Topics

16

News and Rumors / MOVED: Battlestar Galactica - Starship Battles rulebook now available

« on: December 05, 2018, 03:49:18 pm »

This topic has been moved to Battlestar Galactica - Starship Battles.

http://www.manbattlestations.com/forum/index.php?topic=2373.0

17

General Discussion / Modern Chinese Maritime Forces

« on: October 28, 2018, 06:35:39 pm »

Just saw this over on Wargames Vault:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/254519/Modern-Chinese-Maritime-Forces

18

Battlestar Galactica - Starship Battles / Battlestar Galactica - Starship Battles rulebook now available

« on: October 15, 2018, 10:48:47 pm »

Ares Games has just released the rulebook for their upcoming BSG-themed game. The rules are a free download from their site.

http://www.aresgames.eu/22072

So Say We All!

19

News and Rumors / Shadows in the Void ruleset

« on: September 29, 2018, 10:21:58 pm »

In case you haven't seen this, Assault Publishing is giving away free digital copies of their "Shadows in the Void" starfighter combat rules. Go to this link if you're interested!

http://assaultpublishing.com/

20

Space Naval Games / X-Wing Scenario: The Great Escape

« on: September 23, 2018, 10:09:59 pm »

Sorry for the grandiose title, I couldn't think of a better one for this scenario.

I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a couple years. What if you loaded up the Millenium Falcon with all the upgrades you could fit, and try to get from one side of the board to the other?

Forum member Stephan and I sat down the other day to answer that question. I ran the YT-1300 with the Millenium Falcon title card, Han as the pilot, and Chewie and Luke in the two crew slots. I equipped the Falcon with Assault Missiles and the "Outmaneuver" pilot upgrade (reduce your target's agility by one if you're outside their firing arc when you shoot at them), and I added a couple of the generic upgrade cards--one to add one shield and I can't recall the other (it didn't do much for me in the game anyway). This totaled up to about 80 points.

As the Imperial player, Stephan took 175 points of ships and divided that up into three squads. I told him to generally keep the higher-ranked pilots in reserve. Stephan would deploye one three-ship squadron at the beginning of the game, and the other two would be deployed after the Falcon crossed a specified line on the board. The initial squadron deployed even with with Falcon but off to one side of the board; subsequent squadrons would deploy in range one of the board edge but not within shooting range of the Falcon.

The scenario: Han, Chewie, and Luke got into an Imperial entanglement and had to make a hasty exit off the planet. The Imperials were giving chase, trying to stop the Falcon before it could get far enough away from the planet to engage the jump drive. Here's the initial set-up:



This was a 6x4' board. The Falcon had to fly lengthwise up the board to get to the jump point. We scattered some asteroids and satellites on the board for cover. The star destroyer at the other end was purely for aesthetics. 

As the Rebel player, I spent a LOT of time trying to avoid getting shot at. The Falcon had 6 shields (thanks to the upgrade) and 8 hull points, but as I realized quickly those would go pretty quickly if I let all three Imperial ships line up shots in every turn. So, I tried very hard in each turn to have no more than two Imperials ships able to shoot at me. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn't. Thankfully, with 360-degree firing arcs, I could focus more on evading than lining up shots.



I did make a big loop right at the beginning--hard to explain, it was a series of tactical choices that in hindsight I probably shouldn't have made--so I didn't make as much forward progress in the first few turns that I should have. However, the Falcon can turn pretty tightly for a ship that size, and my maneuvers did cause Stephan's ships to collide quite frequently, robbing them of the chance to take their free actions.



I also tried, where possible, to ram the Imperial starfighters to reduce the amount of incoming fire. This unfortunately prevented me from taking my free actions too, but I figured it was worth it.

Long story short...the Falcon didn't make it. I had reduced the original squad down to one ship, but then the second squad deployed and I was down to just a couple of hull points, and they took me out in short order. This picture shows how far up the board I got:





Another four turns and I might have been able to get off the board.

Overall, this was a fun scenario! I shouldn't have wasted so much time at the beginning, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I think it is possible for the Falcon to escape in this scenario, but it would take some dang good flying. I'm glad I finally got the scenario on the table to see how it would go. I'm not a big fan of using the larger-based ships in normal combat, but I think they're good for scenarios like this.

Stephan, please chime in with anything I missed.

Thanks for reading!

21

DeepWars / The Blood Reef Incursion

« on: April 15, 2018, 02:19:03 am »

After months of talking about it and throwing ideas back and forth, forum member Stephan and I have finally embarked on a DeepWars campaign!

This particular campaign involves my Fortune Hunters attempting to establish a foothold on Blood Reef, and exploring/exploiting the Reef for their own greedy and nefarious purposes. Stephan's Nereids, ever watchful of their beloved homeland, are rallying to throw the invaders out.

