31
Space Naval Games / X-Wing Picture test
« on: September 05, 2017, 12:19:41 am »
Testing out a new photo service, please disregard
Have model ships, will game.
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32
Halo Ground Command / The Future of Halo: Ground Command
« on: September 01, 2017, 11:49:08 pm »
Figured I'd get a thread started for Halo Ground, much like we're doing with Dystopian Wars and Halo Fleet. I'd like to use this thread to discuss the future of the game--ideas, rule changes, etc, maybe spawning other threads to deal with specific topics.
We're still fairly early in the life of this game, I think--I haven't played nearly as many games as I would like, and so far I haven't run into too many rules issues that I have problems with. Much like in the Halo Fleet section of the forum, maybe we can use this thread as a launching pad for other discussions--new ground commanders and heroes, new scenarios, etc.
Let's get those creative juices flowing!
We're still fairly early in the life of this game, I think--I haven't played nearly as many games as I would like, and so far I haven't run into too many rules issues that I have problems with. Much like in the Halo Fleet section of the forum, maybe we can use this thread as a launching pad for other discussions--new ground commanders and heroes, new scenarios, etc.
Let's get those creative juices flowing!
33
Halo: Fleet Battles / The Future of Halo: Fleet Battles
« on: September 01, 2017, 11:40:53 pm »
Figured I'd get a thread started for Halo Fleet, much like we're doing with Dystopian Wars. I'd like to use this thread to discuss the future of the game--ideas, rule changes, etc, maybe spawning other threads to deal with specific topics.
So to kick off the discussion: I'm pretty happy with the rule set as it currently stands, including the errata that came out a few months ago. That being said, we've been playing version 1.0 of HalomFleet for two years now. What are the community's thoughts on maybe making a few changes, tweaks, etc?
Now what I really WOULD like to see are some new Fleet commanders and heroic characters. Other AIs for the UNSC, maybe specific Spartans....I'm not as familiar with Covenant personalities, unfortunately, but I'm sure someone else out there is. If we need a separate thread for commanders and heroes, let me know and I can set that up.
I'm going to start a similar thread in the Halo: Ground Command sub forum (affectionately known on MBS as Halo: Dirt Fight), so for all you ground-pounders out there, don't worry, we've got you covered as well.
So to kick off the discussion: I'm pretty happy with the rule set as it currently stands, including the errata that came out a few months ago. That being said, we've been playing version 1.0 of HalomFleet for two years now. What are the community's thoughts on maybe making a few changes, tweaks, etc?
Now what I really WOULD like to see are some new Fleet commanders and heroic characters. Other AIs for the UNSC, maybe specific Spartans....I'm not as familiar with Covenant personalities, unfortunately, but I'm sure someone else out there is. If we need a separate thread for commanders and heroes, let me know and I can set that up.
I'm going to start a similar thread in the Halo: Ground Command sub forum (affectionately known on MBS as Halo: Dirt Fight), so for all you ground-pounders out there, don't worry, we've got you covered as well.
34
DeepWars / Fortune Hunters vs Nereids, 330 points
« on: May 03, 2017, 11:23:41 pm »
Stephan and I sat down this evening for a "Capture" game of DeepWars, my Fortune Hunters against his Nereids. Forces were right around 330 points. He was running Amatheia along with her pet hammerhead shark, as well as a Sea Serpent and the actual Beast of Blood Reef (which is a MASSIVE model). So basically, one Nereid and a few warbeasts. My force consisted of Marie du Chatelet, one Tactical Dive Soldier, one Heavy Support Diver, and one Breaching Mech.
The object in the center was the Scenic Artifact; we would score one VP for having a Personality model within medium range of the Artifact at the end of each game turn (we each only had one Personality in our force). The Scenic Artifact was actually a Cyber Defense Platform from TT Combat (made of MDF). I still need to paint it, obviously, but it worked well for this scenario.
In a word, the Nereids are BRUTAL. All the models he fielded were able to move one long stick per action (whereas all of mine only moved one medium stick, with the Mech moving one short stick). They were also all Quality 3+. In other words, his models were moving farther and in general getting more activations than mine.
I moved Marie quickly into range of the Artifact to start scoring VPs, while the Beast and the Sea Serpent ganged up on my Breaching Mech:
The Beast caused one wound to the Mech, while the Mech was able to fight off the Sea Serpent and wound it in the process. Meanwhile, Amatheia had moved into the scoring zone at the Artifact as well, and was being shielded by her hammerhead. So Marie and the Tactical Diver moved in and killed the shark, scoring another VP for the Fortune Hunters (per the scenario, one VP was scored for each model killed inside the scoring zone).
The Mech was able to break contact with the Beast and Serpent and fire off a torpedo, which did one wound to the Beast and a second wound to the Serpent due to the blast radius from the torpedo. Unfortunately the Mech itself also suffered a second wound in the explosion.
And, that's about all the success the Fortune Hunters had. I keep forgetting, since I'm used to playing ship games, the models in DeepWars can (for the most part) change facing at any time. Marie and the Tactical Diver had their backs to the melee combat going on between the Mech, the Beast, and the Serpent; after they killed Amatheia's hammerhead, the Beast turned 180 degrees and charged at Marie.
Yeah. Not a survivable attack. Then, the Serpent did the same thing to the Tactical Diver:
The Beast then turned and charged the Mech, killing it, at which point my final remaining model, the Heavy Support Diver, decided it was time to call it a day. Victory went to the Nereid warband, 5 points to the Fortune Hunters' 2.
I've faced the Nereids before, but this is the first time I'd faced them with the warbeasts. The Beast of Blood Reef is aptly named; it was nigh unstoppable in this game. The Nereids in general are going to be a challenging warband to face, even without the warbeasts, as they are almost all high-quality models (Q score of 3+ on most models, I think), and they all move long distance when activated. So they're fast, and they tend to get more activations.
