Epic Eldar

 Steven is currently visiting for the New Year. He's been up in the attic sorting a few things and came across all his Epic figures. When he was painting Space Marines, I was painting Eldar as an opposing force...

After 30 years I can't pretend to know what any of these are!

Well, apart from this one. Eldar Avatar - I used it to demonstrate painting techniques to Steven!

Anyway, having totally forgotten what these are I'll just leave them blank!

At some point the project just fizzled out ans figures weren't finished!

6mm SF -An impulse buy.

Nearly finished pulp plane, haven't got started on the game yet... but...

Wandering around a local garden-centre-come-shopping-precinct spotted something that looked interesting.

Golf cleats. £11.99 for 18 of the things - 6mm tank size crawlers(?) at a bit over 60p each.

They fit in quite nicely with my other forces - possibly as either transports or personnel carriers? Not even going to repaint them.

Here they are matched against 6mm Garrison SF hovertanks. Not sure that they would want to be in this particular situation though.

Checked on ebay - can get them a lot cheaper so worth a look...

6mm Leven Miniatures

Order has now arrived from Leven Miniatures.

Nicely packed

Models are cleanly cast - no flash though the ends of the railway lines will need trimming.

Bought 1 of each of the 3 churches - again, nice models, cleanly cast.

Need more of these. Not exactly like the ones of my childhood but the streets will be based on the Team Valley and Askew Road Gateshead! Need lots more of these.

At the bottom end of Rose Street were a couple of green Gas Holders - quite a distinctive part of the area.

Arrived today and some already have a white undercoat. Painting will not be to a high standard!

Expanding the terrain boards.

Getting started on the updated boards.

One thing I looked at was extending the range of colours for the fields.
 

The 'new' colours are just too garish.

So back to 'old' colours - board before...

and board after... just needs things like walls and hedges, but a lot better even if it does result in a very restricted pallet for the terrain.

Meanwhile the Irregular order has arrived, Leven order should be here soon.

6mm Terrain Boards

Years ago I worked for a company making doors. This produced a lot of 2mm plywood offcuts that were... useful.  However, when I original started using them for 5/6mm terrain boards they were different sizes. The idea now is to start putting together standardised boards.

So I've bought a load of A3 2mm MDF boards. I have sprayed some grey and glued the original boards on top. Hopefully, the height of the old boards won't affect things too much. I've also ordered a load of extra terrain pieces as well - should start arriving next week sometime.

The original boards are OK on my games table - but their uneven sizes are still obvious.

Four boards with no additions. Using a grey base coat on the board depicts roads, etc, and means I can at least make them easily!

At some time I'll be adding more fields, buildings, etc - the grey will also act as hard standing around buildings or car parks.

I've already got a load of high rise buildings from Empires at War - see the Swarm Wars sequence. Most of my other current buildings, hedges and buildings are Irregular, fields are flock, a lot of the walls are simply matchsticks.

There's an order in  for some terrain from Leven Miniatures. I've still to put in another order from Irregular - should do that tonight. When the stuff comes the 'new' terrain boards should be finished reasonably quickly.

A bit more Swarm Wars

Just a quick 'sort of'  terrain and troop placement....

Many years ago terrain in wargames was set up and 'fixed' by whoever organised the game. In Ancients at the Nationals this consisted of 5 terrain layouts. You had to chose 1,3 or 5 - if you chose 1 and your opponent chose 3, you played 2, etc. The board itself was split into 6 sections. For an internal Liverpool league in around 1976 I used this 6 section board to allow for more variation in terrain using dice. This was further modified by me as an option for the Ancients games in the 1978 North-West Regional Finals for the National Wargames Championships, then others modified it for use as the terrain system in the 1981 Nationals themselves.

So naturally I'm looking back to this system for future use in Swarm Wars.

Terrain, currently it's fixed by me for each game.At some time I'll use the system if I ever decide to do a 2 player version, for now I'm quite happy.

However, as already seen, I do use for Swarm placement - initially for saucer/rocket landing sites:

Determine chance of a saucer/rocket landing and dice for each one. 3 or more, for example, would give a 50% chance of each one landing - decide for yourself or simply say they all got down safely!

Divide table or whichever part you want to use as a landing area into 6. A 3x2 grid is the best option. Allocate a number 1-6 for each square, dice for each saucer/rocket. The number on the dice determines which square that saucer/rocket lands in. If you like, each square could itself be subdivided and diced for again to further restrict choice in the landing zone.

This where it could be fun if you want to use them - personal choice:

Land in a 'build-up area' - dice to see if saucer/rocket crashed/topples over...
2 saucers/rockets land on same subdivision - dice to see if they crash into each other...
In both cases saving throw for each swarm machine would be an idea.

Frankly, at the moment I simply put them next to any obstacles or each other, but it does allow for a bit more interest.

Swarm Wars initial rules.

 For the last few days I've trying to put my MS Publisher initial version of the Swarm Wars  onto the blog - with little success. This is about my 4th attempt and it's still not going to plan! I finally had to save the tables in jpeg form and insert them as pictures.

