the airfield, setting up a battle line to wait for their mecha to clean up at the generator.

 More heavy fighting at the generator leads to the destruction of the PAC mech, blowing to pieces and damaging the generator.

 Advancing up the central road, a PAC tank falls under heavy fire from Alliance armour. The fighting over the generator is heating up and draws more armour from the Alliance in, leaving the infantry heavy battle line to go on the defensive.

Unfortunately for the Alliance, some PAC mecha advance along their flank and begin rolling it up, shattering dug in infantry and destroying armour. The remaining units retreat across the road towards the generator where the Alliance mecha and armour have mauled the PAC attackers.

Exhausted from the fighting each side begins digging in on opposite sides of the road to await reinforcements. If they come.

This is the second game of Horizon Wars I have ever played against an adult human. It was great fun, although I found it difficult to stick to the rules entirely as I am used to fudging things to help the narrative of the battle when I play solo.

I played my brother who is visiting from the States and he had been interested in trying my 6mm sci fi wargaming. It was a success and hopefully a seed has been planted.

I didn't take as many photos as normal because it seemed like a faff interrupting the game.

Horizon Wars AAR: Clash on Neu Europa part 1.

Hidden in the jungles of Neu Europa lies a research centre. The locals know it exists, but also know that one doesn't go wandering in the jungle there. The colonization efforts on Neu Europa were spearheaded by HySys GMBH, and it lies in a system that is contested by the UCS and the Collective of Systems, which can lead to interesting situations.

A distress signal is emitted. It is picked up by the both the UCS and the Collective. Each government wants to gain a foothold in this system so send forces to investigate.

The Collective sent a rapid mech strike team. Two P3 mechs (CHQ, M3, F5, A5, D4, and M3, F7, A5, D2) 3 P1 mechs (M3, F4, A2, D2) and 2 light infantry. They would be advancing from the North, hoping to secure the research facility before the UCS can arrive.

UCS forces consist of 5 elements of heavy infantry and 3 heavy tanks. The tanks can move faster, but do not want to get too far ahead of the infantry. They will advance up the road from the West, hoping to stop the Collective securing the facility.

After advancing, the beast mech takes the opportunity to fire on an advancing tank. Shots explode around the tank, but nothing hits true. All buttoned up inside, the commander orders his crew to return fire.

Returning fire the gunner manages to score a direct hit, severely damaging the defense capabilities of the mech. Lucky shot, or experienced crew?

Fire rains in on the advancing infantry, who should have probably taken better cover. Learning from their mistake, they scurry off the road and decide to sneak up the right flank, but not before first squad take some casualties.

Commander Rowner advances and opens fire on the flanking Collective mechs doing critical damage to the movement servos of the lead mech.

The Collective are beginning to dig in and fortify their defense of the research facility. The UCS force is slowly advancing, picking away at the defenders.

The flanking mech tries to suppress the advancing infantry, and manages to inflict some casualties, but nothing they can't bounce back from.

In fact, they bounce back straight away, chipping away at the armour of the mech. The mechs need to lay down more fire to disrupt this advance!

Unfortunately for the mechs the UCS armour begin to advance to blast away at them with their pulse cannon. Fire is exchanged but the Collective mechs definitely get the worst of the interaction.

In fact, with one of the mechs blowing apart into a cloud of gases, scrap and body parts the lead mech begins a furious radio exchange to decide whether they should carry on their flanking maneuver.

Before a decision can even be made Commander Rowner advances and earns his crew another kill ring around their cannon. Today is turning out to be a walk in the park for the UCS armour. Command will be pleased.

Squad IV take cover in the jungle foliage as the squad garrisoned in the building open fire. They suffer some casualties, but are still combat effective.

Second squad covers their buddies, in the hope to provide a distraction. Well they manage, and absolutely obliterate the Collective infantry in the building.

The Collective are worried and need to rethink their game plan. The commander sends out orders to fight to the glorious death and delay the UCS long enough to allow Collective reinforcements to arrive.

UCS armour on the right flank exchanges fire with the beast mech.

The last remaining flanking mech prepares for a valiant last stand, planning to take as many of the infidel with him as possible.

