Starport Scum: Rhoro Tharik's first bounty.

Rhoro Tharik had had enough. Scraping a living smuggling, getting just enough to keep his ship in the sky was not how he imagined life after the corps. When approached by an old friend about collecting a bounty he jumped at the chance. Life as a bounty hunter could be a lot more dangerous than life as a smuggler, but the job seemed simple enough. A Collective sniper had been found attempting to infiltrate a Quansec mining operation and was being held on the orbital platform above the 3rd planet of the Helveka system, awaiting transport.

The Helveka system is not the most important of places and the orbital platform likely only had a basic group of security operatives, although they would probably be well armed. Rhoro and his two partners Jarek O'Neil and Flint Church (both long time smugglers) arrive at the orbital platform.

For this first game I put together my characters:

Rhoro Tharik

Traits: Lucky: 3+ to succeed on special actions.

           Veteran: +1D6 on ranged attacks.

Weapon: Raptor Pistol: +1D6  under 12 inches.

Body Armour: 2D6 saving roll.

Jarek O'Neil

Traits: Brawler, +1D6 on brawls

           Never Back Down, Does not back off in brawls.

Weapon: Shotgun/Rifle combi: +1D6 under 12 inches, knock targets back 2 inches if within 12 inches

Body Armour: 2D6 saving roll.

Flint Church

Traits: Tough SOB, ignore the first hit of the turn.

            Fast, add 1 inch to all movement.

Weapon: Assault Shotgun, -1D6 over 12 inches, +1D6 under 12 inches, roll hits for all enemy within 2 inches of target.

Body Armour: 2D6 saving roll.

They would be up against a squad of goons each with a 2D6 body armour saving roll. They are led by their sergeant, and Ace.

Trait: Inspiring Leader: -1 to fear score.

Weapon: Assault Shotgun: +1D6 under 12 inches, -1D6 over 12 inches, roll hits for all enemy within 2 inches of target.

Rhoro in his blue armour, flanked by Jarek on his right and Flint on his left (red rim).

The Quansec security forces guarding their prisoner.

The Orbital Platform, or the level that matters. It was obvious the prisoner would be kept here as this level was pretty deserted.

The Quansec guards hear the arrival and move out to check on what is happening. The random 1D6 of movement was interesting and meant that some moved further than I needed and others moved very cautiously. Unfortunately for them Rhoro and Jarek came out guns blazing, immediately dispatching one of the hapless guards.

Not wanting to be out-done, Flint runs out into the open firing his shotgun with the skill he often shows. Unscathed, the leading guard looks at his armour, wondering how he got so lucky, turning around to the sergeant he stops dead. He had never seen so many holes in a person before...

The horrible death would count against a morale roll next turn.

The Quansec guards just pass the morale test, but are now rattled. One more fail and they will give up the fight and scatter if possible. This isn't helped by Flint getting the initiative and charging in firing. Miraculously the guard who survived his last assault survives unscathed again. Not such good luck for his partner who goes down in a pool of blood, wondering how this day had turned out so bad.

Rhoro runs up behind, firing his Raptor at the guard, pinning him.

One of the Quansec guards manages to pin Jarek down from across the platform. Jarek, embarrassed scampers into cover and keeps his head down.

Quansec guards manage to pass their morale check this round, but only to get unloaded on by Rhoro, who pins the sneaky guard who was trying to flank them.

Always one to want to get close and personal, Flint charges into that guard who had escaped his shells and dispatches him with a point blank shot (brawling, but the shot seems cooler). This horrible death would be the undoing of the Quansec forces.

Hoping to play an important part, Jarek runs up and shoots the last guard out in the open, killing him. There were just two guards left, and they were at breaking point. The turn ended and the guards broke, fleeing.

With the sniper rescued, their mission was over. Now to collect the bounty.

"Wait, I don't want to return to my unit. I have...seen things...things that need to be reported", said the Sniper.

"What kind of things?" asked Rhoro.

"I will fill you in on the way out of this system."

I found these rules to be fast (40 minute game) and have a good narrative way about them. I was never worried for my heroes, but there is enough danger to make it interesting. The Goons went down very quickly, although they did have some survivability because they were wearing body armour.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Rhoro's story.

Terrain and News

Having now played 3 basic games of Horizon Wars, it feels great to be familiar with the basics. My intention is now to create some new narratives in my universe. In order to make those battles more interesting, I had a burst of finishing terrain over the weekend.

Below are some colony structures, with room to improve if inspiration strikes me.

I have also re-based a few of my figures who were on these tiny wooden bases. They are now all on magnetic coins for weight and storage. These single based figures will be used for other games. I want to try out Starport Scum. I want to finally use Clash on the Fringe or 50 Parsecs from Home.