We have a loose structure for this campaign, and we aren't including every single goodie that is available in the Campaigns section of the rulebook; we opted to pick and choose what works for us. Our intent is to play a scenario that fits into the overarching campaign theme, then discuss afterwards what the effects are and how that translates into what the next scenario should be. We're starting with smaller games, between 500-550 points, but plan to move that up to larger games in later scenarios.

Our first scenario was a "Conquer" game, in which the Fortune Hunters were attempting to establish a base of operations in the Coralline Labyrinth area of Blood Reef. The Scenic Artifact Objective was a non-functioning Deflector Field Generator, which the Fortune Hunters planned to incorporate into their base if they could hold on to it.





We set a limit of 10 turns for this scenario.

The Nereids, quick devils that they are, rushed up on the temple and by turn 4 Stephan had nearly all of them in base contact with it. The scenario awards 2 VP per personality model and 1 VP per regular troop model for models close to the objective; almost all of his Nereids were personalities, so he quickly started racking up VP.



We did have a little shark-on-shark violence; I can't remember the type of shark this was that we rolled for, but it was Aggressive and stalked the lowest point valued model on the table, which just happened to be Amatheia's hammerhead (60 points). Amatheia and her pet hammerhead were able to fend it off and kill it, unfortunately for me.



I quickly realized I needed to get my two personality models, the Big Game Hunter and Marie du Chatelet, up to the objective as soon as possible to start getting my own VP. They both made it, but then Marie was confronted by Kalypso and it didn't go so well...



The Big Game Hunter was able to score a Gruesome Kill on Kalypso a couple turns later, but the damage had already been done.

In the other corner, my Heavy Support Diver and one of my Tactical Dive Soldiers ganged up on one of the Reef Guardians, eventually scoring another Gruesome Kill, but not before the Nereids rang up several more VP.



At the end of the game (we went the full 10 turns), the Nereids had scored 49 VP to the Fortune Hunters' 31. Stephan had at least three turns with at least three personality models on the objective, and there was no way I could catch up to them. Unfortunately, my Breaching Mech was out of the fight for the entire game--the Fortune Hunters were playing with the "Trailblazers" special ops rule, and he was trundling off to tag an objective. Dumb move on my part--I should have sent one of the tactical divers in his place. But, live and learn.



On the plus side (for me, anyway), the two models I was able to kill in the Nereid warband were both Gruesome Kills, and as Stephan and I understand the rules, they cannot roll on the survival table and therefore cannot continue in the campaign. He lost Kalypso and a Reef Guardian; he can field other Reef Guardians, but Kalypso is out for the remainder of the campaign. Unfortunately for me, Marie du Chatelet failed her survival roll, so she too is out of the campaign.

Based on the Fortune Hunter's loss in this scenario, the next scenario will be a skirmish with the Nereids as the attackers. They will hit a band of Fortune Hunters who are out scouting another location for their base.

A few other pics from the campaign:

Action hero!



Heeeere, fishy fishy fishy:



Blood in the water:



That's all for now. Watch this space for the next step in the campaign!

Thanks for reading!

22

The War for Jubilee III Sigma / The Battle for Jubilee III Sigma

« on: March 18, 2018, 11:12:04 pm »

Lord of the Fleet Ruta ‘Vogamee studied the holographic star system model in silence, mentally calculating jump points, logistics problems, and orbital ellipses. He did not hear the other being quietly glide into the chamber behind him.
“Something troubles you, Fleet Lord?” The prophet’s gravelly voice echoed from the curved metal walls of the planning chamber as he joined the tall Sangheili at the projection table.
“No, your grace. I just…” ‘Vogamee’s voice trailed off in silence. “Why this system? The humans couldn’t possibly know, could they?”
The prophet waived a shriveled arm dismissively. “Whether they do or not, it is no matter. Our scouts tell us they are not sufficiently advanced to use the technology, even if they could find it. They would be as an Unggoy contemplating a supernova; they would discern it, but have no idea of it’s significance.” He was silent a moment. “Our agents tell us they call the system ‘Jubilee Three Sigma’, whatever that means in their abominable tongue.”
‘Vogamee grunted. “Indeed, but what if they damage it? Or worse yet, destroy it? They may not understand, but their weapons are crude, and they could yet cause us trouble.”
“That is why we are sending you, Fleet Lord. Find what we know--what we believe--is there. And do not return empty-handed.”
The prophet glided back out of the chamber as silently as he had entered, leaving ‘Vogamee to his contemplations.