Intense firefighting occurs, but he holds fast, bogging down the left flank of the UCS forces.

Seizing the initiative, the beast opens fire on the advancing infantry, almost entirely destroying them. The few survivors hug the ground and hope for a chance to retaliate...or just survive the battle.

Praising God the driver of the last mech dies under a hail of glorious fire. In his final thoughts he hopes to be met in the afterlife by his ancestors, praising his glorious death defending the faith.

With the flanking mech destroyed the armour can advance up and attempt to destroy the beast. Damage is done to the leg servos, but nothing too devastating.

Armour advances up the right to lay the command mech under fire. Damage is done, but not much. These mechs are hard to take down!

Dug in infantry exchange fire. Collective troops taking the worst of the fire and break, fleeing the battlefield.

The last stand of the beast as he is slowly whittled down, giving as good as he gets, but not quite managing to destroy anything.

Surrounded, the commander weighs his options. Today is not the day to meet his ancestors. Maybe he can be allowed to live on a UCS backwater planet, and keep out of the way? His ancestors will understand...he hopes.

The UCS set about securing the research facility and investigating what happened. Why the distress call? Where are the research staff, or even HySys security forces?

Trees. Finally some trees.

One can tell from this flurry of activity that I have had a productive couple of days with the hobby. Today I am not feeling amazing and so my wife and daughter left to enjoy the sun, while I kept myself in close distance to...useful facilities.

I have been into models and wargaming for a long time. I am approaching the four year mark of this blog, with a slow increase in actually playing games. Yet I have never had trees. Never ever. They are either too expensive, too fragile or too messy to make. After years of reading, researching, trying to find the best recipe for making tree terrain, I ended up on Ebay buying some super cheap trees from China. How bad could they be? Right?

Bad. They were smaller than I imagined, and as soon as I pulled one out of the bag they began shedding. They really are awful. BUT: What should I expect for £2.47 or something for 40 odd trees?

I gathered my remaining CDs and some round MDF bases that have been lying around for 2 years (originally intended for WW2 cannon) and may aswell be used, grabbed some Green Stuff and got to work. My original plan for making removable trees failed. I settled with attaching them with the knowledge that these will need to be replaced at some point.

I also flocked my jungle stands and then sprayed the whole shebang with my Army Painter matt spray. Flock and leaves are secure. Vacuum packaging terrain not shiny anymore.

Jungle Foliage and other bits

I have been able to have hobby time every evening for the past week. It is a brilliant feeling. I managed to play a game of Starport Scum (review is coming), have primed a number of small mecha/powered armour suits, and took the plunge and made some foliage stands.

Below we can see my seven alien planet jungle stands. I will likely need many more of them, but these were more of an experiment than anything. I will probably still flock them before I call them finished. They are based on CDs, and the plants are aquarium plants ordered on ebay years ago. It was simply a case of taking the aquarium plants apart to varying degrees, smooshing up some Green Stuff (bought six years ago for customizing Star Wars Miniatures) that I have not used very much at all, wrapping a blob around the bottom end of the plant and putting it on the CD. Once dry I textured the base with Vallejo base texture, painted and drybrushed.

 You can also see my yellow resin buildings, I think from Demonscape on ebay. I ordered them back before Christmas to see what they would be like. You can also see a small field in the centre, and experimental bar furnishings made from pennies, the edge of Pringles lids, and a table made of a square of card and a blob of Green Stuff.

The roads/urban base areas are linoleum tiles bought from Poundland: 4 for £1. For the road sections I cut the tiles, conveniently along the pattern, removed the adhesive protection, sprayed the sticky side black, then drybrushed white. It has a small hexagonal pattern. The large square sections, I just sprayed the patterned side and drybrushed white. I might take some more pictures for another blog entry.

Coming up on this blog: some more P1/P2 mecha that are actually 10mm Power Armour from Ironwind Miniatures, I think. This was inspired by the Delta Vector blog.

I also intend to create more jungle stands, some more hills, and work out how to make actual terrain boards/mats that are easy to store.

The conclusion of the Rhoro Tharik story will be coming soon, as will other adventures, a Starport Scum review, and possibly some Horizon Wars action, as I have found (through this blog) someone to actually play with.