Stephan and I feel comfortable enough now with the rules to embark on a small campaign, so we're planning to get that started early this summer. There are rules for scoring VP and upgrading individual models and warbands, similar to a role-playing game, so we figure we'll try a short campaign and see how that goes. If it works, and it's a good system, we'll see about running another one with more players (if anyone is interested). We'll track the campaign here on MBS so you can follow along.
Stephan, if I've made any errors or left anything out, please chime in.
Thanks for reading!
The object in the center was the Scenic Artifact; we would score one VP for having a Personality model within medium range of the Artifact at the end of each game turn (we each only had one Personality in our force). The Scenic Artifact was actually a Cyber Defense Platform from TT Combat (made of MDF). I still need to paint it, obviously, but it worked well for this scenario.
In a word, the Nereids are BRUTAL. All the models he fielded were able to move one long stick per action (whereas all of mine only moved one medium stick, with the Mech moving one short stick). They were also all Quality 3+. In other words, his models were moving farther and in general getting more activations than mine.
I moved Marie quickly into range of the Artifact to start scoring VPs, while the Beast and the Sea Serpent ganged up on my Breaching Mech:
The Beast caused one wound to the Mech, while the Mech was able to fight off the Sea Serpent and wound it in the process. Meanwhile, Amatheia had moved into the scoring zone at the Artifact as well, and was being shielded by her hammerhead. So Marie and the Tactical Diver moved in and killed the shark, scoring another VP for the Fortune Hunters (per the scenario, one VP was scored for each model killed inside the scoring zone).
The Mech was able to break contact with the Beast and Serpent and fire off a torpedo, which did one wound to the Beast and a second wound to the Serpent due to the blast radius from the torpedo. Unfortunately the Mech itself also suffered a second wound in the explosion.
And, that's about all the success the Fortune Hunters had. I keep forgetting, since I'm used to playing ship games, the models in DeepWars can (for the most part) change facing at any time. Marie and the Tactical Diver had their backs to the melee combat going on between the Mech, the Beast, and the Serpent; after they killed Amatheia's hammerhead, the Beast turned 180 degrees and charged at Marie.
Yeah. Not a survivable attack. Then, the Serpent did the same thing to the Tactical Diver:
The Beast then turned and charged the Mech, killing it, at which point my final remaining model, the Heavy Support Diver, decided it was time to call it a day. Victory went to the Nereid warband, 5 points to the Fortune Hunters' 2.
I've faced the Nereids before, but this is the first time I'd faced them with the warbeasts. The Beast of Blood Reef is aptly named; it was nigh unstoppable in this game. The Nereids in general are going to be a challenging warband to face, even without the warbeasts, as they are almost all high-quality models (Q score of 3+ on most models, I think), and they all move long distance when activated. So they're fast, and they tend to get more activations.
Stephan and I feel comfortable enough now with the rules to embark on a small campaign, so we're planning to get that started early this summer. There are rules for scoring VP and upgrading individual models and warbands, similar to a role-playing game, so we figure we'll try a short campaign and see how that goes. If it works, and it's a good system, we'll see about running another one with more players (if anyone is interested). We'll track the campaign here on MBS so you can follow along.
Stephan, if I've made any errors or left anything out, please chime in.
Thanks for reading!
35
General Discussion / The Expanse boardgame
« on: May 01, 2017, 09:56:09 pm »
Soooo, not really sure how I missed this, but...
http://wizkids.com/2017/02/16/wizkids-board-game-based-on-the-syfy-series-the-expanse-to-arrive-this-summer/
Russ and Craig interviewed the game designer on the most recent episode of the D6G podcast. It sounds like it will be a pretty good game.
http://wizkids.com/2017/02/16/wizkids-board-game-based-on-the-syfy-series-the-expanse-to-arrive-this-summer/
Russ and Craig interviewed the game designer on the most recent episode of the D6G podcast. It sounds like it will be a pretty good game.
36
DWCO / Havenfest, 6 May
« on: April 24, 2017, 01:24:14 pm »
Just spoke to Ed at Gamer's Haven. As mentioned somewhere else on this forum, Havenfest is Saturday, May 6. Ed said they're pretty light on scheduled gaming events so far. Anyone here planning to attend and/or run any games? I'll probably set up a DW demo with my French and FSA, and maybe Halo Fleet Battles also. I'd set up Halo Ground Command as well, but I still don't have my forces painted up.
I'd be happy to play/run a game of Firefly, and I'd be happy to play ST Ascendancy as well.
Thoughts?
I'd be happy to play/run a game of Firefly, and I'd be happy to play ST Ascendancy as well.
Thoughts?
37
DeepWars / Submersibles
« on: April 04, 2017, 08:13:33 pm »
Antimatter Games has posted renders of a submersible for the Fortune Hunters faction in DeepWars:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/deep-wars/submersibles-horizon-antimatter-games/
So. Freakin'. Cool.
If you missed it, Antimatter Games posted concept art for submersibles a few months ago. Here are the subs for the Ancients of Atalan and the Dark Mariners:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/deep-wars/descend-ancients-atalan-submarine/
http://www.brueckenkopf-online.com/2016/deep-wars-dark-mariner-bio-sub/
The renders for the Fortune Hunters sub follows pretty closely with the concept art, so if this succeeds I'd bet the Atalan and Dark Mariners submersibles will look pretty much like their respective drawings.
This submersible is 200mm long, according to Eric Louchard (creator of DeepWars), which is just shy of 8 inches. Not a huge model to be sure, but still really cool. Apparently (according to what I read on the Abyssal Realms Facebook page) the nose section is going to be clear pieces so you can see the sub's pilot inside. Eric recommends playing on a 36x36" board if you're going to use one of these (apparently their are rules for submersibles in the Blood Reef supplement, but I don't have that handy).
Definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes!!
http://www.beastsofwar.com/deep-wars/submersibles-horizon-antimatter-games/
So. Freakin'. Cool.
