Outmercs: Rescue

Having some spare time on Easter holidays I retook my never ending solo skirmish system (close to be finished I swear!)

I tested the encounter Rescue, in which I have a squad who has to rescue an undetermined number of civilians (1d6+1) from a war zone; I scored 2 so 3 people to rescue. The game starts with the squad already deployed next to their ship, and three hazard markers indicating possible enemy forces. The two buildings with red skulls are future generator of more enemy forces (I didn't put the markers until pic 3!). One will start generating hazard markers on turn five onwards, and the second on turn nine.

All buildings must be checked until civilians are found. On a d6 they can contain: 1 nothing, 2-3 civilians, 4-6 enemies. I met too many enemies for my taste and I changed to 1-2 nothing, 2-3 civilians and 5-6 enemies for the next game.

I scored enough activations to get everybody on the move. Squad leader, a sniper and a grunt upwards on the left, support weapon (heavy laser) and two more grunts on the right. All troops veteran in combat armour.

First contact! A huge brute ala XCom Muton, armed with a heavy laser. I was on overwatch and could shot it down before he could do anything.

Checking first building and two Snakemen put down with a hand grenade. I started with 3 grenades (2d6) and now I had only two, but being just one guy in the building he couldn't risk to kill two enemies with his laser rifle. In the game, downed enemies do not check their status up to the end of his next turn so I do not know if they are out of fight unless I contact them base to base.

My sergeant checked another building and met two Mutons so he had to use another hand grenade. The brute at the bottom recovered from the shots received and stood on their feet but he missed his shots.

Grunt entered building on the right and met another Snakemen. He missed his shots so the sniper followed and could kill it.

My sergeant stepped on a personal mine when he was closing to finish the downed brutes. His accompanying grunt could finish them and then assisted the sergeant, who luckily recovered in the end.

Another building and Aliens again, and with them my last grenade.

Turn 5 and the building on the left started to generate new enemies, three green brutes that caught one of my men in the open and the sniper as well. Sergeant was without ammo and ducking back behind the red vehicle, yelling for backup.

I tried the building on the right with the idea of leaving the mission after that as another batch of enemies will be generated next turn and I already had two men down.

Bingo! The team found two survivors (scored a 4 on d3) and then run frantically towards the chopper. The sniper and the sergeant could recover and also run as fast as they could, followed by Aliens.

Two psykers (XCom Sectoids or just Greys) abducted one civilian who attacked the other one while the soldier leading them was hit and downed by a Muton. Sarge and sniper suppressed enemy advance firing from the ship.

In my next turn (9) the downed soldier could recover and take the civilians to the ship and escape.

I received 4.000 credits for accomplishing the mission in 9 turns (the sooner you finish, the bigger the payment), another 10.000 c. for the rescued civilians but a penalty of minus 3.000 for leaving one survivor behind and minus 2.000 for losing two men, so 9.000 credits in total.

Roman Reinforcements for DBA 3.0

I have painted some more models from Cromarty to upgrade my Romano British army 2.2 to 3.0, and also to have a new army with the same models, Late Roman.

3 x 4 Ax.

3 x 4 Bd.

1 x Kn, 1 x Ps

II/81 Dux Brit.

II/78a Western Roman Army.

I can't have enough of these gorgeous knights! I'm painting next a unit of 4Kn to use them either as clibanarii for Late Roman or catafractarioum for Sub-Roman British.

15mm Fallschrimjägers

I have started painting WWII in 15mm to play Chain of Command and Battlegroup. This is my first batch of models. They are 3d sculpts from Eskice miniatures and I like their cartoon like appearance the remind me of the old Sturmtruppem comic stripes.

These are not all the miniatures I painted so far. I have enough for two sections and I may paint up to a full company. Below you can see a platoon with some support options at the back.

Close up of a squad with two LMGs.

From left to right, Panzerschreck team, medium mortar, sniper team, flamethrower, HMG and raketenhler.

I also painted some kradschützen from Eskice as well. They are very cute.

Farewell to Warhammer.

