Two more games of Xenos Rampant

I played two more games of Xenos Rampant early in the year but my memory of them is now a little hazy. The first was against my friend Ian and utilized my still unpainted 15mm Near Future armies. I was wondering if more cover would overcome the tendency to get bogged down in firefights. There was more movement in this game until the forces converged at the centre where mine were convincingly ground down.

The second was against Ian's house guest, Ivan, utilising some of Ian's 28 mm 40K armies in a crowded urban environment. Some of the units had only a hand-to-hand capability and this also helped to induce movement. It was an aesthetically attractive and fun game which I marginally won, shooters having some advantage over those trying to close.

Since playing these games my attention has been drawn to the 'Stabilised Weaponry' attribute which allows infantry to move and shoot as an ordered activation in the same way as vehicles. I will try this in the future in another attempt to avoid shooty games.

My forces on this side. Ian's in the distance.

 

In the first of these two games, the progression to the centre is pretty obvious in these overview photos.

My heroic humans move forward...

...backed up by mortars.

The monstrous opposition was beaten back.

Xenos Rampant: first game

Eurasian forces massed in a corner of the
table. The armies will be getting some paint
when reinforcements arrive from GZG.

Ian and I played our first game of Xenos Rampant. We improvised a scenario based on points for controlling three objectives, the points value of destroyed enemy units and a limit to the number of turns set by dicing for game end from the sixth game turn onwards. The game actually ran to seven turns at which point I readily admitted defeat.

As expected, the Rampant engine proved sound and we both enjoyed the game. There were, however, some issues we need to address.

Firstly, we mistakenly overlooked some unit characteristics which would have made certain units more effective.

Secondly, there were some flaws in army design within the context of this game. My side lacked anti-armour power and my Heavy Infantry hit only on a 6. Upgrading to 10 strength points would make them to hit on 5+ which would give them a much better chance against heavy armour.

Thirdly, we should have kept the table to the standard 4' x 4'. I increased the size because we were using 36 point forces but it wasn't really justified as the units were expensive rather than numerous.

Fourthly, and most importantly, it got very shooty. Once enjoying a target, even at extreme range, there was little incentive to move. I put this down to the unlimited ranges. Now, unlimited ranges are quite realistic for a modern/futuristic skirmish game and I actually like that aspect, but it seems to me to put the game in the same territory as Crossfire which would be unthinkable (and not worth playing) without closing down the ranges with close terrain.

Current events indicate that modern war is all about concealment and detection (not to forget artillery). Forces should only expose themselves and attack when they have local superiority. You can't capture that type of battle on an open table where everything can be seen, so our next game is going to have lots of woods for more of a hide-and-seek approach.

Xenos Rampant unit profiles for Near Future Sci-Fi forces

Some Brigade Models reinforcements with
Heavy Weapons for the Elite Infantry.

I've been working on Xenos Rampant unit profiles for my 15mm Near Future Sci-Fi Detachments. These are mostly collected and even undercoated but I am waiting on a few new additions.

One of these forces has a neo-Soviet flavour and was originally inspired by the early Russian insurgency in Ukraine. The other was conceived as a sort of US/NATO force. The current frightfulness has made me uncomfortable with that so I am rebranding them as the forces of Eurasia and Oceana.

The profiles basically follow what seems credible for the look of the models. The Oceana force is a little more hi-tech. I'm aware that the points costs are high which might mean some dumbing down and almost certainly having Detachments of more than the standard 24 points. We found the same thing with Dragon Rampant as opposed to Lion Rampant.

Eurasia

Spider Drone Swarm
Elite Infantry 6
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2, Mechanoid 0
9

Infantry Squad
Light Infantry 1
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2, Brutal Leader 1
5

HMG Squad
Support Infantry 5
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2
8

AT Squad (RPGs)
Support Infantry 5
Anti-Tank 2
7

Tank
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU, Armour-Piercing 1
7

IFV
Transport Vehicle 4
SMU
4

Walker
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU, Armour-Piercing 1,Walker 2
9

Aerial Gunship
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU, Area Effect 2, Armour-Piercing 1, Light Armoured Vehicle -2, Flying 2
9

Oceana

Powered-Armour Squad
Elite Infantry 6
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2, Mobile 1
10

Bike Squad
Light Infantry 1
Armour-Piercing 1, Mobile 1, Skimmer 1
4

Jetpack Infantry Squad
Light Infantry 1
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2, Mobile 1 Skimmer 1
6