If you missed it, Antimatter Games posted concept art for submersibles a few months ago. Here are the subs for the Ancients of Atalan and the Dark Mariners:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/deep-wars/descend-ancients-atalan-submarine/
http://www.brueckenkopf-online.com/2016/deep-wars-dark-mariner-bio-sub/
The renders for the Fortune Hunters sub follows pretty closely with the concept art, so if this succeeds I'd bet the Atalan and Dark Mariners submersibles will look pretty much like their respective drawings.
This submersible is 200mm long, according to Eric Louchard (creator of DeepWars), which is just shy of 8 inches. Not a huge model to be sure, but still really cool. Apparently (according to what I read on the Abyssal Realms Facebook page) the nose section is going to be clear pieces so you can see the sub's pilot inside. Eric recommends playing on a 36x36" board if you're going to use one of these (apparently their are rules for submersibles in the Blood Reef supplement, but I don't have that handy).
Definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes!!
38
Dystopian Wars / First Game with New Scenery
« on: March 28, 2017, 01:29:28 am »
As stated earlier, one of my wargaming goals in 2017 is to "make my games look better". Not only does this entail painting more of my models, but it also means collecting and painting more terrain.
To that end, I recently acquired the Harbor Set, four of the merchant ships, and three of the oil rigs from Spartan Games. I also picked up the Airfix 1:76 scale pontoon bridge set, because the pontoons are the right shape for large ship hulls (very large--like, dreadnought-sized). I've seen people on the Spartan forums do some amazing work with that model set, so I figured I'd give it a try.
Combining the Harbor Set with the ships and a few models from the Industrial and Military sets, plus an island I picked up at Adepticon last year, I came up with this:
Captain Rockman and I played a 1600-point game this evening with his Chinese Federation against my Federated States of America. We put the island in the center as a "commercial way station"--basically an interesting-looking line-of-sight blocker. We also added the four merchant ships on one side, one of the pontoon ships (we'll just call them supertankers for now) on the other side, and two supertankers riding at anchor off the coast of the island. Combined with some of the smaller DW island terrain and one of the oil rigs, the table looked like this:
The idea for this set up was that the civilian ships would scramble as soon as the shooting started. The smaller merchant ships we designated as mediums, and the supertankers were massives. They basically became moving line-of-sight blockers; the smaller merchant ships and one of the tankers were trying to exit the board on one short side, while the other two supertankers (one at the dock and one off the coast) were trying to exit on the other short side. We assumed that the captains would do whatever they could to stay out of harm's way, so we had them do some maneuvering to stay away from the belligerents, but in some cases they sailed right through the engagement zones. We couldn't shoot at them; we just had to deal with them being in the way.
Since they were all starting at a dead stop, we figured they would move only half their allocated movement in the first turn, then full movement afterwards (8" for the mediums and 6" for the massives). We moved them at the end of each turn.
This turned out to be a pretty fun set up! We were both able to take advantage of hiding behind the civilian ships to protect our own ships; we only played three turns (it was a pretty big game, after all), so the ships didn't move too far, but it was still easy to see how they were affecting the game. Plus, they were interesting to look at--not just rocks or small islands.
We did some brainstorming about how to use them in the future--possible targets of boarding actions, etc. Got some ideas brewing.
Once Captain Rockman's reserve forces showed up, I really started to take a beating:
Here's how the board looked near the end of the game. I had lost most of my medium-class ships by this point (that was Captain Rockman's field order--and mine as well, although he got much closer than I did), but as you can see it was a fairly busy board with the island, the civilian ships, the small island groups, and all of the remaining combat ships:
The Chinese carried the day by a few hundred points. There were all the requisite fires and corrosive markers--it was not pretty. Rockman *almost* achieved his field orders, but actually part of what helped me was that my last remaining cruiser was partially blocked from his battleship by one of the supertankers during the last turn, so he couldn't get a full attack dice roll for his shots.
Got some ideas on how to paint these ships and harbor facilities; toying with some ideas on how to build out the supertankers (not all of them will be supertankers--I have ideas for other ship types as well).
Thanks for looking!
To that end, I recently acquired the Harbor Set, four of the merchant ships, and three of the oil rigs from Spartan Games. I also picked up the Airfix 1:76 scale pontoon bridge set, because the pontoons are the right shape for large ship hulls (very large--like, dreadnought-sized). I've seen people on the Spartan forums do some amazing work with that model set, so I figured I'd give it a try.
Combining the Harbor Set with the ships and a few models from the Industrial and Military sets, plus an island I picked up at Adepticon last year, I came up with this:
Captain Rockman and I played a 1600-point game this evening with his Chinese Federation against my Federated States of America. We put the island in the center as a "commercial way station"--basically an interesting-looking line-of-sight blocker. We also added the four merchant ships on one side, one of the pontoon ships (we'll just call them supertankers for now) on the other side, and two supertankers riding at anchor off the coast of the island. Combined with some of the smaller DW island terrain and one of the oil rigs, the table looked like this:
The idea for this set up was that the civilian ships would scramble as soon as the shooting started. The smaller merchant ships we designated as mediums, and the supertankers were massives. They basically became moving line-of-sight blockers; the smaller merchant ships and one of the tankers were trying to exit the board on one short side, while the other two supertankers (one at the dock and one off the coast) were trying to exit on the other short side. We assumed that the captains would do whatever they could to stay out of harm's way, so we had them do some maneuvering to stay away from the belligerents, but in some cases they sailed right through the engagement zones. We couldn't shoot at them; we just had to deal with them being in the way.
Since they were all starting at a dead stop, we figured they would move only half their allocated movement in the first turn, then full movement afterwards (8" for the mediums and 6" for the massives). We moved them at the end of each turn.
This turned out to be a pretty fun set up! We were both able to take advantage of hiding behind the civilian ships to protect our own ships; we only played three turns (it was a pretty big game, after all), so the ships didn't move too far, but it was still easy to see how they were affecting the game. Plus, they were interesting to look at--not just rocks or small islands.
We did some brainstorming about how to use them in the future--possible targets of boarding actions, etc. Got some ideas brewing.
