Dux Britanniarum Campaign - April 565 AD

Second month of raiding in the Dux B campaign and this month saw myself raiding into my Pictish neighbours terriotory and trying to lift some cattle in the Cattle Raid scenario.

With both myself and Andy (my Pictish Neebur) pretty much novices with the Dux B rules, we were a bit hit or miss with the rules but luckily there was a fair bit of sage advice on hand to help us out if we got really stuck (which we did on a couple of occaisons) but we muddled through a despite a couple of errors on our part, mainly through assumption of things rather than anything else, we played through the game and had much enjoyment from the event.

With myself trying to get at least two of the three stands of livestock from one end of the table and off he other I knew things were going to be a bit of an uphill struggle. Getting three moves free before Andy's Picts appeared at the far end of the table to intercept (couldn't have been a worse place for me for him to appear) my forces did their best to high tail it towards the other end of the table.

The inevitable clash came on the far half of the table with some skirmishing which I got a slight advantage with and my cavalry easily saw off his at the far end of the table. So far so good.

First major mistake now followed with us believing that my cavalry couldn't charge to their rear (into the rear of his warriors nicely lined up in front of mine about to charge) we assumed that they couldn't do an about face so instead I charged his missile troops and scattered them to the four winds. Andy subsequently agreed that this situation if I'd been able to attack his infantry would have drastically changed the course of the game, but c'est la vie).

Andy's Pictish warriors then charged my warriors and scored a whopping 20 hits and did obscene amount of kills and shock on my chief and his warriors who, funnily enough, reeled back and withdrew back in the direction from which they came for a couple of turns while my Lord frantically took off shock from the warriors until they stood pretty much where they had started.

Things started to get pretty confusing from this point and to be honest quite exciting, with all the troops on the table going this way and that and too-ing and fro-ing right across the table in a see-saw match with neither gaining the upper hand but the Scots picking off more of the Picts until honour's were pretty much equal again.

Eventually, time really beat us and with this the last game still going on in the hall, and a bit of a crowd had gathered to watch and shout abuse (sorry encouragement) at the two sides, Andy was supposed to be flying out on hols at 5:00am the next morning, I called a halt to the festivities as the game was still up for grabs but was going to take a fair bit of time to draw to a conclusion in my favour at any rate, I gave the honour's to Andy (and told him he could keep his scabby cows, I didn't want they anyway) by way of a Pyrrhic victory, Andy allowing me to withdraw un-molested., as our losses meant we are both going to sitting out of the raiding next month already and didn't want to make things worse.

A pretty exciting game as I said and certainly picked up lot's on the rules for next time. Although May 565 AD might be a bit quiet round these parts.

Future Wars Update 006 - Mechanised Infantry Platoon Complete

1st Platoon 1st Company 3 Scots (Mechanised Infantry), 2065 AD

Finally getting thing's into gear again and I got around to finishing off ('at last!' I hear them scream) my Mechanised Infantry Platoon for my Future Wars project.

With only one squad and it's vehicle to do, I bit the bullet over the last week or so and got them done including the APC (which prooved quite difficult to match the previous two, though you wouldn't have thought so with a pretty middling blue colour scheme but it ended up pretty close any way. (Plus it is a different model to the other two, supporting a GMG rather than the chain gun's of the other APC's).

Charlie Squad

Along with getting Charlie Squad done and dusted and bringing the Platoon up to full strength, I also, while I was about it, painted up a squad of other troops, in the form of some Special Forces types, to use as a bit of punch to augment the Regular's.

Attached Special Forces Squad

Now with the 1st Platoon, 1st Company 3 Scots (Mechanised Infantry) complete and in the bag I can continue with The Enemy which is now all prepared and ready for painting up with the their second squad already in the slips.

I've had a couple of small exploratary game's and have been tweeking the rules (Future Wars) slightly as a result, to make troops, particularly the Kra'uul, a bit more durable.

I've also been playing about a bit with the vehicle rule's to make them a bit more interesting and bringing in some light flyer types for a bit of hit & run and straffing. I'm also looking to get some human type upgrades for the 'Hoomies' in the form of some believable Hard Tech but keeping a weather eye out to see what I think fits.

I'll write up the proposed back story for a bit of fun and setting the scene, soon.

Once I get the other two Kra'uul squad's painted up, I can get my first game proper and start the ball rolling with 'the Defence of Stirling Barracks'. Watch that space.

Necromunda Campaign Round 8 - Gang Fight

This being the eight episode of the Necromunda Campaign and six bods were present to get violent in the Underhive.

