Sunday 29 January 2012

They Came from the Sky!

Time for a bit of a change from all this Historical activity...

At the weekend my friend Matt and I met up at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield for a couple of games of a personal favourite, Aeronautica Imperialis, and a general catch up between Matt's various travels (he's off to Japan to teach English in a couple of months).  Matt had come up with a scenario he wanted to test that involved escorting a ground convoy across the table, all he needed was an idiot to test it out on, and I was happy to play the role!

The scenario was that I had to get a convoy of vehicles from one short edge of the board to the other, under attack from the air.  One of the vehicles (my choice) contained a VIP that had to survive.  Opposing me would be an aerial strike force of Matt's Tau, and I would get support from my own squadrons that would arrive as reserves.  To use one of Matt's favourite quotes 'How hard could it be?'

With 150 points to choose from, I kept my choices pretty simple:

  • 2 Hydra Flak Tanks and a Manticore to escort the convoy (which would consist of a further 4 Chimera APCs)
  • 1 Thundebolt, Vanilla Flavour
  • 2 Thunderbolts with Skystrike missiles
  • 2 Lightnings with Skystrike missiles
I assigned all my flak to the convoy and split my aircraft into three groups (the two lightnings, two thunderbolts with missiles and one plain thunderbolt) to maximise my reserve rolls.  Matt deployed his force in one go, consisting of:

  • 2 Tigershark AX-1-0 (with the big, nasty railguns and extra seeker missiles)
  • 1 Barracuda with Seeker Missiles
  • 5 Barracudas
Worried about being outnumbered? Me? Naaa...

So, without further ado, onto the story of the attempts of the 7th Hadley's Reach Yeomanry and 105th Devlan Fighter Wing to protect General Lord Farquharson Smythe from the alien raiders...

 The convoy moves out from the city edge, AA scanning the sky
The Tau strike force moves in.  Lot of 'em aint there?

I fluffed my first reserve roll, giving the Tau two turns to get into position.  The non-missile armed barracudas, which were unable to attack ground targets, maneuvered to avoid the convoy's flak envelope and headed at full speed for my baseline to intercept any arriving Imperial fighters, while their attack aircraft, led by the missile armed barracuda, swung out for a strafing run on the flank of the convoy.

My Thunderbolts arrived on turn 3, but were far too distant to do anything but watch as the Barracuda unleashed all of its Seeker Missiles, brewing up the lead Chimera.

The Lightning's arrived next, screaming straight up the road at full military power and low enough to count the kerbstones.  Up ahead the road was already storm of cannon fire, missile trails and energy beams, as the Tigersharks started their attack run.  By the time the smoke cleared, one of the Hydras was burning and a Chimera was damaged, but still mobile, but one of the Tigersharks had been wiped from the sky by a combination of autocannon fire and a lucky manticore shot.  down the road the fighters met head-on, with the Imperials coming out best from the initial exchange, damaging one Baracuda and downing another, although one the Thunderbolts was now trailing smoke.

One of the Tigersharks lines up for its attack run
 The Imperial Lightnings arrive on the scene
Tau Barracudas head-on

Unfortunately, whilst the convoy powered on up the road with determination, things started to go very wrong for the escorting Imperial fighters, as the next two turns saw every single fighter downed without taking out a single Tau aircraft.  That job seemed to be left to the flak tanks, as the manticore managed to damage the remaining Tigershark as it pulled away from its strafing run.

The Tau, however, had problems of their own.  With one of the Tigersharks down, the remaining one low on ammo and none of the Barracudas equipped with Seeker Missiles (in AI, only weapons with the 'Ground' characteristic can strafe ground targets), they were running out of options for attacking ground targets.  The low maneuverability of the Tigershark also meant it was likely that he'd only be able to pull round for one more pass at the convoy before it reached safety, he had to hope he'd either already hit the General's transport, or that he'd get it with his one remaining chance.



Pulling as tight a turn as possible, the Tigershark managed to line up on the lead Chimera, the Target Lock chimed 'acquired', the pilot pulled the trigger and the Chimera vanished into a cloud of dust and smoke... only to roll on through it with nothing but chipped paint (and probably a need to visit the laundry tent later).

With no more ground attack ordnance left, the Tau had to break off the attack and it was time for me to reveal which vehicle had been carrying the general.  It was the third Chimera in the convoy, the one the Tigershark had in its sights with the last of its ammo...  Technically I'd won, but with all of my aircraft down, it didn't exactly feel like it!

LESSONS LEARNED

Well I won, but more through luck than judgement.  Choosing the Hydras for the convoy worked well, they made life very difficult for the attacking Tau.  The manticore paid its way when it rolled extra damage against the Tigershark, but with the Tau only able to attack from Altitude 1 I didn't really need its range.  In reality my aircraft did little to protect the convoy and just became wreckage.  It was a schoolboy error, I know perfectly well from previous games that the Tau Barracudas are extremely effective in a close up fight; they can slow right down to stay on station, they're cheap and numerous, and the all round drone cannons allow them to mob enemy aircraft.  So what did I do?  Rather than blast straight through with slashing attacks, I slowed down and tried to dogfight, result?  I got slaughtered.

I make a big mistake and get mobbed...

As for Matt, he decided he'd have been better off sacrificing one of the Barracudas and taking more Seeker Missiles instead.  As it was he was reliant on the Tigersharks, which, with low maneuverability, were going to struggle to make more than a couple of passes (but were pretty efficient when they did).  The Tigersharks also started too high, by the time they dropped low enough to attack, they were within close range of the Hydras and on the receiving end of six dice worth of attacks, instead of getting a couple of turns of shooting in first.  But as for the Barracudas, ouch! They worked well!

