Sunday, December 29, 2013

Ogre / GEV Designer's Edition AAR

Hi Kids,  Over the holidays we managed to get some gaming in, and the game o' choice was the new Massively Expensive Designer's Edition of OGRE!  I still find it amusing that a game that was released 30 years ago for US$2.95 has swelled to US$100, a 3390% increase.  Wish my stocks had that kind of performance.  Oh well.  On to the game!  We decided to play one of the bigger GEV scenarios, I had 35 armor attacking and Ol had a Mk 3 Ogre and some armor and infantry, with reinforcements arriving every turn.  Sorry about the crappy pictures, they are from my cellphone.  We decided to use the optional "Original" black & white counters, since they are so cool.  They can be yours for an additional US$25.00.  We used two sets for this game.
 
 Here's the initial advance, my GEV's are stacked pretty deep, as no defending troops can reach them.
 The swarm advances to contact, and starts lighting up everything within 2 hexes....
The Howitzer on defense doesn't last long.
 The GEV's trying to find an open way through all the dangerous terrain.
 Bypassing defenses, (especially the Mk3 Ogre in the center!) the GEV's spread out all over the map.
 
 More of the same, GEV's rushing all over the map, blasting the crud outta everything! Except for that 20 Point building defended by x3 defense infantry!!!
 
Losses mount as the defender's reinforcements reach the battle area, and attrition gets ugly.
 Holy cow, what's happened to the 35 GEV's?  One defender Lt Tank managed to crush everything in sight, racking up kills like nobody's business, while bouncing huge amounts of tacnukes off his thin armor.  He better stay outta Vegas!
 And the end is near, I'm down to about 3 GEV's!  At this point we added up all the points for destroyed terrain and combats units, and it looks like a decisive victory for the raiders!!

Wooooohooooooo!

Friday, December 27, 2013

A couple more Second Chance skeletons

I worked on a couple more skeletons from the second chance lot I recently picked up.


In the lower right you can see the two emerging from the ground skeletons. I am not a fan of that style model but cheap is cheap. I thought about trying to make them into regular standing skeletons but decided to roll with it.


The emerging torso model started with the tombstone on the base and a shield. The arms and shield made it almost impossible to rank the model in a unit. I broke the model and tombstone off of the base. I cut off the shield and had to green stuff the top of the hand back on. I rounded up another base and pinned it to the center. Then repositioned the arm and puttied around the base to make the disturbed earth. I took the tomb stone and glued it back on the base to add to my graveyard of  generic summoned markers. This gives me 21 models for a lot of 20 so not bad.


The second model had its leg cut off at the knee and glued to the base as a simple conversion. I used a bit of putty and made a ring of disturbed earth on the base. Once I get the base flocked I think it will look okay and once painted it will help break up the monotony of all the skeleton units.

More to come

ColKG

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Disposable Heroes does Squad Leader AAR: Devil's Hill

Hi Kids,  The first game went so quickly we decided to try another scenario that very same day...
 We picked out another, this one called "Devil's Hill."  Somewhere in Holland, 1944, US Army troops were attacking a hill with three entrenchments defended by German infantry.  I couldn't find my shellholes or foxholes, so we just used some walls to represent the entrenchments on the top of Hill 621.  The walls on the flat part of the map represent gullies.  I set up a few squads over on the left to suppress the Huns while the main effort went up a side hill and took the entrenchments from the flank.
Here we have the set up, buckets of US Army men waiting for the balloon to go up.  The Huns look a little thin but have quite a few squads coming in as reinforcements on turns 3 and 4.
 Yeah, this scenario has that same problem as the prior one:  Too Damn Many Hun Machine Guns!  These ones are even worse: MG42's in the heavy mode, complete with tripods.
 After a turn or two of devastating German shooting, I decided to concentrate on gunning down as many Huns as possible.  I had to thin out those squads with the HMG's!  Since the HMG's were considered members of the squad I had to kill 10 guys before they would stop firing.  Even three squad members would have 10 dice!!!!  Eye-yi-yi....
 The flank attack starts up the first hill.
 The first Hun reinforcements arrive, a couple squads and a 251 halftrack. After missing it the first time, on the next turn the bazooka gunner hits it and takes it out! None of the 10 passengers are hurt, though.  Will wonders never cease?  Skull tokens start littering the battlefield.
 Apparently there are just too many Huns in this scenario.  The had an extra squad come down off the hill and take out some of the US infantry in the gullies.
 Meanwhile, the reinforcements have charged into hand to hand combat, which is pretty damn brutal!  Although all the Huns are killed, there are very few Americans left alive to continue the attack.
 At the end of the game there are not enough Americans to press the attack, as more Hun reinforcements reach the hilltop and replace their losses.
 
Yeah, they might look pretty thin up there, but there are about 25 dice of shooting in these few half strength squads!  And they are in -3 cover to boot! 
 
Another Hun victory!  Arg!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Beastmen hunt High Elves or "They Can't possibly hit us from Ther..."

The Lads at Gaming Underground are planning a Fantasy Battle league at the beginning of the new year. I am thinking about tossing my hat in the ring. The problem is I only have a few still current army books. The last game I played with the Beastmen was a Warhammer fantasy battle Third edition game this time last year. I haven't fielded them in 8th edition. Other than the one battle from last year I haven't fielded them since 6th edition sometime before 2006. I have still been working on them and I think it is time for them to head back to the table. After a quick exchange of messages I had a game scheduled with Leonard and his High Elves.