Anyone keeping tabs on this campaign will have noticed that Round 7 is missing, this being due to the fact I'd missed out on that round due to being in foreign parts at the time. This had resulted in everyone ganging up on the Eldar (or so John's version goes) and eventually Andy's Close Combat shock troops, his Van Saar had triumphed and Andy had picked to go for everyone's favourite Gang Fight scenario for Round 8.

Six bods were present for this rounds bash which we split over two tables; myself and the Redemption were up against Dave's Goliaths and Andy's Van Saar on the first table and John's Eldar were pitted against Kev's Cawdor and Doug's Genestealer Cultist's on the other table.

On the first field the Goliath's pretty mob handed advanced straight across towards the Van Saar who also advanced but a bit more cautiously but with Tunnels ans Vents deployed a couple of sniper types in the stacks in the middle and this gave them a commanding field of fire for the whole game. The Redemption also advanced splitting their attention pretty equally between the other gangs but started a bit away from the other gangs.

The fight between the Goliath's and Van Saar was fairly brutal, protracted and too the point with the CC dude's of the Van Saar pretty decisively getting the upper hand in a un-Necromunda like melee in the middle of the table with the snipers shooting at any target that presented itself including a couple of pot shots at the advancing Redemption.

The Redemption advanced as quickly as possible trying to keep to cover on their right flank where they were a bit exposed to the fire from the positioned Van Sarr snipers but the snipers failed to cause any wounds on the few shots taken against the Reds.

The Redemption had much more cover elsewhere and were free to advance there quickly coming up to the flank and rear of the Goliath's who were much more occupied to their front.

The Goliath's seeing their danger a bit too late were fully engaged with the Van Saar, tried to head off the Redemption with a few gangers available, and under a hail of gun fire and flamers three or four went down or out of action in very quick succession.

Coupled with not making much head way against the Van Saar, the Goliath's bottled it and fled to keep their losses to a minimum.

This left the Van Saar and the Reds to battle it out and with the Vans a bit more grouped they launched a quick assault on the few Reds who were taking a few pot shots at them from cover.

The first couple of rounds were fairly inconclusive as both sides tried to pile numbers into the melee which developed and all pretty much in one round the Van's won most of their combat's (the Red's don't seem to score very highly here) and in the space of two rounds six of the Reds were taken out of action (one from a re-roll on a previous downed result, so I decided to leg it quick before my whole gang were dead. 

This leaving Andy and his Van Saar's the victors on the first table but with some four casualties to his name.

Table two was a much different story, with the Cultists and Cawdor Gangers having to be much more wary due to the Eldar fire power and they played things a bit more cagey and advanced through the burb's slowly trying to keep to cover while the Eldar sat tight and waited their advances.

The Cultist's starting closer, opened up proceedings first and there was an ongoing exchange of fire with little to show for their efforts.

The Cawdor crew advanced edgily but once caught in the cross hair's of the Eldar, Kev's fairly unlucky gang to date so low in number losts a couple down and out of action almost as soon as in range and with little to hurt the Eldar's toughness legged it.





The Cultit's tried to maneuver to get some edge on the Eldar but John sat pretty tight a kept up a steady fire but refused to venture out into the street's much.

The fight here turned into a fairly typical urban street fight with both sides scattered around taking pot shots from cover at anything that moved the other end of the street.

In the end with casulties light on the Cultist's but the only one's really capable of hurting the Eldar being the one's down Doug called it a night and withdrew but honour satisfied as the game lasted the whole evening, and his band were still largely intact but felt he didn't have much to gain to keep the fight going.

Thus John's Eldar triumphed again and with no Eldar Out of Action casulties, he was the overall winner of Round 8 Gang Fight.

The length of the games is beginning to show that the gang's are getting tougher so a bit more edge is present making the games a bit more interesting but the Eldar are still proving a tough nut to crack unless ganged up on.

Car Wars - The Beginning?

Sorting through some old boxes looking for some old RPG supplements for a bit of inspiration for an campaign thang I'm putting together the other day, and I came across the original microgame box for Steve Jackson Games Car Wars.

With all the hoo-ha at the moment for Mad Max related gaming following the release of the re-make of the film, I thought I'd dig it out and have a shufty at the game and see if it was worth resurrecting at all after 34 years (ouch).

Thinking back, I think we only played the game a handful of times at the time, mainly due to the card pieces and playing board were very fiddly, and didn't get into it though the game at the time, even though the game certainly took off with lots of add-on's and supplements etc and was pretty popular back in the day.

Having looked through the rules and bit (amazingly they all seem to be there still) I deduced that they might worth a spin (un-intended pun) though I believe there are some more updated versions about, so that may change once some investigation and reconnaissance has been done with the other bods at t'club.

May your road be clear!