Light-years away, Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth hurried into the executive briefing room aboard the UNSC Olympus Mons. He found Lord Hood scanning over a tablet, while his intelligence chief fidgeted a few chairs away.
“Sorry for the delay, sir”, Stanforth said, rubbing at the moisture on the back of his neck. He’d been forty-three decks below in one of the flagships many gyms, grinding out his daily routine on the elliptical, when Hood’s runner had found him. Stanforth had barely had time to wipe the sweat off and put on a fresh uniform before he rushed up to the senior staff levels of the mighty ship.
Hood waived absently at the seat beside him, not taking his eyes off the tablet. “It’s ok, Mike, have a seat. Commander Rollins here was just telling me that the last piece of the puzzle has finally dropped into place.”
Rollins shifted nervously in his chair, arranging the papers and charts in front of him. “Lord Hood, sir, we think it’s fallen into place, but we-”
Hood cut him off with a wave of his hand, putting the tablet down in the process. “It’s okay, son. We pay you for your best estimates, and that’s what we’ve got. Please explain it to Admiral Stanforth.”
Rollins cleared his throat. “Well, sir, we’ve been monitoring Covenant fleet signals for weeks now through our system of deep-space listening posts. Based on the traffic we’ve deciphered, to include high-grade Covenant orders and logistical directives, combined with fleet movements over the past eight days and pre-positioning of-”
Hood cut him off again with a more impatient hand wave. “Cut to the chase, son. Admiral Stanforth has a fleet to prepare.”
Rollins shifted again in his seat. “It’s Jubilee Three Sigma, sir. That’s where they’re headed. And they have at least one assault carrier with them.”
Stanforth sat back in his seat, tapping his lips with his forefinger. Jubilee Three Sigma…”You’re sure, Commander Rollins?”.
“As sure as we can be, sir. It is highly unlikely they are heading anywhere else.”
Stanforth looked at Hood. “It must be the Forerunner artifacts. I saw the science team’s debriefing on that system. One of the highest concentrations of Forerunner sites in any system we’ve encountered thus far.”
“Agreed,” Hood rumbled. “Better get over to your ship. Beowulf will be happy for some action, I think.”
“He’s never happy, sir,” Stanforth said, smiling as he thought of his curmudgeonly AI. “Do you have any SPARTAN assets to spare?”
“I might be able to chop a couple over to you. I know that’ll make Colonel Holland happy.” He tapped the screen of the tablet. “Just sent your orders over. Defend that system at all costs, Admiral. We need a win, and we need to make the Covenant bleed. I know you’re the man for the job.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stanforth managed. “We’ll do our best.”
“That’s all I can ask for,” Hood said as the two men stood and shook hands. “You move out at 0400 tomorrow. Good hunting, Admiral.”

==================

After much planning and discussion, forum member Quickdraw and I have finally started a combined Halo Fleet Battles and Halo Ground Command campaign! We're fighting for control of the Jubilee III Sigma system, which contains several planets with Forerunner sites and a few abandoned Forerunner stations in various orbits around the system's star. We've already found a few tweaks to make to the main campaign document and I'm sure we'll find more, but when we both feel it's straightened out I'll post it in the Downloads section of the site for people to take a look and use themselves if they'd like. I'll also upload the system map that I drew up to keep track of how things are progressing. We'll be using this thread to report progress in the campaign. The basics:

-we are fighting for control of the planets in the system. When one player has won a ground engagement at the majority of the Forerunner sites on a planet, the planet is considered controlled by that player and no more ground combat can occur on that planet. When one player controls the majority of the planets in the system, the campaign is over (not wanting to throw good money after bad, the overall commander will choose to cut his losses at that point and pull out of the system).

-Forerunner tech can be scavenged from the various Forerunner sites both in space and on the ground. Some of these have immediate effect, some have persistent effect throughout the campaign. Sometimes the sites literally blow up in your face, however.
 
-we've both built 5000-point lists for H:FB and H:GC, and have named or otherwise designated all individual elements and units. After each engagement, we make saving rolls for all units/elements removed from play during that engagement (I've built a "saving roll table" that shows the rolls needed for each unit/element type); if the saving roll is made, the unit/element is considered "damaged" and cannot be deployed again until repaired. If it fails its saving roll, the unit/element is considered "destroyed" and cannot be used again in the campaign.

I imagine it will take a us a few months to go through this campaign, as we can only get together a couple times a month to play, but that's ok. Keep an eye here for campaign updates!

23

Dystopian Wars / An Unexpected Twist: The Nile Incident, Part 2

« on: December 18, 2017, 11:12:43 pm »

Aboard his flagship, Abdulhamid considered his three most senior squadron leaders. He gazed at each one in turn, silently considering his next command. Abdulhamid had already turned his victorious fleet back towards the Dardanelles, and had dispatched radio messages to the Sultan in regards to Elmaleh's capture. As he predicted, the Sultan instructed Abdulhamid to retrieve the French captain. However, surprisingly the Sultan also requested that ships be sent to harass the crippled American dreadnaught.