That's it. I am definitely done with Warhammer. Me and my best friend, who passed away in 2020, started in the early eighties and we did 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition and then we stopped and did other games. I sold my old school Orc army and then we forgot about Warhammer. Much later, The Old World came and I gathered again some things from Chaos I had, and painted many more to build me a 2K points army, and looked for players, and started again with Warhammer. 

But I had forgotten things I never liked about this system; things like competitive players, rolling for hitting, wounding and saving, thousands of special rules and continuous updates plus the need of learning everything about all the armies and magic objects and weapons in Warhammer that now I find boring and a chore, plus my memory that does not help either, as well as the fact that I am getting older, nearly 59 now, and there is a gap between me and current players.

So I sold my Chaos army and a friend picked most of it last night. Also, I took a goodbye picture with me and my soldiers. I tried to take a picture like the famous one from Mr. Bryan Ansell as a tribute to him because I admired him and I am very grateful to him for all those wonderful years he gave me with Warhammer and Laserburn, but I raised the wrong arm in the picture, and now I cannot change that because the army is gone.

Anyway, I am glad that I got rid off all of it. It took me an effort because it represented the golden years of my youth and some of the best moments of it with my friend, but I wasn't going to use it anymore and I feel lighter now they departed. So farewell.

Painting 1/72 prints.

I missed painting 1/72 scaleso ordered some printed US troops, but I made a mistake and ordered marines instead. In the end I painted them as standard army troops.

They are Join or Die 28mm sculpts downscaled to 1/72.

Here is a comparative shot with some Italeri soft plastic 1/72 US troops. As you can see, the marines are slight smaller and thicker, and they also have bigger rifles and heads but they look better on the table because of this.

You can appreciate two different ways of painting, one with diluted painting (faster) and another with strong wash and lights. Which one do you think is better?

And here a German grenadier section that I needed to complet a squad. I tried SS greenleaf camo on the two rifles on the right, and panzer grenadier camo on the MG team and officer, but It did't turn out very accurate.

Last Perrys

I have finally finished the 42 miniatures that come in the box. It has taken me quite a bit of time because I've been distracted by other stuff from the hobby as you can see from my previous posts.

I must say this box is a bargain. 42 models giving you men to deploy two 30cal. machine gun teams, bazooka team, sniper, BARs, sergeants and lieutenant enough for a platoon for just 20 quids!

The painting is tabletop standard as I painted them with diluted paints and a wash; no lights.

These guys were the last batch I had to paint.

Then I realised that I needed a third BAR and I had used all the soldiers, so I took the spare lieutenant and cut off the leather bag with maps and glue on top of that a belt with cartridges for the BAR.

And there it is the whole platoon painted. Now I will have an observer, a medic and a light mortar team printed and then I will consider this proyect done.

Another patrol

During Xmas holidays I came back to my house rules and tinkered with them a bit and then tried a scenario. 

I don't know about you guys but tinkering with house rules has been for me another part of the hobby that I love as much as painting, playing games and collecting and reading rulesets.

I played an US regular squad on patrol in a 80x80 cm board for DBA 3. Their mission was reaching the opposite side and come back, with a plus bonus if they get a prisoner for interrogation.

I divided my squad in a 2 men scout team on the left, a BAR section in the middle and the rest of the them with the sergeant on the right to check the big house in front of them.

The BAR section moved at the double and took position on the top of the hill, ready to give firing support, and immediately after that they spot some enemies.

Half a elite squad with a MG34 that engaged fire with them. I forgot to take pictures of the sergeant with the section killing a German scout team hidden in the house and then entering and helping the BAR section to kill the MG34 team. Only one member of the BAR section survived.

On the other side, the American scout team had almost reached their objective. Again, forgot to take pictures of German coming down the road and finishing them after a fierce shootout.

Meanwhile, German soldiers sneaked behind sargeant's boys who were finishing the MG34, and fired at some of them outside whereas assaulted the house in hand-to-hand combat. There were two rounds of intense fighting, with grenades flying from both sides and shooting through the windows.

My squad won the fight but ended with only two men standing, and more Germans were coming down the road. However, the managed to get one prisoner alive and leave the place.

 

So they didn't scout the whole board but brought one prisoner. There were 2 KIA, 2 maimed, another 2 in hospital and the rest recovered. I had fun so it was a victory ;-)