Movement

Infantry                              2”

Light Armour                    6”

Medium Armour                4”      Medium armour includes standard troop and missiles GEVs

Heavy Armour                   3”       Heavy armour are tracked

Swarms                              6”

Rocket/saucer                     -        Assumed to just take off and land

Aircraft etc                                  To be arranged

Weapons (to hit, includes initial save)

1) Human—note swarms count as Light Armour, Troop and Missile GEVs as Medium Armour. A single cell artillery vehicle also has a 4/5/6 saving throw—only half as many firing!

2) Swarms

3) Weapons Range

Saving Throws

Some saving throws are already   included in the hit factors—for example, it might be easy for  infantry weapons to hit heavy armour, but the hit would have no effect so what’s he point in going through an extra saving throw routine?

Standard Missile GEVs are double celled weapons. However, models are available for single celled GEV units or single cell missile units. As these only fire half the missiles, an initial saving throw of 4/5/6 on single units allows for any hits to have been made by the ‘missing’ cell. This roll is made as part of the ,to hit’ phase.

Saving throw in all cases is 4/5.

For units in hard cover saving throw is 3/4/5

Morale

Human units are usually formed in 3s—Infantry 2 infantry plus 1 A/T, GEVs and tracked vehicles in squadrons of 3.

Therefore morale is rolled for each third lost.

1/3 lost  1 = retreat/rout,  2 hold, 3/4/5/6 obey orders

2/3 lost 1 rout and don’t stop, 2/3 retreat, 4/5 hold, 6 obey orders

3/3 lost you’re dead...

Players have the option to reroll in any subsequent move except on the ’don’t stop’ result—they’ve gone. Thus at the start of any move a unit retreating can attempt to rally on the same basis as the original retreat.

Notes

These rules are, firstly, a work in progress and will be both extended and amended in future. They are also rump rules, intended for personal use so subject to random interpretations!

The continuing battle

Trouble with covering 3 moves is that things start getting complicated. So, mostly letting the pictures tell the story.

Overview as left two swarms continue their advance. Both swarms kept 'passing' morale tests and wouldn't stop.

Right flank swarm did retreat back to their saucer after getting hammered.

More from the Martian left flank...

Tanks passing burning war machines

Another overview picture as things get serious.

Starting to form a new line.

This bit caught me out a bit - hadn't sorted rules for taking out saucers. Finally decided on 5 or 6 to hit, but with 3 or more saving throw when it tried to take off - it survived and eventually left.

Getting very close up and personal. The battle certainly finished up at close quarters - which tends to favour the swarms.

Last of the Martians finally die (apart from the one that ran...)

Casualty list. Actually one too many tanks here - an intact vehicle was put in the photo by mistake! More human casualties then I would normally expect - dice rolls and the effect of starting in quite close so that the Martians didn't take as many casualties while out of range. All three saucers got away safely though one was damaged.

The Martians Phase 2

Phase 2 sounds less like a game and more like a 'real' battle...

Overview of second move before shooting starts. Being a solo battle the swarms movements have to be determined by a set formula - in this case, nearest enemy to take priority. Hence the middle swarm heads for their left flank rather than into the city. Meanwhile the human forces are taking up positions to meet the various threats.

Again, shooting priorities - shooting will concentrate on that front tank!

Meanwhile the Martian right flank swarm charges headlong towards the city - but shorter ranged weapons mean they will be receiving fire without being able to return fire for this move.

This time the missile barrage works, taking out 3 war machines. The tanks score a further 2 kills but...which ones the missiles kill is based on a dice roll - dice roll for every machine, lowest scores are the kills, in this case meant one war machine was killed twice! (ie, once by tank, once by missiles)

Meanwhile, all the machines concentrate on one of the tanks and it 'dies' 3 times. A lot of the swarm shots 'missed'. 1 war machine is killed by the tanks and another is taken out by the tanks advancing down the road.

 So, interesting how the rules are working at the moment - basically, against swarms missile barrage best tactic, swarm tactic mechanism also seems to be working as planned. Looking promising.

The Martians start their attack.

Basically they just charge for the nearest humans...

The initial landing sites were very close to the outer defences of the humans.

This picture shows the Martian charge as the three swarms head for their targets.

The Martian right flank soon swarmed round the exposed human defences in this area... fire support from advancing tanks and artillery were never likely to help here!

They didn't really stand much chance...

Humans on the Martian left likewise soon got in close as the gravtanks turned to meet the threat.

One problem the humans had - lousy shooting (dice rolls). Loss of two infantry sections while the Martians suffered little in return.

Apart from poor shooting by the human forces this section of the game worked well. Starting close in, the Martian swarms meant lots of firepower on only a few targets so they were certain to cause major human casualties. Having said that, they should have taken far more casualties in reply... however, the next stage should show the weakness of the Martians. Light armour and short ranged weapons against heavy armour and long ranged weapons. It will take the Martians three moves to reach the next line, two moves before their weapons are in range - all the time while taking fire.

A short note on how 'lucky' the swarms were. I treat missile barrages from the support missile launchers quite simply - everything in the zone is hit on a dice roll of 6. For infantry and light armour there is no saving throw. So, firing on a swarm of 6 Martian war machines with 3 missile launchers gives 3 x 6 or 18 chances of a 6 - on average, 3 machines should have gone up in smoke. They lost 1! And it was like that across the board!