Project Wraith Episode 2 "Information is Power" game report.

 This is Episode 2 of my new Solar Empires role playing game called "Project Wraith".  The player characters are playing specialist who have had their identity stolen by some kind of hacker known as "Casper".  Casper has been sending them on "jobs" for unknown purposes.  In Episode 1 Casper sent the party to the Greek camp of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids to search for a doctor who had discovered the cure to a dangerous Martian biological weapon.
In this episode Casper sent them to Titania right in the middle of the war zone surrounding Station 42 to meet with a contact who knew the location of Casper's hacker friend known as Starfire.  Casper sent three of his agents.  Spider is a female hacker from Titania.  Vogue is a female public relations specialist from Callisto, and Lone Star is a; gambler, drifter, gunslinger, from Titan.  They met with Casper's contact several kilometers South East of Station 42.

 Unfortunately for the party the meeting was a trap set by the Hell Knight mercenaries.  Six mercenary scouts ambushed the party when the team discovered the true identity of their contact.

Vogue updates her facebook about rolling a critical on her "Look at my boobs" roll she used to distract the bogus contact while Spider maneuvered behind him.

 Spider attempted to subdue their contact while the rest of the team engaged in a gun battle with the mercenary scouts.

 Eventually Spider managed to knock their contact out and then engage the rest of the scouts.  The fire fight was difficult.  Most of the scouts had cover while the team was out in the open.  Eventually the final scout fled the scene after Spider killed the last of his companions.
After defeating the scouts the bogus contact was "convinced" to reveal to the team that he did indeed know where Starfire was hiding but he assured them that the Hell Knights would get to the hacker before they did.

 The team arrived at a small compound about 20 kilometers further South East of their landing position.  Several armed militia members were on the rooftops of the simple structures that made up the compound.

 After convincing the militia members that they were friendly and on an important mission for one of Starfire's associates they were able to meet with militia leader Jim Dutton.

 Just as they were warning Dutton a Hell Knight LAGAREV transport arrived on the scene and blew up one of the small compound buildings with it's scatter laser.

Spider, Lone Star, and Vogue.  I can't remember what was so funny.

 The team immediately took up defensive position to help the militia members defend the compound.  About 10 Hell Knight mercenaries dismounted their transport as the transport's gunner covered them.

 The mercenaries split into two groups and took up positions in cover just outside the compound.  The mercenaries were armed with laser rifles while most of the militia had assault rifles.

 The mercenary LAGAREV was eventually destroyed by; Vogue, Spider, and the militia members.  Lone Star joined Dutton to engage the mercenaries hiding in the rocks.

 Eventually only one mercenary remained alive and only one militia member had been killed.  The mercenary warned the team that they would never get off Titania alive.

The team met with Starfire who told them she had irrefutable proof that the Smith and Wilson Agriculture Company had engaged in illegal dealings with several members of the Titania government and that their seizure of farms and Station 42 was a completely illegal action.  

Starfire agreed to flee Titania with the team but suggested that they gather a force to escort them since the Hell Knights knew where their ship had landed.  

 Before the battle Father Padre, another team member, joined them.  He had been on a separate errand for Casper who had sent him to Titania City aboard a civilian transport to aid them. Jim Dutton gathered his militia including his men and four improvised armored vehicles.  Dutton's forces were joined by a robotic force owned by the enigmatic "Rosie" of Station 42 who also piloted her own Cyclopes mech.
When they arrived at the landing site the Hell Knights had already arrived with three LAGAREVs, one Hobelar tank, an Incubus light mech and two scout squads.
  

The battle was bloody.  Most of Dutton's men were killed and more than half of Rosie's robot troopers were taken out of action.  Rosie's mech was also destroyed but she managed to eject to safety.  The Hell Knights lost half of their infantry forces and two LAGAREVs.  Their mech and tank were also heavily damaged.
The team managed to make it to their ship during the fighting but as they were making a run for the landing ramp a LAGAREV and a lone trooper with a grenade launcher fired on the.  Spider and Lone Star were wounded in the exchange and Starfire was badly wounded and in danger of dying.