Once Captain Rockman's reserve forces showed up, I really started to take a beating:
Here's how the board looked near the end of the game. I had lost most of my medium-class ships by this point (that was Captain Rockman's field order--and mine as well, although he got much closer than I did), but as you can see it was a fairly busy board with the island, the civilian ships, the small island groups, and all of the remaining combat ships:
The Chinese carried the day by a few hundred points. There were all the requisite fires and corrosive markers--it was not pretty. Rockman *almost* achieved his field orders, but actually part of what helped me was that my last remaining cruiser was partially blocked from his battleship by one of the supertankers during the last turn, so he couldn't get a full attack dice roll for his shots.
Got some ideas on how to paint these ships and harbor facilities; toying with some ideas on how to build out the supertankers (not all of them will be supertankers--I have ideas for other ship types as well).
Thanks for looking!
39
Misc. Naval Games / MDF 28mm Airships
« on: March 07, 2017, 11:40:55 pm »
So, I saw this on Kickstarter the other day:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/211492152/airship-for-victorian-science-fiction-and-pulp-gam?ref=nav_search
And I got all nervous because the campaign ends in a few days, and I'm not in a position right now to pledge.
But! Then I saw THIS:
http://crossoverminiatures.com/product-category/airships/
Turns out the Kickstarter is just for the latest airship by Crossover Miniatures.
I'm really trying to come up with a reason why I do NOT need three or four of these.
As soon as I saw the first one on Kickstarter, I got this idea in my head for a home-brewed game where you have two or three of these with some Dystopian Legions miniatures, and they move around on the table and shoot at each other and attempt aerial boarding operations. Tell me that wouldn't be a great game at a convention!!
Edit: after a little Google searching, I found even MORE 28mm MDF airships! https://www.tregames.com/collections/28mm-airships
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/211492152/airship-for-victorian-science-fiction-and-pulp-gam?ref=nav_search
And I got all nervous because the campaign ends in a few days, and I'm not in a position right now to pledge.
But! Then I saw THIS:
http://crossoverminiatures.com/product-category/airships/
Turns out the Kickstarter is just for the latest airship by Crossover Miniatures.
I'm really trying to come up with a reason why I do NOT need three or four of these.
As soon as I saw the first one on Kickstarter, I got this idea in my head for a home-brewed game where you have two or three of these with some Dystopian Legions miniatures, and they move around on the table and shoot at each other and attempt aerial boarding operations. Tell me that wouldn't be a great game at a convention!!
Edit: after a little Google searching, I found even MORE 28mm MDF airships! https://www.tregames.com/collections/28mm-airships
40
Modeling Q&A / Cold weather spray priming
« on: January 24, 2017, 01:59:39 pm »
I've got a few projects piling up waiting to be primed, but thanks to our recent weather here in Colorado I've been holding off doing any spray priming (I don't have the ability to spray paint inside, so it has to be done in the garage or the back yard). Then I found this article:
http://www.blmablog.com/2010/12/spray-priming-in-cold-weather.html
Temps in my area are supposed to be in the high 40s this weekend, so I think I'm going to try this out on an infantry stand (metal) and an infantry base (resin) for my second Dirt Fight starter set this weekend and see how it goes.
Anyone else have any experience with spray priming in our cold, dry winters here in Colorado? I know sometimes we get stretches of good weather, but sometimes those stretches occur in the middle of the week, and I'm at work.
http://www.blmablog.com/2010/12/spray-priming-in-cold-weather.html
Temps in my area are supposed to be in the high 40s this weekend, so I think I'm going to try this out on an infantry stand (metal) and an infantry base (resin) for my second Dirt Fight starter set this weekend and see how it goes.
Anyone else have any experience with spray priming in our cold, dry winters here in Colorado? I know sometimes we get stretches of good weather, but sometimes those stretches occur in the middle of the week, and I'm at work.
41
Halo Ground Command / Demolition
« on: January 22, 2017, 08:50:15 pm »
Forum member Quickdraw*and I met today at Gamer's Haven and played the "Demolition" scenario (p. 57). We were both right at 2700 points total; he played Covenant, running one Hunting Host*and one Siege Host*battlegroup, and I played UNSC, running two Mechanized Infantry battlegroups (with heavy armor support in the second battlegroup). Quickdraw recently picked up a nicely-colored piece of terrain cloth, which provided a great backdrop for the game. Initial deployment (from the UNSC point of view; I was the defender, protecting the bunker in the foreground):
For VP purposes, the bunker in the foreground was the objective; the other two out near the middle of the battlefield were considered "outposts" and didn't grant any VP, only light cover for infantry and of course line-of-sight blocking.
Quickdraw also recently picked up and painted both the Jackal Infantry and Snipers; great-looking models! (And, as I discovered later, the Jackal Infantry are not easy to kill...)
As with every game of Ground Command that I've played thus far, this was a hard-fought game with a narrow margin of victory. The UNSC carried the day, 36 VP to 31 VP, but it was not a victory of which to be proud.
Generally speaking, I was able to eliminate most of the Covenant infantry before they got to the objective bunker. This was not easy, and I lost a LOT of units doing so, but my main goal was to defend the bunker and I think I did a (barely) adequate job of doing this. In retrospect, I should probably have tightened up at least one battlegroup around the bunker and forced him to come to me; I think UNSC infantry does better holding ground than advancing (especially considering the "move or shoot" rule for the HMG teams). There were a*few highlights and cinematic moments in the game, as shown below.
After taking two damage points from the Hunters, Quickdraw finished off my Scorpion with--of all things--side gunner fire from a Phantom while it was executing a combat drop mission! Thankfully the Scorpion had knocked out some of his Storm Ghosts, but I still wasn't happy with the tradeoff. We decided that the tank looked good flipped over with the turret laying next to it, so we left it where it died and it became part of the battlefield:
That same combat drop mission deposited two Scout Ghosts near my bunker, which Spartan Black had to deal with. He killed one pretty quickly, and the other didn't do too much damage--more of a distraction than anything else. (The D6s near the Ghosts were my VP trackers.)