Abdulhamid turned to Captain Ali Pasha, who commanded the battleship “Storm's Fury” and had stayed behind directing the reserve fleet. Asking for confirmation if the boost generators were in working order, his mind was made. Ali Pasha would take the fastest ships from the reserve fleet, with the most aggressive crew, and attempt to hunt down and rescue Elmaleh. Meanwhile, Abdulhamid’s first officer would command a small raiding flotilla to harass the Americans all the way back to Gibraltar.

200 miles to the west, Admiral McInerny was plotting his own next move. The unexpected capture of the corsair Elmaleh during the fight at the oil rigs was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, in that Elmaleh would likely yield valuable intelligence on enemy naval movements in the eastern Mediterranean; a curse, in that Istanbul was almost certain to send a rescue mission to retrieve the Frenchman from his American captors.

After the disaster at the mouth of the Nile, Elmaleh had been spirited away from the battlefield in a fast cruiser to Sidi Barrani in western Egypt, where the FSA had a small outpost. He had been locked in the brig while the remainder of McInerny's battle fleet retired from the Nile Delta area and regrouped outside Sidi Barrani's anchorage. Under orders from Washington to get the Frenchman to Gibraltar with all due haste, McInerny was considering his options. Luckily, a small American task force was already in port at Sidi Barrani, having arrived there some weeks earlier to conduct training with their Egyptian counterparts. McInerny had ordered kinetic generators installed on the larger ships and was writing out orders for Captain Obadiah Samuels, the task force commander.

Abdulhamid did not like the risk of committing more ships than he deemed necessary, but the Sultan’s will be done...

Forum member Quickdraw and I met up a few weeks ago to play the next chapter in our loose Mediterranean campaign. This game would see the FSA rushing Elmaleh to Gibralter, with the Ottomans ambushing them along the way. I built a fleet with speed in mind--almost everything I put on the table had a kinetic generator.

This was designed to be a small game. The FSA would deploy in a tight formation in the middle of one long edge of the table, with the Ottomans coming in from both flanks. Elmaleh was being held on one of the FSA Princeton-class gunships; I put a mark on the bottom of the ship where he was imprisoned. Quickdraw knew which squadron Elmaleh was in, but not which ship, and would have to conduct a boarding action to find the French corsair captain. The FSA's job was solely to get the ship with Elmaleh onboard across the table and off the other side.

Sounds simple enough, right? To quote the Arbiter from Halo 3: "Were it so easy."

The setup:







Turn one went well enough. The FSA battlecruiser even managed to splash one of the Ottoman flying minelayers. Long range fire went back and forth as the FSA sped up the channel.

Then...everything went sideways.

In turn 2, the Ottoman frigates lined up directly in the path of the oncoming FSA gunships. Quickdraw elected to split up their fire, two concentrating on the left flank gunship and two concentrating on the center gunship. His idea, I believe, was to soften them up before attempting a boarding action.



Unbeknownst to both of us, those gun crews were probably the most highly trained and highly motivated in the entire Ottoman navy.

The gunship on the left flank received 21 hits--three criticals. She sank directly. The gunship in the middle received a crippling critical hit--but the result was double sixes. When Quickdraw rolled for the number of HP to remove as a result of the crit, he rolled a six. The gunship sank--taking Elmaleh with it.

We laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I think I had tears streaming down my face at one point, guffawing over the absurdity of it all.

The rest of the battle became a mopping-up action, as the remaining FSA forces attempted to flee to Gibraltar. It wasn't pretty.





In the end, no American capital ships remained, and only a few of the smaller ships were still afloat. The Ottomans had had their nose bloodied, but that was about it.

Stay tuned in early 2018 for the next installment of this unfolding campaign! And thanks for reading!

McInerny could scarcely believe his eyes as he read the after action report. His first thought was that Abdulhamid was irrefutably crazy, but as his temper cooled he realized it was likely a serious tactical error committed by an inexperienced squadron commander. Elmaleh was, after all, being held aboard a Princeton-class gunship, and the Princeton's kinetic generator was known to have containment issues. By all accounts of the (few) surviving task force ships, two of the fast gunships simply vaporized under a hail of broadside fire from the Ottoman frigates. The sound had been deafening, shattering porthole and bridge windows a quarter mile away.

On the one hand, McInerny thought, Elmaleh had gotten what he deserved, having thrown his lot in with the Sultan's forces. On the other hand, he was looking forward to exploiting whatever information they would have pulled out of the French captain--information they now would never get. And what would this mean for the Franco-Ottoman alliance in the Mediterranean?