As they took off in their ship Father Padre managed to stabilize Starfire with his medical skills.  The team had managed to escape Titania but the militia forces had sacrificed quite a bit for it.  With Casper's resources they should be able to use Starfire's information to completely expose the true nature of the Station 42 War.

Check out the System News Network news report here:  http://systemnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2014/04/notorious-hacker-starfire-escapes.html
Notes:  This was a tie in between our No Limits campaign on Titania and my new role playing campaign.  We wanted to do an rpg tie in to help us bring the Station 42 War into it's final stage.    

The Star Guards: Army WIP

I've been working on the Star Guards mercenary company for the last couple of weeks and they are coming along nicely.  I only have one more of the heavy infantry squads to finish and another tank plus some apcs and support vehicles.

The paint jobs are pretty basic but I was going for a very simple look with these guys.

Heavy Tank for M.S.S.R. WIP

I've had this Batman toy tank for a while now are recently picked up another copy of it at a Big Lots.  It converts from a tank to a flying machine but oddly enough in tank form it has no weapons.  I've been looking for something to do to it for a while now when I spotted some toy military trucks at Dollar General with missile racks for only $3.00.  A little kit bashing later with some other bits from my bits box and this is what I came up with.  Fortunately I have enough bits to make the other tank as well.
We are going to use this tank for our Martian Soviet Socialist Republic force as a heavy fire support vehicle.  I just have a few more details and a paint job to add.
 

Battle of the Martian Sector: A 2000 point battle report for the Station 42 War!

January 4th 3033.  Earlier this afternoon the Hell Knights Mercenary company engaged forces of the Titania Militia and the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic near the Martian Military base just a few kilometers south southeast of Station 42.  The Martians released this recording of audio communications between their commander and the mercenary commander prior the the start of hostilities:

Martian Commander:  Attention intruders this is Commander Igor Kovalevsky of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic.  You have entered into sovereign territory of M.S.S.R.  Turn back now or we will be forced to engage you.

Hell Knights Commander:  This is Lieutenant Domingo Gomez of the Hell Knights mercenary company.  You are harboring the fugitive militia leader Ivar "Bear" Belyakov.  He is wanted by the Titania government for numerous crimes and we have a legal contract to apprehend him.  Remand him to our custody and we will be more than happy to depart.

 Martian Commander:  Lieutenant I am afraid you are not understanding me.  This is sovereign territory of M.S.S.R. and is governed by our laws!  Mr. Belyakov has requested asylum and we have granted it.  You must turn back now or we will fire on you!

Hell Knights Commander:  Get back to your base and leave this to us or we'll kick your Marski ass!

End transmission......  

 The Hell Knights force consisted of one Incubus light mech piloted my Lt. Gomez, two light infantry squads mounted in two LAGAREV hovercraft, one Hobelar light hover tank, and three Douglas medium hover tanks.  The Martian force consisted of one heavy infantry squad and two light infantry squads with two Dragunov Battlesuits, and two Degtyaryov Battlesuits.  Bear's militia units consisted of his own squad of light militia, two improvised armored vehicles, and two snipers.

Both of the mercenary light transports were destroyed in the first few shots and several mercenaries were kill when one of them exploded.

 A Dragunov Battlesuit was taken out of action by the combined firepower of three Douglas hover tanks.  The sturdy armored suit took quite a bit of punishment before going down.
 

 On the Mercenary left flank Lt. Gomez engaged two Martian Battlesuits in his light mech and although he damaged the other Dragunov his Incubus was shredded by the twin heavy machine guns of the Degtyaryov.

 In the center of the field a Militia technical fired a fragmentation missile at a mercenary rifle squad.  Three members of the squad were knocked prone but not injured.  The squad returned fire at Bear's unit and a squad of Soviets inflicting several casualties on both units.

 On the mercenary left flank Hell Knight tanks and the Martian Battlesuits engaged each other.  The other Dragunov was destroyed and the Degtyaryov traded fire with tanks suffering light damage and inflicting the same to the tanks.

 Although initially successful the mercenaries holding the hill in the center of the field began to take casualties from the combined fire of the militia and martian light infantry.

