You may recall, I first got startedin wargame design because I really enjoyed playing in some of the
old GW online campaigns. I had fond memories of playing in the Eye
of Terror campaign and the Medusa V campaign. Some friends and I
tried a small scale community campaign called the Battle forAmmoriss. It was mildly successful and I had a lot of fun with
it.
I had created a follow-up mini-campaign
called Operation: Hemlock set on the same world as a follow-up
to the Battle for Ammoriss campaign. It is kind of hokey, but I want
to set most of my sci-fi games this year into this Operation: Hemlock
setting. I never really got to use it as a mini-campaign so I might
as well use it as a back drop for some gaming! I honestly do not
think it is the best campaign document I have done. I have plenty
more other, cooler ones for the Airspace Online campaigns for
Aeronautica Imperialis. Maybe I will revisit one of those
planets some other time.
So, here is some of the game systems I
will probably be using and setting in Operation: Hemlock coming up:
- Kill Team
- Da Deff Island Skirmish
- Inquisitor 28MM
As you can see, I
plan on playing a diverse set of games to fit into this setting
beyond just GW systems. I really just wanted a bit of a
placeholder for my games and to give me some context for what story I
was working on this year. I might play all of these, or I might play
none of these. We will see what my family and group want to play and
do.
Anyway, without
further ado, here is my first Operation: Hemlock related battle
report....
Background
As part of Operation: Hemlock the
Imperial authorities launched a three pronged offensive to eliminate
the ork threat on Ammoriss once and for all. As part of Taskforce:
Chalice the Ammoriss Air PDF and Imperial Navy was tasked with
gaining and maintaining air superiority for the campaign in and
around the Deff Islands. Commodore Miles of the Imperial Navy was
placed in overall command of the operation.
The Deff Islands were a many miles
away from the nearest PDF airbases in North Ammoriss. Therefore,
Commodore Miles established a number of small Forward Operating Bases
closer to the target area, mostly on abandoned or commandeered drill
rigs. There he planned to use the larger assets of the Ammoriss Air
PDF to spearhead patrols and operations in the approaches to the Deff
Islands to isolate them geographically and eliminate the threat of
other refugee orks from migrating to the Skarbash's aid.
In addition, he organized a number
of reconnaissance incursion into Ork held airspace. The purpose of
these missions was to try to locate and fix the Ork air defense and
airbase network on the islands. Again, the larger air assets of the
Ammoriss Air PDF were used while the Imperial Navy assets were held
in reserve.
This is one such reconnaissance
mission attempting to penetrate to the Green Zone on Ammoriss.
Forces
Ammoriss Air
PDF
2 Sentinel Interceptors
2 Storm Interceptors
1 Watchman
Snaz Boomgobz
Air Boyz
4 Ork Fighters
Mission:
Today's mission will be the flight of the Vigilante. The Watchman
will attempt to make it across the board without getting shot down by
the Ork aircraft. If it survives then the mission is a success for
the PDF, if it is shotdown the Orks win. This is a mission and the
PDF forces are from the Airspace Rules Compilation.
Set-up:
The Watchman is coming in at high speed and medium altitude, with its
escort squadrons on either sides of it at similar speeds and heights.
The orks are split into two groups who are deployed at both table
corners. They are both high and mid-speed.
Turn 1:
Initiative: PDF
Move:
The Imperial aircraft start to shift
tot eh right, while the Ork aircraft move towards the middle and drop
altitude.
Shoot:
None
Turn 2:
Initiative: PDF
Move:
The Watchman and
the Storms stay around Altitude 4 to 5 and head right again and
Fighta 1 and 2 seem to be tracking with them. Meanwhile, the
Sentinels go high and the Ork fightas facing them dive to the hard
deck. They will both have a hard time getting into the action later.
Shoot:
None
Turn 3:
Initiative: Orks
Move:
The Ork fightas near the deck do a hard
G-turn and gain altitude in exchange for speed and head for the bulk
of the PDF aircraft. The sentinels do something similar but stay at
the same height. The Watchman continues to gain altitude to avoid
the Ork fighters, but they are closing in and have slipped behind the
escort screen.
Shooting:
Fighta 4 opens up on Storm 2 and
riddles the airframe with Big Shoota fire. It is our first kill of
the day, and the pilot fails to eject in time to survive.
Turn 4:
Initiative: Orks
Move:
The orks all turn into the expected
path of the Watchman, but the PDF plane is even slower than they
expected, and they just barely overshoot and leave it out of range.
However, Storm 1 is out of position, and the Sentinels have
sub-optimal firing arcs.
Shooting:
Ork Fighta one whiffs gently and sprays
Big Shoota rounds right through Sentinel two, easily knocking the
plane from the sky, Another PDF pilot goes to their grave!
In return, Sentinel 1 manages to
scratch what passes for paint on Fighta 3, and the Watchman misses
Fighta 1 with her heavy stubbers.
Turn 5:
Initiative: Orks
Move:
The Storm and Sentinel try desperately
to set-up some kill-zones behind the Watchman to deter an attack, but
the Orks are all over the PDF planes. Fighta 1 easily drops into a
tailing position on the Watchman.
Shooting:
Fighta 3 sprays Storm 1 and close
range, but somehow the PDF plane flies through it unharmed.
The watchman fires on its pursuer, but
fails to hit anything. Meanwhile, Fighta 1 lazily takes 1 hit off
the big bird.
The return fire from Storm 1 is enough
to splash Ork Fighta 3! The Ork fails to eject and is killed.
Turn 6:
Initiative: Orks
Tailing Fire:
The Tailing Fire from Fighta 1 is
enough to take down the Watchman plane. However,t eh crew is able to
bail out and live to fight another day!
Move:
With the Watchman down, the rest of the
PDF simply disengage. The orks give a half-hearted pursuit until the
reach the end of their fuel and return home.
Shooting:
None
Conclusion:
Commodore
Miles' strategy proved to be very costly in blood and iron. The Air
PDF crews and aircraft were ill-prepared for the mission against the
Ork stronghold most of the reconaissance craft never returned. Very
little was learned from the effort. Instead, Commodore Miles turned
to other methods to try to learn about what was happening in the
Green Zone.
Worse,
a rift began to form between the Ammoriss Air PDF crews and their
Imperial Navy counter-parts. It was not lost on them that the Navy
fliers had been held back, while the Air PDF did the dying for the
past few days. In addition, Commodore Miles instituted a new,
rigorous re-training program overseen by the Imperial Navy crews.
This was another factor that only increased the rift between the two
services as Operation: Hemlock was kicked off.
It
has been a while since we played Aeronautica Imperialis. I think the
last time was a mini-campaign early in 2018 with Varingyr
vs. Orks? Well, my usual
scumgrod took the Orks and the proceeded to take me to school.
I had
just sculpted and painted the PDF Sentinels and I really was eager to
try them out. Sadly, I didn't really have a battle plan for my
force, and instead it just got ill used and shot to pieces! The PDF
craft are of course underpowered and fragile, but they tend to make
it up with some OK firepower and being cheap as chips so I was
actually outnumbering Orks. I was rolling plenty of shooting dice
when I got in the right position, which was not often enough this
game. I couldn't really tell you how the Sentinel did, but the Storm
proved itself to be a good close range gunslinger yet again.
Better luck for
the PDF next time I guess.
That was good fun, an Ooh-ray fur da Orkz!
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