ROUND TWO

To test the scenario a bit further, we ran it again, this time with my Imperials attacking.  I took a pair of Maruader Bombers, two Lightnings for top cover and three Thunderbolts carrying Hellstrike missiles.  Matt escorted the convoy with two Skyrays, placed a third dug-in in the destination city, and spent the rest of his points on Barracudas.  I chose to send one of the Thunderbolts after the dug in skyray, the remaining two at the flank of the convoy and the Marauders straight up the road.  

In a partial repeat of the first game, one of my Marauders fell to the convoy's AA before it could attack, but the other successfully bombed the head of the column (Matt had sensibly split it to reduce risk), taking out three vehicles in one go.  The Thunderbolt attacking the Skyray failed to destroy it, and took damage in return, in hindsight a waste of missiles, which should have been expended on the convoy.

The remaining Thunderbolts managed a couple of passes at the convoy, but were unable to score any hits.  They faced heavy fire from the convoy and the escorting Barracudas, managing to take out two but only losing one Thunderbolt (thanks to some lucky 'Durable' saves.  Once again, history repeated itself, as my last Hellstrike equipped Thunderbolt lined up a final shot... and missed.  Matt's VIP turned out not to be in any of the vehicles I'd hit, giving him the win.

Again, I made some errors, I should have equipped more ground attack ordnance, and going after the skyray was pointless.  The surviving bomber was extremely effective, hurrah for 'Bomb Creep'!  With Hindsight, equipping some of the Thunderbolts with bombs and hurling them straight up the road might have been more effective.  A Marauder Destroyer might have been handy too, as it could have engaged the rear half of the convoy at the same time as bombing the front.  Matt meanwhile did a bang up job of defending.  Splitting the column reduced the effectiveness of my bombing and as usual I was hounded by what seemed an endless stream of Barracudas, although this time I avoided getting into a close range knife-fight, which is why I still had some planes left at the end!

The Marauders about to swing onto the road

All in all, honours even and another great game, and a fun and challenging scenario from Matt!

Cheers!

Wednesday 18 January 2012

My Little Tank!

Just a quickie.  I've finished the Airfix  sdkfz222 that I was working on.  In comparison to the Daimler I did recently, this was a dream to put together.  All the parts fitted together with no problems and the instructions were nice and clear.  I'm not sure if it looks a little small compared to some of my other Armourfast stuff, as it's in 1/76 rather than 1/72, but it's not supposed to be a big vehicle anyway.

My only real criticism is it's a shame that Airfix didn't attempt to replicate the mesh anti-grenade screen that's normally seen on top of the turret, I'll just have to assume it's been lost to a low hanging branch somewhere!


The two figures came with it and are nice and sharp too, although one seems to be carrying something that seems to be a cross between an MP40 and MP41, but is actually neither!  Also in the set was a Kubelwagen, which is assembled but awaiting painting.

Lt. Gruber would be so proud!

Saturday 14 January 2012

No marching required

Completed some more of the HAT tank riders, this time the Germans.  Overall, the comments are much the same as for the Brits and the Americans.  Another good set, with a nice range of poses and great detail.  The general mix is the same as for the other sets: 11 models, including two tank crew, two kneeling figures and the rest seated.  The same drawbacks also apply, with soft plastic and some poorly placed lugs (why always on the helmets? Why?!).


They're clearly equipped more for the early war period, with everyone wearing the marching boots and smart uniform (no camo smocks in sight), and most of the infantry carrying Kar 98s, except for the 'leaders' with MP40s and one carrying a pretty well sculpted MG34 plus ammo.  Again, a nice touch is that one of the riflemen is carrying a spare ammo box for the MG, and everyone is carrying extra bedrolls, pouches etc.



Of course a new, late war set would be nice, but until that happens, they'll do just fine for me!

Damned Daimler! (or... you get what you pay for)

Beware ebay bargains...  The run up to Christmas saw me  tussling with a very difficult kit of a Daimler scout car, bought as a bargain off ebay.  It arrived unboxed but with instructions, and looked simple enough.  Instead it proved to be possibly the most frustrating kit I've built; the instructions appeared to have been badly translated, possibly through several different languages, and the diagrams were poorly drawn, badly laid out and, in places, downright wrong (like showing parts for the front being attached to the rear)!  The fact that a lot of the parts were poorly fitting just made things worse.  The irony is that a bit of research suggests that this kit, from 'Science Treasury' is a poor copy of the  Hasegawa kit of the same vehicle (from the 1970's no less!), which I've heard described as a great kit and really simple to build.

Nonetheless, I managed to get it pretty much together, after much trimming of parts and several occasions of having to take bits apart again for a rebuild.  You'll note the sheer amount of glue spread everywhere, looking very amateurish!



Detail isn't great either, the Daimler should be covered in rivets, but it seems to be the right shape.  The question is, will painting it save it enough to be worthwhile?


Hmm...  Well, it's not as bad as I feared after a quick and simple paintjob (Fow British Armour spray, with a quick drybrush for highlights and some allied stars).  It'll pass muster on the tabletop but I'm not ecstatic.  I have a feeling I'll be picking up another Brit scout car at some point as a replacement.  The Humber that Hasegawa made looks like a nice kit...

By contrast, I've also just put together the airfix sdkfz222 and Kubelwagen from their Reconnaissance Set, which was a dream to build, but more on that another time ;-)