 The unit was all but destroyed when it was outflanked by one of the Degtyaryov Battlesuits.  All but the Sargent were killed by heavy machine gun fire.

 Two members of the Martian Heavy Infantry Squad were gunned down by the Hobelar light hover tank's pulse laser as if sped past their position.

 Despite being surrounded and damaged by enemy armor the Degtyaryov Battlesuit on the mercenary left flank fought on.  Two of the Douglas tanks were badly damaged in the exchange.

 Eventually however the Battlesuit was brought down by the mercenary tanks who then surged forward to engage the final Degtyaryov.

 The remaining Martian Battlesuit opened up at point blank range at one of the Douglas tanks damaging it further but not destroying it.  The mercenary tanks lightly damaged the Battlesuit and it took more damage when the remaining member of the Hell Knights squad from the transport that exploded shot it with his plasma carbine.  Bear killed the mercenary Sargent on the hill with his assault rifle.  

As the whine of Martian repulserlift engines were heard approaching from the base the mercenary tanks made a last ditch effort to kill Bear rather than capture him.  His two remaining comrades were cut down by the Hobelar as it flanked their position and the Douglas hover tanks reduced the rocky outcropping to gravel with their railguns but the militia leader survived.

The mercenary forces retreated just moments before Martian Gunships and Dropships arrived on scene.

Notes:  This was a nasty 2000 point No Limits battle between my mercenaries and My wife's militia and Martians.  Those Martian Battlesuits survived a heck of the lot of punishment and did quite a bit of damage to my forces.  After they wrecked my transports and nearly wiped out one of my squads I focused on taking them down which kept me for focusing on my objective of capturing Bear.  They slippery militia leader also survived my best attempts to kill him at the end of the battle.  
We had decided that this would be a six turn battle and I would have needed to be in clear control of the field for a total victory or kill Bear for a minor victory.  Unfortunately I did neither.  All I had left at the end of the battle were four damaged tanks and one trooper with a plasma carbine.   
One funny thing about the battle is that my wife forgot to deploy here field cannon so we decided it was held in reserve.  She then forgot to bring it on the board until the fourth turn.  
It was a pretty good battle and we had a lot of fun with it.  Both sides did some heavy damage to each other and we introduced another faction to the conflict.  

Tanksgiving: Project Wrap Up!

Well I went a little over my deadline wrapping this up but I'm okay with that.  I managed to get 9 tanks and armored vehicles finished in one month for my Tanksgiving project and since I didn't start till the end of the first week of November and I just finished these at the end of the first week of December I'm still pretty happy with my progress.
I finished four vehicles for my Hell Knights Mercenaries bringing their vehicle total up to 13.  Three of the tanks are for my Wolfhound Friekorps which is my next big army project.  Two of them I just painted up as generic mercenary tanks for general use.

Tanksgiving update: Well Crap!

Well today didn't go as planned.  This is all the progress I made on my Tanksgiving marathon.  Not exactly what I had hoped for.  I just had too many things pop up today and I got too distracted with other task one of which I will detail tomorrow.

Tanksgiving Update: 5 Vehicle Mix!

I've been trying to finish up a few more tanks for my Tanksgiving marathon so I spent the last two days trying to build up several of my half finished projects.
My wife built the grey APC from the body of a cheap "Army Man" Patton tank.  We are going to be using it for the Wolfhounds.
The green 6x6 is from Secret Weapons Games and it is the only "kit" model I have done for this project.  It also cost about what the rest of the tanks in the project cost combined but it is a very nice model.  If I had the budget I'd buy at least a squadron.  I may pick up some more in the future.
The two smaller hover tanks in the front are based of a Matchbox toy.  These "Douglas" Medium Hover tanks are for my Hell Knights.  I already have one of these completed so this will bring me up to a full squadron.
The large hover missile launcher is a variation of my Landshark AFV called the "Hammerhead".  It is also for my Hell Knights.   It is built from a toy LAV-25 which came in a set from Dollar General and included the missile launcher as a tow behind weapon.  I simply converted it into a missile turret.
Hopefully I will get these painted by tomorrow night.

Tanksgiving Update: Two heavy tanks finished!

