Orcs get command

 I managed to finish three more stands of Tom Meyer's orcs, two of which are command stands with very peculiar standards.

Three regular orcs. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by Ginzio

Command groups with Motorhead standards. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by Ginzio

The unit so far, at the moment it is 33 models strong, I still have 15 or 16 to paint, so I should be anle to field 2 units of 24 or one giant unit of 48-49 orcs.

Battletech Clan invasion campaign game 4

 This is the second half of the previous scenario that we had to split due to not having the full crew available.

This one sees the Kell Hounds and Crescent Hawks trying to inflict as much damage as possible to the reserve of Clan Nova Cat trying to reach Luthien to support the Smoke Jaguar and take the city.

This time I have a lot more pictures, I actually reminded to take a decent amount during the course of the game and Gian added some of his own.

A reinforced lance of Kell Hounds, all Plastech models I had lying around after a big trade.

The Crescent Hawks, apart from the Awesome, a pretty lightweight lance, very risky against a heavy clan force.

The attackers, a fairly heavy force of Nova Cat. 

The battlefield, featuring a new mat that Gian just received.

The Kell Hounds take position in the center wooded area and behind rocky outcrops waiting for the arrival of the feared Clan units.

On their right flank, Clan Nova Cat comes in fast and immediately engages the mercenaries in a vicious close combat fight.

On the Clanners left flank, the Crescent Hawks are spread more down field, so the attackers have more time to maneuver and trade long range shot, but the lighter mercenary mechs stay in cover and manage to avoid taking too much damage.

The Kell Hounds get stuck in with the clanners around the areas of wood close to the edge of the field.

The Crescent Hawks try to skirmish at both long and short range, the little stinger stand defiant dodging shot after shot.

On the clan right the mechs push forward and the Wasp tries to ambush the Nobori-nin.

While on the left the Fenris manages to survive a last attempt from the Crescent Hawk captain to put it into the ground and escapes towards the city.

Meanwhile a lucky shot from the Awesome blows up the Mad Cat's cockpit killing the pilot and scoring a big success for the mercenaries in trying to stop as many clan mechs as possible.

The commando has one of his torsos cored by an ammo explosion, but manages to survive thanks to his CASE ammunition storage. The Stinger keeps harassing the Loki with mixed results.

The Nobori-nin savages the Wasp with his lasers and the light mech's pilot decides to power down and abandon the fight.

On the same side, the remaining Kell Hounds surround the Daishi and try to hurt it as much as possible.

The same happens on the other side of the field when the Crescent Hawks try to surround the Loki, unfortunately for the mercenaries, the Commando is permanently put down.

Thanks to a lot of fire and luck, the Kell Hounds manage to inflict 4 wounds on the Daishi pilot that passes out crushing the mech into the ground and taking a fifth 

The Loki makes it out of the field with not too much damage.

On the last turn, the Daishi pilot miraculously manages to regain consciousness with a box cars and stands up his machine.

We ended the game here and considered the Daishi pilot fought to allow the remaining clan mechs to leave the field, while she was captured at the end of the fight, so she won't make it to the final game.

I hope you enjoyed this report and I'll have another one in probably 3 weeks with the final game of the invasion of Luthien.

A small addition to my Deutschland Afrika Corps army

 When my brother visited in January, he brought me a few Tamiya kits, amongst which was a German motorcycle with sidecar which I just finished assembling and painting.

Apparently it is really good in game, I hope I'll have a chance to try it out as soon as possible.

German motorcycle with sidecar. 1/48, Tamiya, painted by Ginzio

The Battletech campaign goes on - Game 3

This is in reality half of a game, yesterday we only had three out of four players and we decided to split a scenario in two parts, so that we didn't have too many mechs to handle and could make it in a decent amount of time.

This scenario represent the push of Clan Nova Cat following the mediocre success of Clan Smoke Jaguar in the invasion of the Draconis Combine. On the defender side we have a bunch of mercenary units that Prince Davion sent to help the Coordinator in the defense of Luthien, the Combine capital.

The scenario as a whole includes three mercenary units, the Wolf's Dragoons, the Kell hounds and the Crescent Hawks.

Since we split the scenario in two and I had just finished painting some Black Widows (Natasha Kerensky's unit of the Worf's Dragoons), we decided to field them, the next half of the game (which should happen next Sunday), will see a bigger game with the other two units.

The clan mechs are trying to reach Luthien and the mercs are trying to slow them down. In game terms, this means that the clan mechs that manage to exit the board on the opposite edge from which they entered the field, will be added to the final game of this leg of the clan invasion.

This implies that the clan player will have to be careful with its ammunition and make sure its mechs are not too badly damaged.

The game was a success for the Nova Cat, they managed to exit three mechs and one Elemental point and just loosing one mech (at the hands of an Annihilator and Natasha Kerensky's Warhammer), but the commander's mech suffered serious damage to its legs (MASC accident) and a the others are a little short of armor, we will see how they'll perform in the last game.

Following are some pictures of the game and this time I also remembered to take pictures of the two teams before the game started.

The Black Widows lance with a Coolant truck in support (we wanted to try it out since it was freshly painted)

The Nova Cat mechs and elementals advancing on Luthien.

The field of battle.

The Black Widows take defensive positions on hills and in woods (note the Trebuched on the far back left on top of a hill).

 

The Nova Cats begin to advance laying down long range fire.

After taking a few long range hits, the Annihilator decides to step behind a tree, which saves him from Gauss rifle and Laser fire in the following shooting phase (the clan player needed 11s, so the tree really did its job).

 

The Locust IIC sacrifices fire power for sprinting, in the process it takes a few hits from the Annihilator's autocannons and lasers...

...but manages to reach the city and disappears on the horizon.

The heavier clan mechs decided to fight it out and after destroying the Annihilator and crippling the Zeus and Natasha's Warhammer win the field at the loss of the Cauldron Born.

The game was a lot of fun as usual, if nothing goes wrong, we will play the second half of this scenario next weekend and I'll have pictures on the Monday, stay tuned for more Battletech.