Research station AD16. The final engagement on Adonis.

The military wing of Quansec has created its own ideas regarding command structure. The incursion onto Adonis had been led by Sector Commander Johnson. He was a company suit who had been moved over and trained by former military experts. Unfortunately bad intelligence had led the Quansec board to grossly underestimate the strength of the HySys forces stationed on Adonis. A scouting mission had, however, uncovered what was most likely to be the entire reason the Board had sent him here. Ordering the most combat effective units to converge at Research station AD16, Johnson hoped to capture it and discover why HySys had loaded the planet militarily.

Reports were coming in to fleet that a HySys attack group was approaching the system, with enough fire power to be able to disperse the Quansec logistics fleet. The troops on the ground did not have long to take the facility and investigate. At the end of each turn a dice would be rolled. On a score of 11/12, the Quansec forces would need to break off the engagement.

P3 CHQ mech, 2 P1 light mechs, 3 LT Cav, 2 HY Arty, 2 LT Inf.

2 P2 Mechs, 3 HY Cav, 3 HY Inf.

Johnson wanted his infantry and artillery to draw fire in the centre while his mechs and cavalry flank the enemy. HySys positioned themselves in cover, making themselves hard to hit.

First blood. Quansec cavalry advance, but take hits from the heavy cavalry hidden behind the generator.

The first turn ended with a few exchanges of fire, but no real casualties being taken. The HySys fleet has not yet arrived, and is not near enough to require a withdrawal.

Artillery barrages taking little effect. It was lovely rolling 7 firing dice, but they were just too far away to have much effect on the heavy cavalry with their A5. Giving the P3 mech the Guide Fire ability was nice, and helped the artillery be effective later.

 Getting caught in the open by heavy cavalry, the first casualty of the engagement happened.

HySys CHQ mech taking pot shots ad the Quansec CHQ. Damage being done to the legs and armour, but that mech is an absolute beast.

The centre is bogging down. Heavy cavalry and dug in infantry are hard to budge, and they keep pecking away at the attackers. Johnson decides to send his infantry up the right flank, supporting the light mechs. This decision would prove to be a bad one.

Mechs charging up the flank. Brave lads driving these new machines, testing out their combat capabilities.

Heavy cavalry that had been waiting in the read appears to lay down fire, damaging the leading mech, but not significantly. The driver checks and still has all capabilities.

End of turn 2 and the fleet is still not danger close.

Closer to the enemy, a barrage of rockets rips into and destroys the heavy cavalry unit holding the centre. At last some good news for Quansec.

Wanting to test the capabilities of his mech, one of the drivers charges down a unit of infantry, unloading it's auto cannon. Men fall, bits of armour fly everywhere and the infantry unit is down. Survivors can be found nowhere. This hero mech.

In a cruel twist of fate, the heavy infantry garrisoning the forward building unload on the mech, achieving two critical hits, directly smashing through the cockpit area, killing the driver immediately.

With his second attack, the Gods are with him as he also completely destroys the other mech. The Quansec flank falters and the supporting infantry look at eachother, wondering whether to push on.

The end of the third turn heralds the imminent arrival of the HySys fleet, making it unsafe for the Quansec forces to remain in the system. The attack is rather anticlimactically called off. The Board will need to rethink how to get the information about what is hidden on Adonis.

The game ended rather too soon for my liking, but I put that stupid random ending condition in there as a part of the scenario. I will probably leave it out next time. The random hit assignment stolen from Lasers and Broadswords worked nicely though.

Devastated.

I generally only post life milestones and hobby related things here, so I suppose this vaguely could be counted under the first title. Today is the day we, as a nation put out middle finger up to the rest of the world. I am proud to stand with the other 48% of people who voted to not put that finger up and remain a country of love and acceptance.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it does not mean I have to agree with it, or even respect it. I shall, however, tolerate it as it exists and everyone has a right to have one.

I wish us all luck on this truly sad day, and hope we, as a continent can pick ourselves back up and move on as together as possible.

At last. I have finished some miniatures. Probably my first in two years.

UCS (United Commonwealth of Systems) forces (although I might make the infantry belong to someone else because they are my favourite). These are the government forces. The UCS was originally formed by the Original Colonies to throw off the shackles of old Earth governments. Life on the colonies gave humanity a chance for a fresh start, to put aside their old prejudices and differences be it race, religion, creed. They successfully did this, and the power of Earth diminished, being left behind as a backwards world that while economically important, was not a key player in interstellar politics.