I garrisoned the objective bunker pretty early in Turn 1 with an Infantry Unit that had both an officer element and an HMG element. This turned out to be the perfect combination inside the bunker, as the officer boosted the unit's reaction rolls and the HMG element gave it some good anti-infantry firepower. I did lose two rifleman elements, but I was still rolling 13 anti-infantry AD every time they fired.
More proof that Spartans are not invincible! I had just made a supply drop air mission and Spartan Black was about to exchange his assault rifle for a Spartan Laser, when he was hit by the Wraith. Spartan Black already had one wound, and he had to re-roll his successful save due to the Wraith's weapon loadout. He failed the second roll, and was removed from the battlefield (remember: Spartans never die, they're just missing in action). Good thing for the Covenant, too, as he probably would have put a world of hurt on that Wraith on the next activation.
Also...each Spartan failed at least one reaction roll. So, they're not as invincible as everyone thinks they are. Just sayin'.*
I lost my Gauss Warthog unit in a bizarre melee situation, where the vehicles were repulsed into the Spartan, thereby destroying them. I was not very pleased with this result, as both 'Hogs only had one damage point on them, and they had just obliterated an entire Storm Ghost unit.
Of his two Wraiths, I was only able to kill one (the anti-air variant); this was accomplished through a couple Wild Weasel air missions and an attack by one of the Spartans.
By the end of Turn 4, Quickdraw had lost most of his infantry and figured he was not going to be able to destroy the bunker based on what he had left on the board, so he called for a general retreat. I did not have ANY vehicles left, and not much infantry, but I did still have a (relatively) healthy Spartan that might have still done some pretty serious damage. A few lessons learned:
1. We need to start playing with more terrain that infantry can use for cover. This game had a lot of terrain that blocked line of sight, but not much that the infantry could use for cover. For my part, this may be due to my playing fleet-based games (Dystopian Wars, Halo Fleet Battles, Firestorm Armada) and not being used to using terrain for cover (I guess you can do that with gas clouds in Firestorm Armada, but it's not a tactic with which I'm very familiar). Both UNSC and Covenant infantry units are pretty squishy, so getting them into terrain like buildings, patches of woods, etc might make a big difference. Quickdraw observed that infantry units on both sides in this game spent a LOT of time out in the open, susceptible to all kinds of attacks from both ground and air units. Giving them more buildings and more trees to use might make them last a little longer.
2. I learned (painfully) that sometimes a Hold Move action is exactly what is needed. Again, since most of my wargaming experience is in fleet-based games, I think I'm mentally stuck in a "must move a minimum distance" mindset. I lost a Warthog today due to this tactical error.
3. Leave buffer room around units in case they are repulsed in melee. This is the situation where I lost my Gauss Warthog unit. The Warthogs were engaged in melee by a Grunt Levy unit, and to be honest I'm not happy with how this resolved. The unit did enough damage to put one damage marker on one Warthog, but then per the melee rules the vehicles were repulsed four inches back from the melee attack. This brought them into contact with one of my Spartans. As Quickdraw and I interpreted the melee rules on p. 83, the Warthogs had to move directly back from the direction of the melee attack, which violated the two-inch buffer rule around the Spartan, which meant the Warthogs were destroyed. This was frustrating, as I stated above, since the 'Hogs both only had one point of damage apiece. Now--I should have thought about this possibility ahead of time and given some room around the unit to prevent an outcome like this. However, thematically, I have an issue with the unit being destroyed when it violates that two-inch buffer when repulsed. What I think would work better is that the colliding units (in this case, the Warthogs and the Spartan) should gain an activation AND a cooldown marker, to show that there was a lot of confusion caused by the Warthogs having to quickly back away from a melee attack. If the repulse would cause vehicles to impact a building, maybe they should be subject to an "impact" attack from the building. I don't know. Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part because I lost the Warthogs on a rule that I think is a technicality. Certainly not a show-stopper, and I'll definitely leave a 6-inch buffer around my units in the future, but still. Frustrating. If we resolved this incorrectly, please let me know.
Other than that...it was a fun game! We are both starting to see the tactical depth to the combat mechanics, and for my part I seem to enjoy and appreciate the game more and more each time I play. At one point this afternoon, I activated one of the Spartans and said "I'm activating the Spartan, and I'm going to target your Jackal Snipers." Do you know how cool it is to be able to say something like that?!?!?
Thanks for reading!
For VP purposes, the bunker in the foreground was the objective; the other two out near the middle of the battlefield were considered "outposts" and didn't grant any VP, only light cover for infantry and of course line-of-sight blocking.
Quickdraw also recently picked up and painted both the Jackal Infantry and Snipers; great-looking models! (And, as I discovered later, the Jackal Infantry are not easy to kill...)
As with every game of Ground Command that I've played thus far, this was a hard-fought game with a narrow margin of victory. The UNSC carried the day, 36 VP to 31 VP, but it was not a victory of which to be proud.
Generally speaking, I was able to eliminate most of the Covenant infantry before they got to the objective bunker. This was not easy, and I lost a LOT of units doing so, but my main goal was to defend the bunker and I think I did a (barely) adequate job of doing this. In retrospect, I should probably have tightened up at least one battlegroup around the bunker and forced him to come to me; I think UNSC infantry does better holding ground than advancing (especially considering the "move or shoot" rule for the HMG teams). There were a*few highlights and cinematic moments in the game, as shown below.
After taking two damage points from the Hunters, Quickdraw finished off my Scorpion with--of all things--side gunner fire from a Phantom while it was executing a combat drop mission! Thankfully the Scorpion had knocked out some of his Storm Ghosts, but I still wasn't happy with the tradeoff. We decided that the tank looked good flipped over with the turret laying next to it, so we left it where it died and it became part of the battlefield:
That same combat drop mission deposited two Scout Ghosts near my bunker, which Spartan Black had to deal with. He killed one pretty quickly, and the other didn't do too much damage--more of a distraction than anything else. (The D6s near the Ghosts were my VP trackers.)