The news of Elmaleh’s death reached Abdulhamid before Ali Pasha was able to explain himself. A small fusillade from the frigates had punctured the sturginum-fueled generators on the gunship, detonating it before the hulk mysteriously disappeared entirely. The foolish frigate squadron commander at least had the good sense to get himself killed shortly afterwards, saving himself the embarrassment of having to explain why he had inadvertently obliterated their ally. Luckily for Ali Pasha, Abdulhamid was a gracious leader, and there was some saving grace in the thrashing that the Americans took in the engagement; five capital ships destroyed including one of the new battlecruisers.

The Sultan was not made aware of the disaster. Abdulhamid sought to be on dry ground before sending that dispatch. Hopefully the diplomats would be able to smooth over any trouble. But French corsairs could not be trusted to obey their leaders or government if they felt a blood price needed to be paid.

24

News and Rumors / Nemo's War Kickstarter

« on: December 09, 2017, 06:43:29 pm »

Found this while looking around on Kickstarter last night. Looks interesting. One of the creators posted something in the comments today about another seven expansions. Thinking about backing it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/567823005/nemos-war-nautilus-upgrades-expansion-reprint/description

25

Space Naval Games / First games of Fleet Commander

« on: December 03, 2017, 10:47:24 pm »

Forum member BrdingPrty1 and I have met up a couple times in the past few weeks to try out his copy of Fleet Commander, by Capsicum Games.



This won't be a full review, as we only were able to play a couple of games, but I wanted to put down my initial impressions of the game and share a few pictures while it's still fresh in my mind.

Fleet Commander is played on a "board" made up of tiles (with a minimum playing field of 5x5 tiles, I think) that represent space; the tiles are double-sided, maybe 4 inches on a side, with one side being empty space and the other containing some sort of stellar anomaly (asteroid field, gas cloud, debris field, gravitational wave, etc). The ships are hard plastic and come pre-painted in simple but serviceable paint schemes. BrdingPrty's copy of the game (he has Fleet Commander: Genesis, from the Kickstarter) had four classes of ships for each of the two factions: frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships. (The two factions are the League of Phoebe and the Hegemony of Amycles. I haven't looked closely enough to know the backstory behind each faction, so I won't go into that here.)

Actions in the game are determined by custom six-sided dice, which come in three colors: red (for offensive actions), green (for defensive actions), and blue (for movement actions). At the start of the turn, you roll three dice in any combination of colors, and these will determine the actions you can take with your ships. The dice have custom symbols that represent shooting, defense, or movement in one of three ways: orthogonal (forward/backward/left/right), diagonal (forward/backward), or omnidirectional. For the most part, all shooting and movement only reaches one tile away from your current tile. For example, a red orthogonal die allows you to shoot at targets in the immediate forward, behind, left, or right tiles from the current tile; a green diagonal die allows you to negate one attack coming into your tile from a diagonal direction; an omnidirectional blue die allows you to move one tile in any direction (diagonal or orthogonal).

In the Genesis copy of the game, each ship type for each faction is a mirror of the other--all stats are the same for destroyers, cruisers, etc. There is variation in the battleships, which can be equipped with one of nine different special weapons. In order to use the special weapon, you must have two "banked" dice on your command board with the special "wheel" symbol.



For example: in the image above, my battleship (the light gray ship at the top of the picture) fired it's special weapon at BrdingPrty's battleship. The weapon I had equipped on that ship was the Tractor Beam, which allows me to grab a friendly or an enemy ship up to two squares away and move it one square in any direction. I chose to grab his battleship and sling it into the asteroid field, causing him to have to roll for damage (it did take some damage) and putting it out of the fight until he spent a movement die to get it out of the asteroids.



As another example, in the image above, BrdingPrty's battleship (in the background) was equipped with Drones, which basically hound the target ship, causing two points of damage at the start of each turn and following the target around until it is either destroyed, the parent battleship is destroyed, or the target spends an omni-directional attack die to run the little buggers off. Some pretty cool options with the battleships!

Detail on the ships isn't stunning--certainly not as detailed as most of the naval miniatures games currently on the market, but they are more detailed than most boardgaming pieces I've seen. Stats are on the ship's base, similar to Star Wars Armada and Dropfleet Commander--Class (represented by a number--sort of like a point cost or build rating), Firepower (also represented by a number--denotes the amount of damage a ship will do when it attacks), Special Ability (denoted by a symbol), and Hull Points (again represented by a number--on a dial under the base).

Here's a League of Phoebe battleship:



And a Hegemony of Amycles battleship (with a Hegemony frigate behind it):



Overall, this is a fun game! There's a little more depth to it than first meets the eye, and there are some neat options for hidden deployment, unmapped battlefields, etc. There are even rules for jump gates that run between combat zones, giving players the opportunity to play across a few different battlefields in one single game.

