Full Thrust - NSL vs ESU

Tamsin and I got Full Thrust back on the table for our yearly dose of space goodness.

Tamsin brought her ESU fleet and I had my trusty NSL.

I finally pulled my finger out and named all of my ships.  Makes life much easier.

Tamsin suggested we use the Gruntz activation cards to spice up the shooting.  Rather than being able to choose who fired first, using the Gruntz cards, you assigned each a card.  The card value would then determine who shot first.

This made life rather interesting in a few duels.

We each had 2500 points, no more than 50% of which could be in capitals.

I was soon to learn the power of the ESU class four laser.....

We each set up, I split up into two squadrons, Tamsin just a line of ESU brawlers.

The ESU advance. Some how, the Russians were faster than the NSL.

The NSL squadron based on Ferdinand  III super dreadnought moves to engage

Tamsin's brawlers move in.  Shortly afterwards I discoved that Russians do make big guns.

My Maria class battleship lost all of it's armour and two rows of damage, not to mention multiple systems just from one shot.

I hate the exploding dice mechanic when it's happening to me....

:-)

The fleets moving into knife fighting range.

My pulse torpedoes fail to hit anything!

This is going to hurt!

The end result was a narrow win to the NSL.

I managed to destroy most of the ESU capital ships but most of my fleet was only suitable for scrap metal.

Gruntz Heavy VTOL and Rapier unit

Last units painted up from my shopping last year.

The new heavy lifter/VTOL from GZG looks pretty chunky.  Just need to get a few drop pods and have all the air support I could need.

Heavy VTOL

Small drone

 Rapier Unit

Gruntz goodness

I bought a few things from GZG for Gruntz at Warfare and have painted them up

Now to get them onto the table.


Grav tank with heavy rail gun

VTOL
I do think I need to repaint the base as it all blends together.

8 legged tank with heavy laser

 Spider Drone with 2mm chain gun

Drone with twin 30mm machine gun

Drone with plasma rifle in 40 mega watt range

 Sniper Drone!

Phalanx APC.  I always wanted one of these in 25mm, just too large.  in 15mm, its the perfect size

"Bulldog" APC with chain gun and commander

 Tank drones!

Recovery vehicle

Horizon Wars from Osprey

Ooooh!

Osprey are releasing a 6mm sci fi game at Salute 2016.

Osprey seem to be releasing some very interesting games at the moment, I picked up their Black Ops rules as well.

I've been looking for a good 6mm scifi game for a while.  Future War Commander was good but no one at my club plays it, they prefer Epic, which I loathe.  Maybe this might get some traction.

"Beyond today's horizons lie uncountable wars still to be fought by mankind - on battlefields, against foes, and with weapons that can only be imagined. With Horizon Wars, wargamers can bring these future conflicts to the tabletop, no matter their exact vision of the future of warfare. Combining the feel of real-world combat and tactics with versatile and quick-to-learn rules, Horizon Wars is a 6mm company-level game that incorporates ground forces, aircraft and the titans of the battlefield - mechs. Whether you want to pit a handful of mechs against each other in quick clash of patrols, or line up combined-arms forces for a huge battle, the game remains fast-moving and enjoyable. Also included are full rules for building units from the ground up, allowing players to tailor their forces to suit the mission objectives or their figure collections."

I can see me having a good look at these rules at Salute.

Gruntz AAR - Get to the VTOL

Tamsin and I got a game of Gruntz in.

The scenario, 300 points, the UNSC start in the BUA, they have to make their to the VTOL, the Xenomorphs could spawn at one of three points, marked by the random bit of moss.

We also used the card activation to make it a bit more random.

We started one game and soon scrapped it and started again after some discussion.  The Xenomorphs were given a free racial trait of Swarm, so, they could move twice and get into combat, otherwise, they moved towards a building. 

I should have taken some more photos.

The UNSC pulled a narrow win, but lost 1/2 of their strength due to teeth/claw/fangs.  The Xenomorph free trait of Swarm worked well.  The aliens were able to move fast, if they got shot at, could be taken down, but once they got into close combat, it was all over.

The Queen alien got stuck in and even after taking 16 hits was still moving, which she chewed her way thru my forces.

Lots of fun

The UNSC deployed, ready for the run to the VOTL

The UNSC start moving

A Xenomorph appears and gets stuck in.

The UNSC troops became space sushi

Xmas present

My xmas present just arrived from 15mm.co.uk

Mmm, 15mm scifi terrain

This is what inspired me to get this

I'm looking forward to painting these up and getting them onto the table.  I reckon a few xenomorphs will look really good stalking some marines around this terrain

Gruntz AAR - "Where did Everyone go?"

Tamsin and I finally got some 15mm Gruntz goodness onto the table.

I did a quick scenario called "Where did everyone Go?"

The basic premise of the scenario was all communications was lost with an outpost.  A platoon is sent in to investigate and extract "research" data before the UN investigation team arrived.

The UN were able to infiltrate a sniper team before the main force arrived.  Tamsin's force deployed randomly and moved on, with the objective of getting to the walker, spend a complete turn getting the information and getting off the table in 8 turns.

Turn 1. UNSC sniper team hiding on the hill.  The objective is the crashed walker on the street in the centre of the town.

A look down main street.  Notice the walker and drone, wonder where their design influence came from

Tamsin's force arrives in turn 1.  A platoon of NAC inf, no mech or vehicle support.  A VTOL "visiting" for the photo shoot

The NAC advance down main street, the UNSC sniper engages

The NAC arrive at their objective having dealt with the sniper

The UNSC forces arrive and the NAC sniper learns what a 50mm chain gun can do

The NAc forces pull back form the objective after some convincing shooting from the UN troops

UN infantry decide that the hills are looking good and run for it!

The remaining UNSC infantry get nailed by very effective fire from Tamsin's NAC force

End result was a win to the NAC as the UN were no longer effective after turn 6

Need to get more games of Gruntz in.  The mechanics are solid and places very quickly.  We were playing most of the the game just using a 2 page cheat sheet and since our last game was six months ago,, thats not bad.

Now, I hear GZG have a sale on.....

Gruntz Vehicles

So,

Got the VTOL and wheeled APC from GZG based coated.

Now, what else to do to them....

Mad Mecha terrain

after getting all inspired by Gruntz, I found a vendor called Mad Mecha guy who makes really nice MDF terrain in a few different scales.

So, a quick order later and this is what I got for £27.  Now to paint them up

8 solar panels, they have removable bases so you can turn the panels around

15 cargo containers, 5 x 9cm long ones and 10 x 7cm long ones.  You can make them up with the doors open or closed.

8 x 8cm long billboards.  I added the base as I ordered ones that were meant to be attached to a building.

3 x helo pads