Battle Report: Operation Hemlock- Restless Sun

 

Operation Hemlock has been a long running semi-narrative campaign m Skumgrod have been playing.  It is set in our corner of the Warhammer 40K universe but uses a variety of games to play.  Sometimes we use GW games, sometimes we use my games, and sometimes we use other, third party games.  Today, we elected to play Restless Sun which is my model-vs-model sci-fi game.  

Colonel Brusilov had Taskforce: Sword pounding the ork encampment for days now.  He could hear the rhythmic cycle of the Earthshakers just outside of his command chimera.  His command holo-display lit up with indications and assessments of where the great shells were striking in the Ork camp.    

His artillery were running out of shells.  Ork air attacks had weakened his supply lines back to North Ammoriss and his fellow Taskforce commanders had been unable to stop the greenskin raids.  He was very close to breaking the Ork toe-hold on Grig's Rest, but his supplies had to hold out long enough for him to push them off the island once and for all.  

Before he could launch his assault, he needed better intel.  The Office of Strategic Intelligence was sending him streams of information but they were back at Northcomm, miles away.  They couldn't tell him where the orks were hiding in their dug-outs, where they had hidden their traks, and where their gun emplacements were.  Before he could order an assault into the ruins of the Ork camp he needed intel.  

Brusilov tapped some controls, and a vox-channel opened to his adjunct at the front lines.  The hiss of static filled the air, before it stabilized and toned clear.  

"Major, gather scouts from each Company and send them forward.  We need to know where to strike." 

Forces:

Our Imperial Troops will be represented by my Death Korp Kill Team.  They are all going to be Regular Infantry units.  

Sergeant - Combat Weapons

Gunners - Squad Support Weapons

Sniper- Marksman

For the Orks, we are using Irregular Infantry however the Orks will all have the Fierce rules.  

Nob- Regular Infantry- Combat Weapons

Sniper Boy- Marksman

Shoota Boy - Rapid Fire

Rokit - Blast, Long Range

Bomb Squig- Rapid movement, Blast

Gretchin- Jump Gear

Mission:

To match the situation, we decided to use the Control Terrain scenario for our battle report today.  Models gain points for being in Difficult terrain at the end of the game.  

For complications, we went with Minefield.  Therefore, if you fail a movement roll you will lose Effectiveness from artillery, wild fire, or a mines.  I mean, they are trying to scout an active warzone!  

This scenario will last 8 turns. 

Set-up:

We will be using a 36 x 36 inch board for this.  Plus, since Difficult terrain is important, we will be putting 5 pieces of it out on the table.  1 near each deployment zone and three along the rough center line.   

Both sides are deploying about 6 MU in from their own table edge.  

The Ork side of the table.....

As usual, this will not be a turn by turn break down of the game.  This game went 8 turns.  Instead, I will cover it in broad strokes for the Maneuver phases, the Battle, and the End Phases.  

Maneuver Phase:  

The Artillery barrage and mines made it hard to move forward.  Some of the shells were landing dangerously close, disrupting maneuver by both sides.  However, those that could pressed forward, with the two sides trading ineffective shots.  The PDF troopers manage to force some of the leading elements of the Ork thrust with suppressive rifle fire.  

However, an Ork manages to sneak around the edge and attack a pair of Guardsman, forcing them to retreat from the onslaught.  The better training of the Troopers appears to be paying off! 

Battle Phase: 

A PDF Trooper with a support weapon flees from the board thanks to the ferocious Ork Assault.  However, it does not go all the Orks way as concentrated rifle fire sees three Orks forced off the board and into retreat as well.  The PDF have dug in at two buildings, while the Orks have 1 building and a Grot in a ruin.

The PDF Troopers manage to leap-frog forward, with mines hampering their movement.  As a Guardsman makes the ruins, a startled Gretchin leaps out and forces him back with a flurry of vicious stabs.  Meanwhile, fighting is house-to-house and at close range! 

The Trooper with the Squad Support Plasma Gun manages to drive the Gretchin out of the cover of the ruins and forces him to retreat.  The Orks manage to counter-attack and push the PDF troopers back, but it might not be enough as their momentum is quickly spent.  Both sides still hold two objectives each.