I garrisoned the objective bunker pretty early in Turn 1 with an Infantry Unit that had both an officer element and an HMG element. This turned out to be the perfect combination inside the bunker, as the officer boosted the unit's reaction rolls and the HMG element gave it some good anti-infantry firepower. I did lose two rifleman elements, but I was still rolling 13 anti-infantry AD every time they fired.
More proof that Spartans are not invincible! I had just made a supply drop air mission and Spartan Black was about to exchange his assault rifle for a Spartan Laser, when he was hit by the Wraith. Spartan Black already had one wound, and he had to re-roll his successful save due to the Wraith's weapon loadout. He failed the second roll, and was removed from the battlefield (remember: Spartans never die, they're just missing in action). Good thing for the Covenant, too, as he probably would have put a world of hurt on that Wraith on the next activation.
Also...each Spartan failed at least one reaction roll. So, they're not as invincible as everyone thinks they are. Just sayin'.*
I lost my Gauss Warthog unit in a bizarre melee situation, where the vehicles were repulsed into the Spartan, thereby destroying them. I was not very pleased with this result, as both 'Hogs only had one damage point on them, and they had just obliterated an entire Storm Ghost unit.
Of his two Wraiths, I was only able to kill one (the anti-air variant); this was accomplished through a couple Wild Weasel air missions and an attack by one of the Spartans.
By the end of Turn 4, Quickdraw had lost most of his infantry and figured he was not going to be able to destroy the bunker based on what he had left on the board, so he called for a general retreat. I did not have ANY vehicles left, and not much infantry, but I did still have a (relatively) healthy Spartan that might have still done some pretty serious damage. A few lessons learned:
1. We need to start playing with more terrain that infantry can use for cover. This game had a lot of terrain that blocked line of sight, but not much that the infantry could use for cover. For my part, this may be due to my playing fleet-based games (Dystopian Wars, Halo Fleet Battles, Firestorm Armada) and not being used to using terrain for cover (I guess you can do that with gas clouds in Firestorm Armada, but it's not a tactic with which I'm very familiar). Both UNSC and Covenant infantry units are pretty squishy, so getting them into terrain like buildings, patches of woods, etc might make a big difference. Quickdraw observed that infantry units on both sides in this game spent a LOT of time out in the open, susceptible to all kinds of attacks from both ground and air units. Giving them more buildings and more trees to use might make them last a little longer.
2. I learned (painfully) that sometimes a Hold Move action is exactly what is needed. Again, since most of my wargaming experience is in fleet-based games, I think I'm mentally stuck in a "must move a minimum distance" mindset. I lost a Warthog today due to this tactical error.
3. Leave buffer room around units in case they are repulsed in melee. This is the situation where I lost my Gauss Warthog unit. The Warthogs were engaged in melee by a Grunt Levy unit, and to be honest I'm not happy with how this resolved. The unit did enough damage to put one damage marker on one Warthog, but then per the melee rules the vehicles were repulsed four inches back from the melee attack. This brought them into contact with one of my Spartans. As Quickdraw and I interpreted the melee rules on p. 83, the Warthogs had to move directly back from the direction of the melee attack, which violated the two-inch buffer rule around the Spartan, which meant the Warthogs were destroyed. This was frustrating, as I stated above, since the 'Hogs both only had one point of damage apiece. Now--I should have thought about this possibility ahead of time and given some room around the unit to prevent an outcome like this. However, thematically, I have an issue with the unit being destroyed when it violates that two-inch buffer when repulsed. What I think would work better is that the colliding units (in this case, the Warthogs and the Spartan) should gain an activation AND a cooldown marker, to show that there was a lot of confusion caused by the Warthogs having to quickly back away from a melee attack. If the repulse would cause vehicles to impact a building, maybe they should be subject to an "impact" attack from the building. I don't know. Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part because I lost the Warthogs on a rule that I think is a technicality. Certainly not a show-stopper, and I'll definitely leave a 6-inch buffer around my units in the future, but still. Frustrating. If we resolved this incorrectly, please let me know.
Other than that...it was a fun game! We are both starting to see the tactical depth to the combat mechanics, and for my part I seem to enjoy and appreciate the game more and more each time I play. At one point this afternoon, I activated one of the Spartans and said "I'm activating the Spartan, and I'm going to target your Jackal Snipers." Do you know how cool it is to be able to say something like that?!?!?
Thanks for reading!
42
Halo Ground Command / First Game with Two Battlegroups
« on: January 22, 2017, 01:31:58 am »
Meant to post this last weekend, but other things got in the way. Zorper and I tried out our first game with two battlegroups apiece; he took the UNSC and I took the Covenant. We both had a standard and an armored battlegroup; it was also our first time using the Scorpion and Wraith tanks. Zorper has a lot of 10mm city terrain for DropZone Commander, so we set up a city fight:
Unfortunately I didn't take any notes during the battle, and I've slept a few times since then, so I don't remember all the particulars. It was a pretty good game, interesting to fight in an urban environment (which limited the Scorpion, but wasn't as bad for the Wraith as it can fire indirect). The real sticking point was the flyers; with two battlegroups, we each paid for two air assets (Pelicans for him and Phantoms for me). Neither of us has the models (yet) for either vehicle, so we were using the tokens that come with the game. The air assets turned out to be quite a big deal, probably because of the amount of ground terrain.
After we both had entire infantry units wiped out by air missions in one pass, we decided to get our infantry into buildings to protect them.
Our house rule was that, if the infantry were in the "center core" of the building model, then they were truly inside the building and were therefore protected from aerial attacks. (Note: I'm not sure how this squares with the rules; I couldn't find anything in the rulebook that specifically talks about infantry being protected from airstrikes while in buildings.) If we moved the infantry to the outer edge of the building, they were considered to be "on the roof" and therefore gained the Elevated Position bonus. But they were then also subject to airstrikes.
Zorper tried running a Gauss Warthog unit. They were shut down fairly quickly by my Hunters. His Scorpion, however, pretty much obliterated my Ghosts. 18 anti-armor dice at 40" is pretty rough!
