Alien Artefact found on Tanus IVb

Having painted up the Tallarn force they needed a proper run out………

Tanus IVb

Somewhere in the depths of space a powerful alien artefact has been located. The Emperor has despatched a crack force of Tallarn desert troops to recover the Artefact and ensure it doesn’t fall into the control of chaos. Unfortunately chaos troops have already landed on the planet. The Tallarn force will have to fight their way from the drop zone, locate and capture the entrance to a series of underground tunnels and then retrieve the Artefact. What neither side knows is the planet is infested with an indigenous species which due to the artefact has mutated and multiplied into a powerful, mindless swarm…….on Tanus IVb you will definitely hear people scream 😱

Scenario

The campaign will be fought over three separate but linked battles using Xeno rampant. Each side having 30 point force for each battle. 

Battle 1 Drop Zone Ambush. We randomly rolled to see which force was landing and which in Ambush. As it happened the Tallarn were landing their objective to get off the table. chaos would be deployed in the corners of the 4x4 table. Only when the ambush was deployed would the Tallarn decide which table edge to escape to, which would force chaos to spread out their troops.

Battle 2 Industrial Complex. The winner of the above would choose their deployment edge in the next battle. A cluttered industrial complex in the desert where 6 tunnel entrances have been located they must be captured and explored. A unit would need to take a turn and activate on a 6+ to open the tunnel entrance to capture it.

Battle 3 The Tunnels. The winner above would be able to choose one tunnel entrance in the final scenario but others would be random. No vehicles in the tunnels the artefact in the centre needed to be captured and if possible removed out of the tunnels.

Indigenous Alien species : these were a NPC they would swarm from Alien spawn points on the table. When any unit moved within 6” of such a node a D6 test would be taken

1&2 nothing happens, 3,4&5 Aliens appear at the node but don’t attack, 6 the aliens arrive and immediately attack. The battle one only small aliens, battle two small and medium and battle three the possibility of giant Xeno arriving. In every wild charge phase a test would be taken for any aliens on the table, and they would randomly assault any unit within range. This fight would then be resolved, these alien wild charges would not prevent the active side also then having to carry out wild charges in their phase. In the first two battles the nodes would act as tunnels with multiple alien units potentially spawning. But in the final battle they would only spawn a single unit.

Obviously with three battles there were a lot of events so as usual not a blow by blow account, just a few highlights.

Battle 1 : Dropzone Ambush

The Tallarn force arrive in the centre and have chosen to exit the table from this nearest edge. In this picture the exit looks easy but there is an enemy Tank off to the left !

The Tallarn mainly light infantry, they do have effective Armour piercing weapons but limited body armour. The Walker is really tough

The Walker stumbles forward triggering the first Aliens to arrive

These charge the Walker but bounce off its armour

and now the theme of the first battle…..more aliens arrive this time charging the chaos militia

Having decided the Walker is too tough more Xeno charge some of the Tallarn infantry

‘Chaos’ now began with Xeno spawning and charging everything in sight, we laughed a lot as our troops were cut to pieces. At one point the Chaos forces chose to spawn another Xeno unit realising the Aliens were tougher and more effective at killing the Tallarn !

The Chaos commander looks on and fires long range into the melee

Finally after a lot of dead Tallarn, and quite a lot of chaos troops one unit and the Walker do make it off the table. However this is not enough and chaos have won the first battle.

Battle 2 : Industrial Complex

After the first turn the two forces now charge forward. Chaos choosing to arrive from the far side

More chaos troops thrown into the attack

Both sides much more cautious if the Xeno spawn points after the first battle !

The chaos General controlling form the rear

Inevitably though more Xeno arrive, in the distance Tallarn have some cavalry who rush forward, but this triggers more Xeno who push them back

With both sides claiming two tunnel entrances, the Chaos Walker manages to reach the central tunnel

Lots more laughing as the Xeno again take control and kill both sides

A final twist as a more powerful Xeno life form is released, these are even more brutal than the smaller species ! But the chaos force has won again having the bulk of the tunnel entrances

Battle 3 : The Tunnels

Having won the previous battles chaos choose to access the tunnels from entrance A and B, Tallarn who have to roll randomly will access from D and C. The Xeno nodes will only release a single unit but there is no way to the Artefact without triggering at least some Xeno

The Tallarn advance cautiously down the first tunnel

Hordes of shambling and ‘contagious’ chaos mutants push down one tunnel

The first Xeno released are luckily still the smaller breed

Ooops spoke too soon  !