 End Phase

The Ork assault is blunted by accurate rifle fire as the Ork Nob is forced back, as is an ork by the house.  However, the Bomb squig re-orients itself and charges towards the PDF lines.  

The PDF Sniper finally manages to outright kill an Ork with a shot to the head.  Bam!  Headshot! 

However the Bomb Squig gets to the PDF positions and detonates.  The blast outright kills 1 trooper and sends the other one scurrying away in shock.  

A trooper scrambles into the ruins to contest it from the Ork hiding inside of it.  With that, the Ork Nobs hears a distant horn blast, signaling for his Boyz to fall back and cover the final withdrawal back to the Green Zone from Grig's Island. 

Conclusion

This was a hotly contested battle between the PDF and Orks.  However, the PDF managed to score 2 objectives, while the Orks only had 1.  The PDF lost 1 KIA and 2 MIA from the squad, while the Orks had 2 killed outright, while 3 Orks and a Grot were unaccounted for during the retreat.     

It is hard to outright kill folks in this game, but you are constantly pushing them around the battlefield as they retreat, get Shaken, and Rally.  Probably a bit more realistic in that sense, as you could see momentum shift when friction did its thing during game play.  

I wanted to do one big Grig's Island showdown with Restless Galaxies, but I am not getting my Ork forces printed up for it.  Challenges, challenges.  Perhaps I will need to play a Aquanautica Imperialis Naval or even a Aeronautica Imperialis game to represent the Orks trying to flee the island, or even just a big Restless Stars or Xenos Rampant game instead? 

It might be a while until my Skumgrod is available for another game.  This one was on the books for a few months before we got it done.  We will see what happens in Operation: Hemlock next! 

Until next time! 

     

Become a Patron and get access to all the cool stuff, a peak behind the curtain of Blood and Spectacles, and early-access to playtest games!  

Blood and Spectacles Patreon! 

You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page or Instagram for more fun! 

Check out the latest publications and contact me at our Blood and Spectacles website

Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!      

  

Wargaming on a Budget- Making Models

Several years ago, I found myself in a terrible place as a wargamer.  I was flat broke.  I was putting my money into other endeavors, so my budget for wargames was non-existant.  However, as I look back on this period of my hobby life being flat broke was a blessing!

What?  Yes, you read that right.  Being broke forced me to think about my hobby and what I really was trying to get out of it.  To participate in it, I could no longer just mindlessly buy games, supplements, and models.  There was no way for me to keep up with newer editions or rules changes.  Instead, I had to get my gaming fix through other channels and only buy what was absolutely necessary.

This is what led me into my first forays into Wargame Design.  I figured instead of trying to keep up with what was new, I would just try to make and play games that I wanted to play.  As I thought about the core things I needed to play a wargame, I broke it down into three main aspects:

1. Wargame Rules
2. Terrain and game Boards
3. Models and figures

For Wargame rules, you can find out how I got my start on a different post.  I have talked about it elsewhere, so will not get to far into it today.  I will also save Terrain and Game Boards for a different discussion as well.  Afterall, this post is about making models!

My initial forays into model making were scatchbuilds.  These typically were free form, stand-alone models.  Usually, I tried to make vehicles first.  The most common construction material was common cardboard with masking tape used to block out the edges.  For smaller details I would use cardstock paper.  However, other found items were also used, typically straws, toothpicks, sprue cuttings, and any other tidbits I could find around for free.

From there I naturally moved to working with paper. This is still a standard practice for me, especially when playtesting or trying out new games.  There is no need to go "all in" on a game that I don't even like.  Plus, it allows me to get to the playtesting quickly and try all sorts of different units out cheaply and with minimal fuss.  There were two main ways I used paper, the first was for simple cut-out 2-D templates.  I talk about that extensively in a different post.

However, I had a lot more fun creating, designing and building paper templates for existing and new 3D vehicle varients.  Typically, I would make the template design in MSPaint, trial it, and then make tweaks.  I made a variety of armored cars, tanks, tankettes, APCs, and even a super-heavy using this method.  I constructed two full tank companies.  I think you can still find most of my templates here.

This solutions worked well, but soon I wanted to do even more.  I wanted to make my own models and that meant taking the time to learn to sculpt.  Thanks to the internet, this is easier to learn now than ever with plenty of tutorials, video demos, and pointers.  You can find all sorts of advise on tools, materials, and anatomy.  However, I still wish I had a in-person meentor to help as that would have increased my skill exponentially and faster.