The Scorpion was killed by multiple airstrikes.
The Sun Devil was killed by a combination of airstrikes (basically Wild Weasel missions by one brave, lucky, and fool-hardy Covenant pilot) and attacks from one of my Hunters.
As the game progressed and our respective flyers were getting more and more shot-up, we both got brave and put some infantry units out in the open. Turns out chaingun-equipped Warthogs are just as rough on infantry as airstrikes are!
My air defense Wraith survived until the end of the game, but in the last turn the Spartan nailed my standard Wraith with a Spartan Laser, and then Zorper finished it off with an airstrike.
The Covenant carried the day, but only by one VP; the final score was 43-42. So, not a victory to be proud of. We gave each other at least 10 VP in airstrikes; we both ran at least one in every turn of the game. We didn't track how many VP we each scored from the airstrikes, so no idea if we broke even. But it sure was fun watching the tanks blow up!
The game plays well with two battlegroups, although a third battlegroup on each side might make things cumbersome (unless it was stripped down and didn't include all the air and armor assets we were using). We are learning the rules pretty well and things clicked along at a nice pace. It would have been a much different game had we not played in an urban environment; I think the tanks and the aircraft would have killed a lot more units on both sides.
One final shot--proof that Spartans don't automatically pass their reactive fire tests!
Thanks for reading!
Unfortunately I didn't take any notes during the battle, and I've slept a few times since then, so I don't remember all the particulars. It was a pretty good game, interesting to fight in an urban environment (which limited the Scorpion, but wasn't as bad for the Wraith as it can fire indirect). The real sticking point was the flyers; with two battlegroups, we each paid for two air assets (Pelicans for him and Phantoms for me). Neither of us has the models (yet) for either vehicle, so we were using the tokens that come with the game. The air assets turned out to be quite a big deal, probably because of the amount of ground terrain.
After we both had entire infantry units wiped out by air missions in one pass, we decided to get our infantry into buildings to protect them.
Our house rule was that, if the infantry were in the "center core" of the building model, then they were truly inside the building and were therefore protected from aerial attacks. (Note: I'm not sure how this squares with the rules; I couldn't find anything in the rulebook that specifically talks about infantry being protected from airstrikes while in buildings.) If we moved the infantry to the outer edge of the building, they were considered to be "on the roof" and therefore gained the Elevated Position bonus. But they were then also subject to airstrikes.
Zorper tried running a Gauss Warthog unit. They were shut down fairly quickly by my Hunters. His Scorpion, however, pretty much obliterated my Ghosts. 18 anti-armor dice at 40" is pretty rough!
The Scorpion was killed by multiple airstrikes.
The Sun Devil was killed by a combination of airstrikes (basically Wild Weasel missions by one brave, lucky, and fool-hardy Covenant pilot) and attacks from one of my Hunters.
As the game progressed and our respective flyers were getting more and more shot-up, we both got brave and put some infantry units out in the open. Turns out chaingun-equipped Warthogs are just as rough on infantry as airstrikes are!
My air defense Wraith survived until the end of the game, but in the last turn the Spartan nailed my standard Wraith with a Spartan Laser, and then Zorper finished it off with an airstrike.
The Covenant carried the day, but only by one VP; the final score was 43-42. So, not a victory to be proud of. We gave each other at least 10 VP in airstrikes; we both ran at least one in every turn of the game. We didn't track how many VP we each scored from the airstrikes, so no idea if we broke even. But it sure was fun watching the tanks blow up!
The game plays well with two battlegroups, although a third battlegroup on each side might make things cumbersome (unless it was stripped down and didn't include all the air and armor assets we were using). We are learning the rules pretty well and things clicked along at a nice pace. It would have been a much different game had we not played in an urban environment; I think the tanks and the aircraft would have killed a lot more units on both sides.
One final shot--proof that Spartans don't automatically pass their reactive fire tests!
Thanks for reading!
43
The Showcase / Landlubber's Covenant (Halo: Fleet Battles)
« on: December 29, 2016, 01:33:04 am »
Thought I had a thread started already for my Covenant ships, but I guess not. Anyway...I have now painted all the Covenant ships I own, as of this evening. I give you the Fleet of Ascendant Justice:
Haven't thought of names for all of them. The ORS in the middle is the Phalanx of Purity.
This concludes all of my painting for 2016. Time to put the brush down, clean up the hobby room, and start planning my next assault into the Land of Unpainted Resin and Plastic. I just got a second starter set for Halo: Ground Command, so maybe I'll start there.
Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. Thanks for looking!
Haven't thought of names for all of them. The ORS in the middle is the Phalanx of Purity.
This concludes all of my painting for 2016. Time to put the brush down, clean up the hobby room, and start planning my next assault into the Land of Unpainted Resin and Plastic. I just got a second starter set for Halo: Ground Command, so maybe I'll start there.
Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. Thanks for looking!
44
Halo Ground Command / King of the Hill
« on: December 12, 2016, 10:25:43 pm »
Zorper and I combined the contents of our two Halo: Ground Command starter boxes a few weeks ago for one large game of King of the Hill. We used one of the standard bunkers from the starter box as the objective. This was the second game for both of us. I unfortunately didn't take any overall pictures of the board.
This is an interesting scenario because units activate as they come on the table, so there is no trying to line up units against each other in initial deployment. The objective is to occupy a bunker on a hill in the center of the board. I played the UNSC; given that we had two battlegroups on the table, I took two Spartans, both armed with standard assault rifles (in retrospect I should have given one of them a Spartan Laser). We called them Spartan Red and Spartan Black (due to how they were painted).
Turn One was spent pretty much with units deploying onto the board and executing flat-out moves to get into position. We both drove most of our infantry units straight towards the hill in the center where the bunker was located, with vehicles moving along the flanks.