Infantry Squad
Light Infantry 1
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2
4

Aerial Drones
Recon Infantry 2
Flying 2, Mechanoid 0
4

HMG Squad
Support Infantry 5
Armour-Piercing 1, Heavy Weapons 2, Indirect Fire 1
9

AT Squad (Mini-Missiles)
Support Infantry 5
Anti-tank 2
7

Mortar Squad
Support Infantry 5
Engulfing 1, Indirect Fire 1
7

Tank
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU Armour-Piercing 1, Skimmer 1
8

IFV
Transport Vehicle 4
SMU Skimmer 1
5

MRLS
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU Area Effect 2, Artillery 2, Indirect Fire 1, Light Armoured Vehicle -2
9

High Mobility Wheeled Vehicle
Soft-skin Vehicle 2
SMU, Transport (5) 1
3

Aerial Gunship
Fighting Vehicle 6
SMU, Armour-Piercing 1, Light Armoured Vehicle -2, Flying 2
7

Xenos Rampant

I collected some 15mm Sci-Fi/Near Future forces to play Gruntz 15mm but never got round to completing the project. The publication of Xenos Rampant by Daniel Mersey and Richard Cowan has renewed my interest in the genre. My friend Ian implied that my armies are “not true Sci-Fi” but I’m old school and find a grimey near future or post-Apocalyptic concept more credible than, say, the more exotic Fantasy-tinged Sci-Fi world of Games Workshop. Each to their own.

Happily XR is a remarkably rich and flexible set of rules which will seemingly accommodate any flavour of Sci-Fi. It’s clever, imaginative and colourful and also betrays an appealingly dry sense of humour. Although Gruntz 15mm also looked very good, I‘m swayed by the ease of adopting another Rampant system game which is also likely to go down well in the local club.

On the downside my SF collection includes a lot of vehicles which is not a good match for XR's infantry bias, and I spent a few days looking at 28mm figures as an alternative. I particularly liked the CP Models and Pig Iron figures and may get some next year, but I also decided to keep the 15s as the model ranges are more extensive and the on-table weapons ranges more convincing.

My existing figures are Ground Zero Games (UNSC faction), Armies Army Russian insurgents (now available from The Scene), and some figures in power armour from Brigade Models. Even though I am not short of vehicles, I've ordered a couple of new ones in the light of current military developments as well as some additional infantry support models.

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game

I don't have much time at the moment to sort out my own games so I'm grateful for the opportunity to play other people's games, even though these are not necessarily part of my annual plan! This recently included a couple of games of X-Wing, the highly popular Star Wars spaceship combat game.

The games were based on a simple introductory scenario which pitted a pair of TIE fighters against an upgraded X-Wing, the components of the core introductory set. I controlled one of the TIE fighters. Although they are generally more manoeuvrable, the upgraded X-Wing continually escaped our arcs of fire while bringing us into its own arc of fire and I was quickly eliminated in the first game.

In the second game it was my companion's turn to be knocked out first. I fared a little better but was still unable to inflict much damage. The X-Wing, however, accidentally flew off the table, giving me the game. It was a victory of sorts, but not really a satisfying one. Had the battlefield been a bit more crowded, we would more easily have ended up with some sort of target in our sights.

The game mechanisms are similar to Wings of Glory WW1 (originally Wings of War) and the game plays straight out of the box. The rules are well written and the gameplay is smooth. The diminutive spaceships are very nicely modelled. I've seen the game played with much larger numbers of much larger ships, so it is very open to the escalation of financial investment.

Despite my recent foray into 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish gaming I'm not a Star Wars fan (or a Trekky), and spaceship combat doesn't really appeal to me. If I wanted to invest in a game of this sort I would probably go for the historical Wings of Glory. At one time I was quite interested in the WW2 variant, but my understanding is that it involves a lot of manoeuvre and that the chance actually to fire is rare, a somewhat frustrating recipe for a wargame. In any event I understand it's out of print at the moment, but never say never. And I see that Ares Games are due to release a new Battle of Britain Starter Set...

ArmiesArmy Pegasus VTOL for Gruntz 15mm

I try to resist project creep but it's futile. Once I'd discovered ArmiesArmy's Pegasus VTOL I had to have one...

ArmiesArmy shop: V-212 Pegasus VTOL

The parts are cleanly moulded and fit together well. The only parts I had to trim to fit were the closed-position under-carriage doors. Alternatively there are parts for having the under-carriage down.

