Sonntag, 4. November 2012

Basilisk für die Vostroyaner

In letzter Zeit sind einige lange verschleppte Projekte in kurzer Folge hintereinander fertig geworden. Darunter auch der erste BasiIisk für die geplante vostroyanische Artilleriebatterie (ja, ja, beim Planen geht das immer viel schneller mit dem Aufstellen großer Einheiten :)
Das Farbschema habe ich Freestyle mit Kilian erfunden, Ziel war, mit wenigen Acrylfarben aus dem Töpfchen mal ein einfaches Grün mit Freehand Deko zu probieren. Für das erste nicht mit Wasserfarben gemalte Fahrzeug finde ich das Ergebnis gar nicht schlecht, obwohl ich glaube ich das Highlighten / Drybrushen komplett vergessen habe...
Die Wappen auf den rot-weiß-roten Markierungen vorne sind das Stadtwappen und ein Stadtteilwappen von Volterra. Ich finde es immer nett, historische Wappen für solche Figuren zu nehmen, das habe ich auch schon bei vielen meiner imperialen Demonworldfiguren gemacht.

Freitag, 2. November 2012

Zweiter Pickup

Nach langer Zeit mal wieder eine Erweiterung für den Fuhrpark meiner Orks: ein zweiter Pickup.
Fahrzeugübernahme: der stolze Boss Gruukk (ganz rechts vorne) übernimmt das neue Fahrzeug aus der Hand von Waaghboss Donnerbirnä. Auch Armeestandartenträger Donnerschäd'l hat es sich nicht nehmen lassen, bei der Übergabe teilzunehmen.
Dieser zweite Pickup ist weniger stark umgebaut als der erste - er ist etwas höhergelegt (was auf den Bildern kaum zu erkennen ist), wird von rechts gelenkt und hat als Schützen neben dem Fahrer das Modell vom alten Ork-Buggy.
Seitenansicht mit der doppelläufigen Wumme vom Buggy.
Auch dieser Pickup ist mit einer Ramme ausgestattet, die aber eher mit organischem Design überzeugt :) Auch die Frontplatte über der Ramme ist vom Buggy-Modell.
Der gesamte Fuhrpark

ASL Diary ep. 3: SASL Bunker Busting

Once again I failed to take photos so a text report from my first Solitaire ASL outing after several years' hiatus will have to suffice.

The mission was Bunker Busting from the outskirts of a village on board 11 into the huge forest covering most of board 5.

The company was in good shape (full size and more than half were already battle hardened 4-6-8 veterans). I only received a single section of engineers and used them on the right flank where I suspected some buildings to be fortified and strongly held.

However, my initial relief to face the enemy (with a huge amount of ? all over the woods) with a low enemy AC# of 2 soon turned into near despair - although I sent several courageous half squads spread out across most of the front checking out the many potential enemy hideouts (I only avoided the few ? hexes on the very left flank) they encountered nearly no opposition at all, except for a few unentrenched stragglers.

Halfway through the game I started to get seriously worried that I would not even find enough potential VPOs to balance the VPs the enemy would surely get (1 for my engineers section, a handful for ? remaining on board and some casualty VPs). I had just started to run my engineers with the two remaining DCs across the complete width of the board to help subdue the one pillbox I had managed to find (of course, that was on my weak left flank that I had initially planned to hold only...), when the first of two surprizes hit me: a convoy of six horse drawn transport led by a T37 came driving along a road on my left flank, apparently unaware of our advance into their route.

The transports didn't carry many troops and the T37 fell after several rounds of inconclusive firefights with my ATR teams (providing some much needed additional VPs) but the exchange blocked my lateral movements enough so that my poorly led, often panicking troops on the left had to take the pillbox alone.

They had just managed to do that when another surprize hit: apparently, some other parts of the Soviet machinery had noticed our advance after all and sent a seven hex human wave crashing through the woods we had just cleared. They caught my company commander with just one half squad who was on the move after mopping up a lonely foxhole in the woods, and I barely managed to extract him after reinforcing the close combat with all available troops (just a few heavy weapons teams who were trailing the other squads on their way to the left flank). After this skirmish and another with a straggling squad of mine that fortunately broke under the Soviet advance fire in time to retire without melée, the wave just rampaged on through the part of the forest I had already cleared of any enemy presence without encountering any VPO locations.

So at the end I managed to pull off a close, very low scoring win (would have been even closer without the T37 chugging along) and lost three half squads to various Soviet stragglers.

ASL Diary: SASL (pre-)history

Just to keep tabs, and to preserve at least some history of my earlier round of games, I'll collect some summary information in this post.

Scenarios played in the SASL campaign game so far:

Game Mission Result CG VPs Summary
1 - Jul. '41 1 - Cautious Advance Win 1 Suiting the mission title, a very cautious advance with some losses and limited gains, just eeking out a win. Killed the first enemy tank of the campaign (a T28).
2 - Jul. '41 3 - Recon n/a 1 Mission aborted after acceptable progress due to heavy thunderstorms (ok, I knocked over the box with the maps between gaming sessions ;)
3 - Aug. '41 2 - Pockets loss 0 Ran into heavy armored opposition (early appearance of a KV-1 platoon, later supported by a GAZ 4M MM). Lucky to get out of the mission with limited casualties.
4 - Aug. '41 4 - Bunker Busting win 1 Clear win - captured an AT gun and ca 130 enemy, with limited own losses.
5 - Sep. '41 8 - Patrol win 2 Large number of Russians encountered and vanquished in slow but determined advance. 9-2 officer lost at start to enemy mortar fire.
6 - Oct. '41 4 - Bunker Busting win 3 Had to clear a huge forest which turned out to be nearly empty, ended up with a low scoring close win. Lost 3 half squads.

Evolution of the company (numbers after receiving replacements for losses):

Game 1 2 3 4 5 6
C'y cmdr 9-2 9-2 9-2 9-2 10-2 10-2
2nd off. 9-2 9-2 9-2 10-2 8-1 8-1
3rd off. 8-1 8-1 8-1 8-1 8-0 8-0
4-6-8 2 2 4 6 7 7
4-6-7 9 8.5 7 4.5 5 3
4-4-7 1 1 1 0.5 0 0
SW full full full full full full