Units started dying in Turn Two. Much like Halo: Fleet Battles, units tend to either be alive or dead...they don't usually hang around damaged or degraded. At least, that's the case with Infantry units. We each had a couple occasions where an entire Infantry unit was eliminated in Offensive or Reactive Fire--in my case, it was Hunters that eliminated my formation, and in his case it was Reactive Fire from a full-strength Warthog unit.
In one of the most cinematic moments of the game, his Hunters charged and entered Melee combat with my Warthogs...
They eliminated the lead Warthog; we assumed one of the Hunters lifted the vehicle and just threw it off the battlefield.
In Turn Three, my Fire Support unit killed off one of those Hunters with rockets. Spartan Red also made a flat-out run and got into the bunker, much to the consternation of the Covenant! On the other side of the board, my other Warthog unit had to deal both with enemy Infantry and Ghosts. I learned quickly that Warthogs with chain guns just really aren't equipped to deal with Ghosts!
I was able to hold the bunker through Turns Three and Four, but then...in Turn Five...
The Elite Zealot conducted a melee attack against Spartan Red! To his credit, Red did kill a Grunt Levy element and an Elite Minor as the unit approached, but the Elite Zealot caused two wounds in the melee...and Spartan Red failed both his heroic saves!!!! That was pretty much the last activation of the game. Quite a cinematic ending!
After all was said and done, the Covenant squeaked out a win, 25 VP to 19 VP. It was a good game, and nice to play with two full battlegroups (even if they were both identical to each other). We're still learning the game, so repetition helps, and you get more repetition with more units on the table. We put out a pretty healthy amount of terrain so that no one unit could dominate the battlefield. Even with two Spartans, neither of us felt that they were unstoppable. He did have a bit of trouble dislodging Spartan Red from the bunker, but the Elite Zealot made it look easy once he closed in melee combat.
We've only played just two games, but we both really enjoy it so far. Lots of cool moments, cinematic moments, like I described above...and like this:
Happy to run a demo game for anyone who's interested.
Thanks for reading!
This is an interesting scenario because units activate as they come on the table, so there is no trying to line up units against each other in initial deployment. The objective is to occupy a bunker on a hill in the center of the board. I played the UNSC; given that we had two battlegroups on the table, I took two Spartans, both armed with standard assault rifles (in retrospect I should have given one of them a Spartan Laser). We called them Spartan Red and Spartan Black (due to how they were painted).
Turn One was spent pretty much with units deploying onto the board and executing flat-out moves to get into position. We both drove most of our infantry units straight towards the hill in the center where the bunker was located, with vehicles moving along the flanks.
Units started dying in Turn Two. Much like Halo: Fleet Battles, units tend to either be alive or dead...they don't usually hang around damaged or degraded. At least, that's the case with Infantry units. We each had a couple occasions where an entire Infantry unit was eliminated in Offensive or Reactive Fire--in my case, it was Hunters that eliminated my formation, and in his case it was Reactive Fire from a full-strength Warthog unit.
In one of the most cinematic moments of the game, his Hunters charged and entered Melee combat with my Warthogs...
They eliminated the lead Warthog; we assumed one of the Hunters lifted the vehicle and just threw it off the battlefield.
In Turn Three, my Fire Support unit killed off one of those Hunters with rockets. Spartan Red also made a flat-out run and got into the bunker, much to the consternation of the Covenant! On the other side of the board, my other Warthog unit had to deal both with enemy Infantry and Ghosts. I learned quickly that Warthogs with chain guns just really aren't equipped to deal with Ghosts!
I was able to hold the bunker through Turns Three and Four, but then...in Turn Five...
The Elite Zealot conducted a melee attack against Spartan Red! To his credit, Red did kill a Grunt Levy element and an Elite Minor as the unit approached, but the Elite Zealot caused two wounds in the melee...and Spartan Red failed both his heroic saves!!!! That was pretty much the last activation of the game. Quite a cinematic ending!
After all was said and done, the Covenant squeaked out a win, 25 VP to 19 VP. It was a good game, and nice to play with two full battlegroups (even if they were both identical to each other). We're still learning the game, so repetition helps, and you get more repetition with more units on the table. We put out a pretty healthy amount of terrain so that no one unit could dominate the battlefield. Even with two Spartans, neither of us felt that they were unstoppable. He did have a bit of trouble dislodging Spartan Red from the bunker, but the Elite Zealot made it look easy once he closed in melee combat.
We've only played just two games, but we both really enjoy it so far. Lots of cool moments, cinematic moments, like I described above...and like this:
Happy to run a demo game for anyone who's interested.
Thanks for reading!
45
The Showcase / The Painting Year in Review--2016
« on: December 01, 2016, 10:14:37 pm »
OK fellow naval wargamers, it's that time of the year again. Let's see what you painted in 2016!
Before December 31st, post a few "group shots" in this thread of all the naval wargaming miniatures you completed this year. No matter if you painted a single model or an entire fleet, we want to see your work! You can mash them all together in one big group, naval ships with space ships, or break them up into fleets or genres--whatever works best for you. Feel free to tell us a little bit about what you painted. Also, post a shot of the one model (or squadron of models) that you're most proud of that you completed this year and tell us why it's your favorite. Tell us if you completed any of your 2016 painting resolutions--and let us know what your painting resolutions are for 2017!
Nothing to win here except bragging rights and the envy of your fellow naval wargamers. I know we have a talented pool of painters here at MBS, so let's see what you've done!
Before December 31st, post a few "group shots" in this thread of all the naval wargaming miniatures you completed this year. No matter if you painted a single model or an entire fleet, we want to see your work! You can mash them all together in one big group, naval ships with space ships, or break them up into fleets or genres--whatever works best for you. Feel free to tell us a little bit about what you painted. Also, post a shot of the one model (or squadron of models) that you're most proud of that you completed this year and tell us why it's your favorite. Tell us if you completed any of your 2016 painting resolutions--and let us know what your painting resolutions are for 2017!
Nothing to win here except bragging rights and the envy of your fellow naval wargamers. I know we have a talented pool of painters here at MBS, so let's see what you've done!