The parts were quickly assembled with superglue.

I thought the resin might be difficult to drill for the flight stand but it was easy.

In flight. Just need a base to put it on.

2016 Scoreboard

The film spin-off skirmish game, Terminator Genisys, was
my last game of the year. It's well designed and was
fun to play. I did just scrape a win even though all 
my surviving Terminators had been reduced to
Crawlers.

Owing to other commitments and distractions my painting and gaming achievements continued to decline during 2016. I completed the armies for only one game - 15mm Portuguese / Dutch / Spanish armies for Irregular Wars. I did, however, create usable if unpainted 10mm Seven Years War armies for Maurice.

I also started 15mm Sci-Fi armies for Gruntz 15mm, collected 15mm Japanese armies for Irregular Wars, collected 10mm Chinese Warlord armies for Red Actions, and bought a first batch of 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures for Bloody Big Battles!

Perhaps that doesn't sound too bad, but my gaming total was very poor. This year I managed only 17 games. These were:

Bloody Big Battles! 3
Irregular Wars 3
C&C Battlecry 3
Might & Reason 2
Gorechosen 2
C&C Napoleonics 1
C&C Great War 1
Terminator Genisys 1
Other 1

The 'other' was a gangster skirmish game devised by a fellow club member, Bernard, and based on a set of cowboy rules possibly called Fistful of Aces. The games in bold are my own.

This is not a great total but all these games were enjoyable and worthwhile, which is the important thing.

Perhaps I should also mention that this is the forty-second post to the blog this year, the highest ever. Some may suspect that blogging is detracting from painting and gaming. Perhaps so. Nonetheless, I have had some very helpful feedback as a result of floating ideas here first so it's not a complete distraction.

My next post will be in the new year and will outline my plans and resolutions for 2017.

Reading Warfare - scenery grab and Bloody Big Battles! game

I had a very productive day at Reading Warfare last Saturday. I spent the morning accumulating scatter scenery for my Gruntz 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish project and some 10mm houses suitable for my Chinese Warlord Era Red Actions project. In the afternoon I was privileged to participate in a game of Bloody Big Battles! organised by its author Chris Pringle and his comrades from the Oxford Wargames Society.

Scatter scenery. I regret that I didn't note the names of the suppliers.

I'll write in more detail about my Gruntz scenery plans another time, but this shows the sort of thing I'm collecting or making for my grungy, post-Apocalyptic environment. Scatter scenery will be either low enough to provide cover or high enough to block line of sight.

10mm Far Eastern houses.

The houses come from two sources. The painted ones are Epsilon buildings from Pendraken while the remainder are from the Timecast Vietnam range. The Epsilon buildings are a slightly larger interpretation of 10mm but I think they will work well enough together. I was a bit unsure whether Vietnamese buildings would do for China, but I did a lot of Googling and am satisfied that similar buildings could be found in China.

The fallback position of the Bavarian I Korps at Loigny.

I arrived at Oxford's Bloody Big Battles! table at about 2pm, just as their second game of the Loigny/Poupry 1870 scenario was about to start. I was keen to play with the experts and was delighted to be given command of the I Bavarian Korps on the German right.

I was tempted to take advantage of the towns near the enemy edge of the table, but this forward defence was overwhelmed by the superior French numbers. I then fell back in line with the objective I was defending (Loigny). Hanging on to this was very touch-and-go the whole afternoon, but I just managed to do so. I was a bit rusty on the rules but got a lot of guidance, including tactical advice. After a while I began to make my own decisions, not that these always proved to be a good idea.

I didn't have much chance to take in what was happening on the German left or centre but did witness the final German assault on the left wing which, in the last (tenth) turn of the scenario, regained Poupry. This was very exciting to see and put all three objectives firmly in German hands. The game was over by 5pm, so it had taken four plus people nearly three hours of playing. Once again I felt I had relived history or an alternative history.

I also had a chat with Chris about doing the Urabi Revolt (Tel-el-Kebir) with BBB. I have been thinking about that for quite a long time because of an ancestral connection (British side) but Chris pointed out that it was a bit of a walkover and I realised that it wouldn't make for a very balanced game. I am thus able to cross something off my to-do list!

 I really enjoyed the afternoon and must make the effort to play BBB more. I will probably send off for some sample Baccus 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures, decide how I am actually going to base them and then put in a full order.