I'll see about doing a more detailed review on the MBS podcast in the next few months. Here are a few more pics:









Many thanks to BrdingPrty for breaking the game out and playing. BrdingPrty, if you have any thoughts to add to what I've written above, please chime in.

Thanks for reading!

26

The Showcase / The Painting Year in Review--2017

« on: December 02, 2017, 01:45:47 pm »

Alright fellow naval wargamers, the end of 2017 is nigh upon us--geez, this year has flown by.

So--let's see what we were all able to paint this year! Between now and 31 December, post some pics here of all the naval wargaming stuff that successfully cleared your hobby bench in 2017. Airships, landships, spaceships, battleships, terrain, naval infantry, whatever you've painted that's naval wargaming-related, we want to see it! Tell us what your favorite model/squadron/etc was, and a little bit about what you hope to get done next year.

Nothing to win here but bragging rights and kudos, but I know we have a talented group of painters here at MBS...so let's see what you've got!

27

DeepWars / Fortune Hunters vs Nereids, 530 points

« on: November 02, 2017, 11:36:39 pm »

Had a small game of DeepWars with forum member Stephan a couple nights ago. First time I've used my new(-ish) game mat from Antimatter Games and a lot of the terrain I've been collecting from the pet store, and my first time gaming in Stephan's Gaming Basement (I'm quite jealous of the setup he has!).



We played his Nereids against my Fortune Hunters, about 530 points per side. The scenario was that the Fortune Hunters were mining ether crystals--represented on the board by the purple crystalline clusters. I had to move a model up to one of the clusters and roll a Break action; on a successful roll, the model harvested an ether crystal, and on a failed roll there was no crystal found. The cluster was removed from the board in either case. As the defender in the scenario, Stephan set the board up.





As it turned out, I was only able to approach and mine one cluster, and I passed the Break action and gained a crystal. By then, the Nereids were close enough to start causing me trouble.

The evil mermaids went after my Big Game Hunter first, and almost killed him!



The combination of most of the Nereids having Long Move, low Quality checks, and Stephan's usual dice witchery meant that the Nereids were able to close the gap very quickly, preventing me from going after more of the crystals.



Both my Tactical Dive Soldiers fell quickly to the Nereids' weapons, most of the damage being done in hand-to-hand combat. It seemed like Stephan was able to get either a Charge or a Rush in almost every turn!

My Big Game Hunter was able to hit the shark with his Harpoon after it finished off one of the Tactical Dive Soldiers--thanks to the Lethal ability, the Harpoon put two wounds on the shark, and my Breaching Mech moved in to deliver the killing blow:



By that point I had managed to kill a couple of the other Nereids (I can't remember which ones), and Stephan decided to cede the battlefield to the Fortune Hunters. While the Big Game Hunter only had one wound left, the Breaching Mech and Heavy Support Diver both still had full health, and those are both tough nuts to crack--Stephan felt he didn't have the firepower left on the board to get it done.



So, while it was a tactical victory for the Fortune Hunters, you could argue it was a strategic victory for the Nereids, as they tied up the Fortune Hunters and prevented them from achieving their primary objective--harvesting the ether crystals.

A few observations and lessons learned:

1. The Nereids are fast. The Long Move and low Quality roll mean they can really get moving around the board.

2. Given the above, I had to be conservative with my activation rolls. There were a few turns where I flubbed my first activation and play went right back to Stephan; he was able to activate most or all of his models on almost every turn. When I did play it safe, I was usually able to activate most or all of my models (albeit only with one or two actions apiece), but was able to really push back against the Nereids.

3. The Nereids are better-than-average in hand-to-hand combat, so I should have protected my weaker models with the Breaching Mech and Heavy Support Diver. While slower, they are much better equipped to deal with the quick strikes the Nereids can dish out.

Good game all around, and I was happy to use the mat and all the terrain I've been collecting! I wasn't sure how the mat would look, but once we placed the terrain it really looked good.





Thanks for reading!

28

Dystopian Wars / The Nile Delta Incident

« on: September 20, 2017, 11:15:19 pm »

The Nile Delta Incident
 
The Egyptian menace...the Ottoman Empire has been dealing with those dogs for years. Now, after spies at the Covenant Embassy in Tehran learned of plans to arm the Egyptians with terrifying new energy weaponry, the fury of the Sultan has landed on them again.

Sultan Suleiman, may he live eternal, would prefer to end this danger surreptitiously. He would have his Jannisary forces secretly infiltrate the dock yards and sabotage these weapons. However, his spies have discovered the work is being done in hiding somewhere, out of the eyes of the Sultan. So instead he will prove the might of the grand empire by smashing the Egyptian economic engine and destroying their oil production in the shallow waters of the Nile Delta.