The list A doom bull with a shield, blackened plate, iron course iron, and ax of swift slaying. leading a unit of five minotaurs with great weapons. thirty bestigors, two units of 20 gors one with shields the other with two hand weapons two units of six harpies, seven units of six ungor raiders a wargor battle standard bearer, and three level 2 bray shamans. As I would find out a little heavy on characters and light in troops.


The table set up.The next time I am placing terrain and I have the chance to place a river, I will place it first before any other terrain and put it down one board edge.


The armies arrayed. Leonard had a level 4 wizard, a level 2 wizard, a battle standard bearer, a big unit of spear men, a unit of archers, a unit of Swordsmen, a unit of shadow warriors, a lion chariot, two repeating bolt throwers, two eagles and a phoenix in a pear tree. I placed the gor unit with two hand weapons and three ungor raider units in ambush, while I piled the rest to make an end run around the tower. I scouted one unit of harpies in the rear corner of his deployment zone and the other behind the tower.


I went first and moved up my Harpies to march block the Eagle and Phoenix. I call this a moral victory. Anytime you can march block a High Elf eagle an Angel sings.


The second unit of Harpies roost in the tower. It seemed like a good idea at the time.


First blood! to myself. The Ungor raider unit entered the river and found out it was necrotic slime. The dangerous terrain kills two and they flee, the unit next to them then fails their leadership test and flee too. That is always what you like to see turn one.


Cross town traffic, always so hard to get through to you. The meat of the beast army trying to round the tower.


Turn one ambush, the gor unit and ungor raider arrive behind the chariot.


Where are the Elves? I rolled a one on the Ambush chart so Leonard place a unit of Ungor raiders on my back board edge.


The Shadow warriors move to shoot at the Harpies.


The Chariot and Swordsmen reform to face the ambushing gor unit.


The Eagle charges the fleeing Ungor Radiers and Fails, stopping just short of the necrotic slime river.


The Harpies leave the tower and trade places with some ungor raiders as the rest of the army reforms and wheels.


After taking the fires from two repeating bolt throwers and the archers and Shadow warriors the last three harpies charged bolt thrower number one and stomp it.


They Overrun into bolt thrower number two where the last ungor raider unit arrived from ambush.


After charging a fleeing ungor raider unit off of the board the Phoenix redirects into the Harpies. The bad thing is when the Phoenix stomps the harpies everything but the Minotaurs is going to have to make a panic test.


The Chariot charges the flank of the gors.


The Phoenix stomps the Harpies and over runs into the back of the Minotaurs. Thanks to the wargor battle standard bearer all the units pass the panic check.


The Harpies fight the bolt thrower crew and one is killed but the second one stays.


The Lion Chariot smashes the gor unit.


The Gors run off the table chased by the chariot. The Ungor raiders remember that the doom bull left a note on the herd stone and flee off the table go find someone that can read it to them.


The Phoenix and Doom Bull square off. Its always strike last ability cancels the always strike first of the doom bull but the minotaurs win the combat.


The Minotaurs reform to face the Phoenix.


The Ungor raiders charge in to finish off the bolt thrower crew.


The Ungor raiders put a wound on the Eagle.


Another bad move on my part. I left the Brayshamans out in the breeze to get the power dice boost from the herd stone and charged by an eagle.


The Bolt thrower crew kill the harpy, and the ungors miss. They then break and run. Luck is on their side because the bolt thrower crew have to stay with their weapon.


The Doom bull and minotaurs finish off the Phoenix.



The eagle kills one brayshaman. I forgot to roll the primal fury test but i doubt it would have really mattered.


The eagle over runs into the next bray shaman.


A high point of the game a 39 point ungor raider unit finishes off an Eagle.



I remember the primal fury and the Bray shaman takes a wound and stays. The gor unit behind the fight reforms so they can make the eagle pay.


With the rest of the Minotaur unit killed, the doom bull charges the shadow warriors and fails.



The eagle stands,


While the gors delivers. remember a little earlier when the ungors dropped one Eagle. This one has killed right at three hundred points of bray shamans and now takes a 185 point gor unit to finish it off. I hate Elves and the little eagles too.


The Bestigor finally make it in


Another Elf eagle meets its just deserves.


The Bestigors have the +1 strength banner on the wargor battle standard and the banner of outrage on the unit so they get primal fury and a strength seven and they still lose the combat.



The trap is sprung, The spear men with all the characters close the flank while the shadow warriors charge in on the front. The Banner of Outrage giving everybody hatred isn't such a good thing in hind sight.


The Bestigors lose and get ran down by the Shadow warriors.



The doom bull remains.


In what was his last mistake the Doom bull charges the spear men and issues a challenge. He has six attacks hitting on threes wounding on twos, he has a good chance to beat combat resolution, wrong.


The Brayshaman looks on from the tower as the Doom bull goes to his final glory.


He loses combat, breaks and is ran down.

The beastmen lose, but the fact is I did better than I thought I would. One thing that doesn't show in the commentary is that magic had almost no effect on the game. Leonard and I both rolled either snake eyes or less than five for power dice on several different magic turns. He got off a couple spells and I fired off a couple spells but that was about it for the game. Where to go from here. Three level three Shamans are neat but I will bring a level four Great Bray shaman next time with a possible power stone. I like the Herd stone but I need a big bunker for the Brayshamans to stay in, looks like those forty ungor spear men are going to get rebased after all. 30 Bestigors, not enough, do I go with forty bestigors or Fifty? Probably forty for the next game. The Harpies did well, but I might have to make a larger unit next time. Minotaurs with great weapons just too good, probably need a larger block. Six model ungor raider units? They did allot of running away but did down an Eagle. I probably need to go with four units of twelve next time, so they will have to kill three before they run.

Time to start rebasing ungors.

ColKG