Flight and other bases for Gruntz 15mm

I usually base figures on a combination of steel and MDF, the former for storage and transportation in magnetic-lined boxes and the latter for thickness so that players are encouraged to handle the bases rather than the figures.

With individual figures and models it is inevitable that players will pick them up by the figure/model rather than by the  base, but this isn't too much of a problem with the Sci-Fi figures as they are generally quite robust and don't have fragile bits like bayonets and flag poles. Accordingly, there isn't much point in doing thick bases so I'm just putting the infantry on coins and the vehicles directly onto steel.

Following the use of the coins I decided to use round bases for the mecha and grav vehicles, and rectangular bases omly for tracked and wheeled vehicles. In all cases these will be of minimum size and unobtrusive.

The grav bikes, drones, VTOLs and grav AFVs presented the most novel challenge as they are not like anything I've had to cope with before. Grav vehicles need to be off the ground but no more than necessary.

Gruntz 15mm: The first two factions

I've now collected two factions for my near-future forces for Gruntz 15mm.

The first is a hi-tech interventionist force  ('The Coallition'). They are almost all GZG and will be sand-coloured like the Gulf War allies. Some assets such as the power-armoured squad will be finished in blue-grey or some other neutral colour so they can fight for any faction if that's the way I want to use them.

The Sand faction: Grav IFVs, Grav MBT, Grav Command vehicle, Gruntz squads including squad leaders, SAWs and LAWs, Grav bikes. All models are GZG.

Grav drones, Sand commander, Spider droids, Power-Armour squad. All models are GZG except for the Power-Armour squad which is Brigade Miniatures.

The Gruntz are GZG's UNSC Light Infantry. Command vehicles provide command and control benefits additional to the powers of the Commanders. I'd like to organise the grav drones and probably the grav bikes and spider droids as if they were Gruntz squads rather than having to track them as individual units. This was discussed on the Gruntz Forum but requires further research with regard to costing etc.

The second is a mostly mid-tech force ('RussFed') and will be finished in green.  They are mainly ArmiesArmy Insurgents and represent a near-future version of the Russian forces which have been operating in the Eastern Ukraine. While technically not as advanced they will be rated as more experienced.

Tracked IFVs, tracked MBT, tracked Command vehicle, HMG, Commander, Gruntz including Squad leaders, LAWS, and SAWs, VTOL gunship, and Mecha. The last two are GZG. The rest are all ArmiesArmy.

Constructing the Mecha so that it stood in an animated stance was quite fun. The AA vehicles are part resin which makes them substantially lighter than the GZG ones. They also required less cleaning up. Almost everything was assembled with superglue apart from the arms of the Brigade Models figures which required epoxy resin.

The GZG and ArmiesArmy infantry are a good scale match for each other.

Gruntz 15mm: Sci-Fi skirmish

Although I spend half my time thinking I should focus on a few key games, I spend the other half musing about expanding into new 'periods'. My current fad is 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish, something that has been gnawing away at me since April. Despite the plethora of 15mm SF stuff at the Salute show, it was only when surfing the web a  few days later that I actually got bitten. That was, I admit, very bad timing.

Anyway, a review of the rules options led me to Gruntz 15mm which seemed to be  the most attractive and promising. I've studied the rules and I've read reviews and explanations, but I haven't actually played them. I expect they're fine, but what has captured my imagination is the army-building aspect.

Although Gruntz offers its own very wide universe and backstory, it is a completely flexible system which allows you to plug in any models you want. Although the armies I'd like to create would have SF technology like power armour, mechs and grav tanks, my current interests are based around near-future terrestrial factions rather than extra-terrestrials.

I have three in mind: a mid-tech 'RussFed' army  using ArmiesArmy models, a hi-tech 'US Marine' army using mainly GZG models, and maybe a lo-tech 'Caliphate' army using Khurasan figures. There are other possibilities, but I don't want to over-extend before I even start.

Gruntz has the advantage of being playable on quite a compact table (say 4' x 4') and requires only a modest collection of figures and vehicles for each army (say 300 points in game terms). I've been thinking about a number of scenery options - a ruined city, oil refinery or shanty town - but my current favourite is a recycling plant and scrap yard which will provide plenty of loose clutter.

As I don't seem able to shake this fad off and with the SELWG show coming up shortly, I am highly likely to go into purchase mode.