Admiral Abdulhamid has mobilized his grand fleet. Unfortunately, such a movement of steel and sturginium does not go unnoticed. The Federated States of America has begun to shift its Mediterranean fleet out of port at Gibraltar in defense of its vulnerable friend. Federated States Admiral Leland P. McInerny has received orders to steam with all haste and all ships available to the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean. Washington has feared for some time the Ottomans would make a move like this; as a show of force to Istanbul and commitment to Cairo, the War Department has dispatched the dreadnought FSS Nathanael Greene to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, and in a rare stroke of luck the massive vessel arrived in Gibraltar just in time to take on fresh supplies and move out with the rest of McInerny’s squadrons. Washington sees the Egyptians as an important element to its overall strategy of combatting the Bond, particularly by keeping the Ottomans occupied. The American fleet will defend the oil rigs and turn the advance of the outnumbered Ottoman fleet at all cost.

Importantly, the Ottomans are not without friends--granted they are poor friends not much better than brigands and pirates, but friends nonetheless. Reluctantly a message was dispatched to Capitaine Elmaleh la Corsaire of the 3rd Légion Navale de Corsaire. If he can harass the FSA fleet sufficiently from the islands around Crete and Lesbos the Ottomans may have a level playing field in the coming action. However, you never know what goes on inside the mind of a pirate turned military leader. Will he fulfill his duty or will blood lust and glory cause the attack to falter?

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Forum member Quickdraw and I got together at Gamer's Haven in the Springs a few weeks ago to play a truly massive game of Dystopian Wars--2500 points per side. As noted above, Quickdraw was playing his Ottomans with support from the French, and I was playing my Federated States navy. We both had Labor Day off, so we met at the store early in order to get in as many turns as possible.

The initial board set-up looked like this:



With 2500 points apiece, we opted to use Strategic Forces (flanks and reserves) so that not everything would be on the table at once. We both decided to move our Strategic Forces onto the board in turn three. (On a side note, I like that in version 2.5 you can choose when to bring in your reserves/flanks, instead of rolling randomly for their deployment).

The Ottoman/French battle line:



And the FSA battle line:



The oil rigs were lined up diagonally in the center, with some scattered terrain. We dropped markers in between the rigs to show that there was fog in the area--shooting through the fog resulted in a -1 for the "to hit" numbers. Each turn after turn one, we rolled a D6 to see if it burned off (had to roll the current turn number or lower). It stuck around for quite awhile!

As is usual with the Ottomans, Quickdraw spent most of turn one dropping mines from his Zhuhaf minelayers, and I spent an inordinate amount of attack dice shooting at them--partially because I didn't want him to drop more mines, and partially because they were about the only thing in range.



Those mines are a real pain, but at least they were nicely painted!



The Franco-Ottoman fleet was attempting to destroy the three rigs--this was achieved by conducting a successful boarding action. The house rules were that the rigs had no AA to fend off boarding assaults, and each rig had eight civilian workers on board--noncombatants, so they were only hitting on 6's in the defense against each boarding action. If the boarding was successful, the rig was considered "destroyed". The rigs did block line of sight for all ships due to their incredible size.



As it turned out, the Ottomans had destroyed all three rigs by the end of turn three. Quickdraw deployed some forces in his advanced zone, so they were much closer to the rigs than my ships were--in retrospect I should have put out some advanced squadrons as well.

After the rigs were destroyed, general combat continued across the board, with a few separate fierce battles erupting in the center and on both flanks.





The state of the battlefield at the end of the game:



The Franco-Ottoman fleet was successful in destroying the oil rigs, and sank or captured over 2,000 points' worth of American ships. The FSA was unable to defend the rigs, and sank or captured about 1,600 points' worth of French and Ottoman vessels. It was a great game, and also nice not to have to keep glancing at the clock. I did learn one vital lesson, however--much like not getting involved in a land war in Asia, one must also not engage the Ottomans in an area-denial game, because they are very good at that tactic. Most of my gunnery for the first three turns was only hitting on 5's or higher, due to the fog banks and the Ottoman storm generators. I wasn't able to really get any clean shots until sometime in turn three. A bit frustrating to say the least!

Here are a few more pics:




(no, the oil rigs aren't completely painted yet--working on it!)





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Admiral Abdulhamid grinned with satisfaction as he watched the crippled FSA dreadnaught limp out towards open water in an attempt to escape. The Sultan would be pleased with the destruction of the Egyptian resource production, as well as the thrashing given to the Americans. However, the battle that followed after the objectives were claimed was a blow to the total power of the Grand Ottoman fleet.
 
More importantly Abdulhamid considered the capture of the French pirate Elmaleh. Surely the Americans would have a public trial and find him guilty of war crimes, most likely to be executed. While Abdulhamid did not find this disturbing--he was, after all, a brigand and a shadowy ally--the Sultan would surely take the diplomatic position and request he be saved. The Ottomans could not afford to offend a close friend as powerful as the Republique.