Slow progress from this end of the tunnels

The chaos troops are tough but slow and also get caught by Xeno 

Form the far end the Tallarn are quietly making progress

With only one node they manage to push the Xeno back

One of the shambling horde are forced back and inadvertently trigger the node at the artefact itself. With trepidation we rolled on the Xeno chart arrghhhh ! A massive giant creature is realeased, very lucky for the Tallarn they are out of range and it instead heads the other way trapping the chaos forces

An opportunity finally opens up

Chaos forces are pinned back in their tunnels unable to kill the armoured Xeno

Even though it brings them into range the Tallarn infantry rush upto the artefact

Their remaining colleagues sacrifice themselves to draw the Xeno away from the centre, they die a horrible lonely death in a dark tunnel on a remote planet….such is life for the foot soldiers of the Empire !

It takes a turn to remove the artefact but they pass the activation, at this point with chaos pinned down the battle was effectively won. The artefact has been secured for the Emperor.

One final shot of the tunnel complex at the end of the battle

Well that was pretty fun, we had a lot of laughs mainly caused by the random nature of the Xeno and our inability to kill them. In hindsight perhaps we would have made the Xeno slightly easier to kill but such is the way of the universe you never know what you may find on remote planets ? All three battles were fun and quite closely contested. The rules worked out quite well and it was great to get the Tallarn out on the table. We are now planning a larger single battle so we can get all the Tallarn on the table in one go.

A bit more painting going on but I am then away to the Ardennes for a week, but hopefully popping into to Partizan on the way back.

Thanks as always KBO

Matt

French Grenadiers and more 🙂

Keeping busy this week on hobby related activities.

First up I have completed some more French grenadiers, these are Victrix figures, obviously in greatcoats. My plan is to have at least enough for one ‘Guard’ brigade.

I tried a quick paint method for these by spray painting them in blue then picking out the rest. It kind of worked but not sure it was much quicker in reality

Like many people ages ago I picked up a couple of free Warlord WW2 MTB’s Steve managed to get a cheap copy of the rules so we thought it would be nice to combine what we had and at least have a small test game sometime, so I set to constructing and painting them. Above the German fleet

Here are the British MTB’s at 1:300 scale the painting is very quick and simple, I’m going to add some colour identification to make them easier to spot on the table ?

I spent ‘most’ of Wednesday down at George’s to continue our Konigsberg campaign, the Germans haven’t been doing too well, and with out reserves they were starting this battle well behind. The table setup was against them as well with lots of open ground and an objective at the furthest point from their table edge. But I was determined to at least give it a go. We even planned for an another game incase the Germans assault just failed and it was game over in an hour ! The Germans have lots a whole section in the campaign so far so only start with two sections as support we squeezed to a dug in MG42 team and a Panther Tank. It was quite a long game so no blow by blow report…….just a couple of snaps I took of George’s lovely collection.

One German squad did manage to advance down the railway upto the buildings but eventually were cut down by machine gun fire 

The rest of the Germans dug in with fire support, the Germans had both junior commanders wounded early on as well.

But somehow they ground out a win, we were on only three morale for ages but managed to catch the Russian commander who had joined an infantry section they were pinned down and then forced to retreat taking the commander with them, this severely hampered the Russian command and when another junior leader was killed suddenly the Germans had the upper hand. A rare and welcome win in the campaign. For the next battle with the Panzergrenadiers almost wiped out the Germans will switch to a Heer section but from now on the Russian can’t automatically replace loses so it will be a more even fight.

Finally I ordered some more larger/deeper storage boxes for my Napoleonic infantry this allows me to store the units with their flags etc which is much easier. This gave the opportunity for a British/allied army parade. And here they are…..very happy with these so far. To add to this are a couple more British infantry regiments and a highland regiment. That will be enough redcoats I think. I also have the Spanish brigade to fill out, another heavy cavalry regiment and another unit of Hussars who will form the KGL. I probably need a couple more commands. This should bring the British upto four good brigades or five at a pinch with the Spanish brigade in support.