I invested in a set of dental tools, a set of clay erasers, some large corks, and a good exacto knife.  All of these ran me less than a cost of a boxed set of minis.  Then, I began using simple, everyday Sculpey and Super Sculpey.  I didn;t spend a ton of money on Greenstuff, Pro-create, or other materials.  I used Sculpey that you baked in layers in a toaster oven (or kitchen oven).

I have not really looked back.  From there I have made Blood Bowl players, squadrons of Aeronautica Imperialis planes, warships for Aquanautica Imperialis, individual models for various skirmish games, Battlefleet Gothic spaceships, and more.  Making models has become an enjoyable hobby in its own right and gave me the skills and confidence I needed to do what ever I wanted with my wargaming hobby.

Now, I find myself with a different problem.  I have some money, but no time.  I will let you know when I figure out how to solve that problem.

From here, I will just fill in the rest of the blog post with some random pictures of stuff I have sculpted/built.  If there is anything else you would like to see or learn more about just let me know.  

Random: Da Deff Island Skirmish

The ongoing Photobucket Saga has left me with some good and bad news.  The Bad news is some of my pictures for Jugs: A Game of Big Stompy Robots, The Games: Blood and Spectacles, and All Quiet on the Martian Front games appear to be non-recoverable due to the way Photobucket has divided some pictures into Recent Uploads and Library.  I can download my Library, which I have done.  However, I can not seem to download any pictures stuck in the Recent Uploads bucket.  The funny thing is these pictures are in no way "recent" unless you have a really bizarre definition of recent.

However, on the plus side I have recovered some old photos of my family, old games, and projects that I only dimly recall.  This walk down memory lane has prompted me to post some of these old photos.  Sadly, I don't recall anything that was happening in the games so these will not be my "Traditional" style battle reports, but I think they can still be fun.

First up is a game that my daughter and I played a lot about 7 years ago.  It is basically a re-skin of Gorkamorka.  However, instead of being set in the dessert, it was set on a world mostly composed of water.  I think it was called Da Deff Island Skirmish and it was set in the Battle for Ammoris campaign system from the Ammobunker forum.  The game had ork gangs of scavengers fighting with human criminals and pirates for scrap in the shallows of the Deff Island chain on the planet Ammoriss.  It is a skirmish campaign game with all the usual stuff like XP, Injury, gang building, etc.

You are probably wondering why there are Flamer templates behind some of the boats.  As they moved, the flamer template represented the wake that they created.  Boats passing through wake had modifiers for shooting and moving.  Here we see Da' Lucky Gitz approaching the Eagle Eye Pirates in the Shallows to do battle.

You can see that the Eagle Eye Pirates are a mix of Necromuunda and DemonBlade models to represent the pirates.  The boats themselves were homemade from cardboard and various found items.  The water matt is simply a blue table cloth with a second different blue coat sponged on. The islands made the same way using a brown and green tablecloth, than cut and layered together.  The whole seascape cost less than $10 and is highly portable.

Here you can see a few key aspects of the game in action.  The first is ramming other boats, the second is boarding other people's boats with your crews, and the third is tossing models into the drink.  They can then swim at reduced speed.

  
Here is the Eagle Eye pirates attacking a fort of Da' Lucky Gitz in the shallows.  The fort is made out of card and found materials.  To this day I still have not finished painting it up!

Despite being a game about boats and there crews.  You still can make landfall.  Often key pieces of scrap is found on islands or the shoreline and you need to get your boat over to it before your enemies.  

That pretty much covers some of the basics.  The game played well in our campaign, and we got about a half dozen games or so under our belt.  Like all campaign games, sometimes things just don;t go right for one side or the other.  However, there is an "Underdog" metric that can be used to help a flailing team.  Again, it is pretty much just a mod of Gorkamorka so you will want a copy of those rules to fully play Da Deff Island Skirmish.

There are also rules for Planetary Defense Force Troopers in the game as well, found in the Operation: Hemlock booklet.  Those play a bit differently but I have never really had a chance to try them myself.  These were some of my first foray's into game design, so try them out and let me know what you think.  If you like Gorkamorka or Specialist Games in general I think you will like it.