Aboard his flagship, Admiral McInerny pondered the day's fight and the mauling his fleet had received from the Ottomans. Several squadrons completely lost, and many others badly damaged--to include the dreadnaught! All was not lost, however. Young Lieutenant Franklin, the platoon leader of the marine contingent assigned to McInerny's gunship squadron, had daringly boarded the French battleship and captured the dreaded corsair Elmaleh.
McInerny knew this would make the central Mediterranean a safer place, at least for the time being, as the French forces would be in disarray after losing both their flagship and their captain.

But how would the Sultan react? McInerny knew that was the big question. He also knew it was above his paygrade to figure that out; he would fight, or not, based on what Fleet Command back in Washington decided.
McInerny knew that, for now, his most important mission was to get the remains of his fleet back into port, along with their unexpected French guest...

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about Abdulhamid, McInerny, and Elmaleh.

Thanks for reading!

29

Halo Ground Command / Capturing a Forerunner Station

« on: September 11, 2017, 01:27:46 am »

Forum member Zorper and I met up this weekend for some Dirt Fight action. Two battlegroups apiece, his Covenant vs. my UNSC. We were fighting to control a Forerunner station, represented by the Forebearer Beacon MDF terrain piece from TTCombat. It's a great terrain piece, and even though I think it's designed for 28mm it works great for the Dirt Fight models as well.

Here's how the board looked before the carnage began:



The two hills in the near and far corner had light cover on top, and we also had two areas of heavy cover in the opposite corners.

We played the "King of the Hill" scenario for this game, with a few house rules. Basically, for this scenario, whoever controlled the objective at the end of a turn would receive 3 victory points. Here were the house rules we had in place:

-an entire unit (or its remnants) had to be fully on the main platform to "control" the station. If there were any elements of a unit still on the ramp, no points were awarded

-if both forces had units on the platform at the end of the turn, no points were awarded to either side

-aerial missions could not be run within 6 inches of the hill that the station was sitting on. We figured that Phantom and Pelican pilots would be nervous about making high-speed, low-level runs across the battlefield so near to a structure that sits up so high. This also prevented infantry units from getting pulped by ground attack missions once they got on the platform.

It was a really fun game. Turn 1 saw a lot of infantry running flat-out to get to the hill (it took me three full turns to even get anyone onto the ramps). Zorper tried dropping a few Ghost units into my backfield to tie up my forces, but I was able to decimate one with Gauss Warthogs and rockets, while the other one chased one of my Warthog units across the table (but not before nearly obliterating one of my infantry units!).

There were traffic jams trying to get up onto the platform:



That unit actually got vaporized on the ramp by a Covenant door gunner on a passing Phantom. Death is swift in the Halo universe...

Zorper parked his Wraith in a far corner of the map and basically lobbed anti-infantry shots at my poor UNSC soldiers trying to take the objective. I was never able to kill it, and he made life miserable for my infantry. Things started looking up a bit when I got a Warthog up onto the platform...



Alas, it was a chaingun 'hog and not a Gauss turret, but beggars can't be choosers. Meanwhile, my Scorpion tank got blown up at the beginning of turn 2 by, of all things, an anti-air Wraith!



In the end, the Covenant won the day--I think the final score was 36 VP to 31 VP, or something like that. It wasn't a runwaway victory for the Covies. I managed to score the only VP for holding the station, as I had the remains of one infantry unit on the platform at the end of one turn. Zorper was able to contest it in the next turn, however, using an injured Hunter.

As usual with these games, there were several cinematic moments. But one stood out in particular, occuring in the last turn. Zorper charged my Spartan with two fully-healthy Hunters. The Spartan reacted and put one point of damage on one of the Hunters before they could close the gap.



In the ensuing melee, the Spartan rolled four skulls, while the Hunters--even using their re-roll ability--rolled NONE. (In melee combat, rolling a skull on the Halo dice takes one damage point off your opponent.) The Hunters had three damage points between them. So, essentially, the Spartan killed both Hunters and walked away without a scratch!

Fun was had on both sides, many species-specific insults were traded, and we both really enjoyed playing around and on the Forerunner structure. I just gotta get paint on the thing now...

Zorper, I just realized I didn't take too many pictures, so if you'd like to add your comments from the Covenant side and some pics of the battle, please do so.

Thanks for reading!

30

The Swap Shop / Firestorm Armada Relthoza battle station (selling/trading)

« on: September 07, 2017, 10:14:52 pm »

I've got a Firestorm Armada Relthoza battle station model that I don't need. Cash is always nice, but I'm also looking for models for the FSA, RoF, and Chinese factions in Dystopian Wars. PM me if interested.