Right that’s it for this morning….I'm off to play Xeno rampant today in a mini campaign😂

Matt

45th Nottinghamshire (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment of Foot

I was away again this weekend so no game but in the background I have been painting up my next British Regiment for the Peninsular. So might ask how I chose which regiment to do next ? Basically I picked up the excellent value Victrix flag sheets early on in the project and the 45th were the next one down 😀

That said they were a pretty active regiment in the Peninsular fighting at many of the significant battles.

They are Warlord figures like the bulk of my British although I may be down to the last couple now, plastic with metal command figures. I chose the 6 man bases for these and split the flags so there is some flexibility. I’m planning if I get a chance to have a parade of the army as it has been a while and I’ve lost count of where I am upto. These will be closely followed by some more french who just need basing.

Other hobby news …..I have a pretty strict no new books policy as I don’t have the space, most of the books I get now are audio books which I find much more enjoyable. However, the rule can be broken when I find books which really are so special I can’t miss them, the bar is really quite high. A recent trip to the secondhand bookshop in town had two which made it over the bar.

Bicycles and war what’s not to love……

This was a little more expensive but I have never seen it before and is an absolute gem, basically it contains endless detail in map form on the Anglo Saxon England and wales.

Along with lots of background data, it includes maps of numerous campaigns which took place at the time a lot of detail and very accessible, perfect for planning and designing future dark age wargame adventures.

So it is ok to break the rules😀

That’s it for now hopefully a couple of games this week, and a bit more planning for our trip to the Ardennes in early October.

Thanks as always for popping by Matt

Battle of Saltanovka July 1812 : Valour and Fortitude

I travelled over to Martins new house yesterday to test out his new gaming room with our combined Napoleonic collections. The Battle of Saltanovka from July 1812.. 

Plenty of information on the net including this really useful map, Davout and Bagration would be facing off across a small stream close to the villages of Saltanovka and Fatova, reserves for both sides would arrive on D6 roll. The Russians hold a numerical advantage with their objective to take the two villages.

Our setup the stream is crossable but will slow movement, the marshy area around the bridge blocks movement completely 

The french left wing already in Saltanovka with two small detachments holding the bridge behind a barricade 

The french right wing is in the open and they form line as the Russian infantry advances towards the stream 

The french also hold Fatova but here the Russians are already across the stream

The french artillery does its best to slow the assault but the Russians are in open order and the guns have limited impact

Russian jaegers are now assaulting Saltanovka, Russian grenadiers can be seen also fording the stream

Having driven off the jaegers the cannons at Fatova fire canister into the advancing columns and french infantry forms into attack column to counterattack

The Russians have broken the french centre and the french are in a dangerous position

Although weakened the Russians column are now also assaulting Fatova

And again despite being heavily weakened they are assaulting Saltanovka, the battle is really in the balance 

just in time and after several failed rolls the the french reserves arrive in the centre and the light cavalry immediately move to plug the gap

The reserve french infantry is sent towards Saltanovka to distract the Russian assault there

The first wave has final,y been pushed back but two more columns await their turn

The french light cavalry plug the gap and drive the Russians in the centre back, unfortunately Russian dragoons have arrived across the stream

Eventually numbers count and the Russians take Saltanovka

French heavy cavalry cross the stream to outflank the Russian left

But as they approach the Russians form square for protection

Infantry on both sides are now close to exhaustion and it is only a matter of time, after a particularly brutal round of melee the Russians break first and run in the centre

Suddenly gaps open up everywhere, the French manage in the last turn to recapture Saltanovka and the remaining Russians suddenly look very isolated

The french heavy cavalry fail to charge the Russian squares but now the French infantry advances across the stream. The battle was now over with a french win as they were still holding both objectives, but it was an extremely close run battle, at no point did I think the French were ahead and they only just managed to hold on. A really close scenario and a great battle. We used our slight amendment to V&F giving troops in Attack column plus one to their tenacity and this worked really well and felt balanced. Looking forward to our next battle.

There were a couple more quirky photos to share from our Naples trip……

Turns out the church around the corner from where we were staying is the final resting place of Vlad the Impaler

We also visited some of the catacombs in Naples, where they had for a time very odd burial rituals, with rich clients paying to have their bodies entombed in cement

They then had pictures painted of themselves on the outside 

This give a very macabre situation, the holes are where there actual skulls would have been ! All in the name of religion !

That’s it for now thanks for checking by and commenting

Back to painting this evening 

Matt