As time went on the UCS grew, and it was decided that their prejudice-free way of doing things should be "encouraged" on all of the colonies. This brought them into conflict with newer colonies who did not want to be under the rule of any interstellar government. It also leads to the occasional clash with the mega-corporations who have their own military wings and often govern clusters of their own colonies.

GZG mechs and infantry. 

Above are the New Charon colonial militia. Equipped with outdated, yet reliable CSMP (Close Support Missile Platform) walkers, they are employed to keep peace and prevent incursion from government or corporate forces. However, if faced with a full scale invasion they would be swept away. New Charon is a colony established and governed by the Freehold, a group of quasi-religious humans who were looking to escape the bureaucracy and in-fighting of the UCS (United Commonwealth of Systems).

Again, these are Quansec Security forces. They are a part of the military wing of the North American mega-corporation who are often sent to pacify colonies and take possession of other economically viable colonies. They are generally well equipped with state of the are body armour and some new highly classified mechs. These mechs are so new and classified that their name is unknown, although their pilots have taken to calling them Jackals.

Hysys GMBH forces. Equipping themselves with large Zweibeinwaffensystem walkers (Zweibeins), their rapid response forces are designed to act as a deterrent against encroachment on Hysys colonies, or other interests.

These large bipedal mechs are designed to punch a large hole in enemy lines. They are, however, very cost prohibitive and you will likely only find them in heavily populated, key systems. These two are Hysys designs, but are painted in the colours of the Collective. The Collective is a large group of systems who are in the process of trying to throw off the rule of the UCS. Unfortunately for the citizens of these colonies, the Collective is run by religious extremists, and as such life is not much better, and depending on the zealousness of the local leaders can be much, much worse than life under the bureaucratic juggernaut of the secular UCS.

Flocked and loaded. My 6mm forces finally look finished.

So tonight I managed to put static grass on all of my finished miniatures, EM4 mechs included. The lighting is not great, so I will probably take better photos later, but wanted something to show for my hard work.

Infantry reinforcements and some P1 mechs.

I managed to have a painting session tonight, as my GZG order arrived earlier this week. I managed to base them and then prime them this morning before running some errands and going kayaking. My wife went to bed exhausted leaving me with time to paint and watch the football. One of these things was not disappointing. Both turned out how I expected, though.

I need to wash them, and am looking to get a larger variety of Citadel "shades" to give some more variety. The green infantry also need a few more details to be painted on them like the cloaks, and some backpacks.

GZG Hound Dog walkers, and I can't remember what infantry this is.

GZG walkers from their 2mm range. This is the four pack. More colour needed.

These were also GZG walkers in their 2mm range. The infantry are also GZG, but I can't remember which ones.

Two of my EM4 mechs.

Brigade Models Pacific Federation infantry. More painting needed.

The Galaxy evolves

I have been trying to find a way to create a galaxy map for the universe in which my battles are taking place. After much fruitless searching, looking for programmes that actually allow you to greate a galaxy by typing a bunch of numbers and possibly code in, I gave up. But today on Reddit in /r/worldbuilding I found another thread about creating galaxy maps. One comment mentioned a programme called Sketch Up, which comes with a free version. I downloaded it and have spent a little while experimenting with drawing out some systems. I am pretty excited about it so far.

I doubt I will make a universe all in one, but I think creating it as I create the story will be how I go. That being said, tomorrow I might just sit for a few hours and create something amazing. 

Armour for Horizon Wars

I have finally found the time to give my mechs a dark wash (Citadel Nuln Oil). I then thought, what the hell, and decided to open up my Vallejo sand colour to dry brush to bring out more detail and give a more weathered look. I am pleased with the results, although there are a few areas where I didn't manage to wipe enough paint off the brush. 

I have also had the chance to paint up my little pile of armour from both Brigade and Ground Zero Games. 

Above we see Neo-Soviet Bizon tanks. Some of them came with side skirts, some didn't. Others have fuel tanks on the back. I painted them a light green, then added some camouflage patterns, washed with Nuln Oil and then drybrushed with sand. Again, I was quite heavy handed in places, but am pleased with the results. I might add some flock to the bases.

Above we see some Pacific Federation hover tanks, and some GZG vehicles, the name of which I cannot remember. Their colour scheme is heavily inspired (read stolen) from the Horizon Wars rule book, and then too heavily dry brushed.

These are GZG hover APCs. I just formed a little hill with Green Stuff then squashed the vehicle onto it. Does not give a huge idea that they are hovering, but I don't really care at this point. I am learning. They are actually a dark green with some brown patches, but appear much darker.

Finally we have my Brigade Eurofed vehicles. These are light cavalary and light artillery probably. I just dry brushed them. It annoys me that they are on non-circular bases, but not enough to want to change them.