I finished these two tanks up today for my Tanksgiving Marathon.  This brings me up to four finished tanks.  Both are based on a $3.00 toy tank I picked up at the Dollar General store.  The green one is pretty much just a paint up and the camouflage one has had it's tracks removed and replaced with hover drives I scratch built from cheap razor handles.
Obviously the design owes a lot to my M1 Abrams MBT but it is a bit more narrow in design.
In my setting these tanks are produced by the same company.  The hover tanks obviously has less armor but greater speed.  The design designation will be the Laird MBT and Laird HHT respectively.  I've painted the hover tank up for my Hell Knights army with the company markings.  The tracked version I have painted up to be a part of a generic mercenary motor pool I am building so I have gone without giving it a company or national marking and have instead simply given it a name and number.
I intended to photograph these with some miniatures to show their scale.  They are pretty big.  Defiantly "heavy" tanks although they are not as big as the two Ligers I just finished. I'm happy with the way they turned out and they will likely be making an appearance in my campaign very soon.  

Tanksgiving Progress Report: Heavy Anti-Grav Tank built!

I've been working on converting this $3.00 Dollar General tank to a hover tank for the last couple of weeks and it is basically built.  Enough to show it off anyhow.  The underside is a bit of a mess so I'm probably going to do a bit more finish work on it.
The drive is made from cheap shaving razor handles also purchased at the Dollar Store for $1.00 per 12 pack.  I used 8 to build the drive.  I used the same system on my "Hobelar" light anti-grav tank also for the Hell Knights.
The tank is shown here with my Hell Knights Mercenaries who use anti-gravity or "hover" vehicles exclusively.  This tank will probably be designated the "Laird" and it will likely be the heaviest tank in the Hell Knights arsenal.  
Hopefully I will have it painted up and ready for the table in a day or two.

Tanksgiving Concept: Converting tanks to APCs

 I was looking for an APC solution for my Wolfhound Friekorps which would be as economical as possible.  One of my goals with that army is to make it as cheaply as possible and use a lot of toy conversion.  Using the Wargames Factory Shock Troopers is a good start because I can get a box of them from thewarstore.com for about $15.00.  So far I have picked up a couple of boxes and some heavy weapons troopers so I only have about $45.00 spent on a heavy platoon so far.  I also picked up a couple of $5.00 toy tanks so the entire army is still under $60.00.  The problem is that there are far fewer toy APCs to convert than toy tanks.  My first thought was to find some type of toy Humvee and convert it but I didn't really feel like that would suit the style of the army.  I'm trying to build a mechanized armored cavalry platoon for under $100 so I needed a cheap solution.  That's when I came across the idea of converting tanks into APCs.  The Israeli Defense Force have converted a number of tanks to APCs over the years.  Above is a Achzarit APC built off the hull of a Soviet T-54/55.  

 Here is another shot of the Achzarit from the back showing the added troop hatch.  I really like this concept in particular for the Wolfhounds because it fits some of the things I have in mind for their background.  They are not a very resource rich mercenary company but they do improvise a lot.

 Here is another IDF APC called the Namer based on a Merkava tank.  This is obviously a much more modern design than the Achzarit.

 Here is a shot of the Namer with some U.S. soldiers using it during a test.  It is a very large APC which I think might be good for the powered armor troopers I play to add to the army in the future.

 This is an IDF Puma.  More of a combat engineering vehicle than a true apc.  I just wanted to include it because I thought it might make a nice project.

 This is a VIU-55 Munja.  A Serbian combat engineer vehicle also based on a Soviet T-55.

 This is an IDF Nagmachon based on a Centurion Sho't hull.  It is ugly as sin but I think it might be an interesting concept to design for a future project.

 The IDF Nakpadon is based on then Centurian as well.  It looks very heavy with all that reactive armor.

 Another shot of the Nakpadon.

This is an Indian Tarmour based on a T-55 as well.  It's also pretty ugly but looks like a simple conversion.

Tanksgiving Update: Wolfhound Super Heavies Finished!

Well my first two tanks for the Tanksgiving Marathon are finished!  I just finished up these Wolfhound "Liger" super heavy tanks for my Wolfhound Friekorps army.  Here you can see them both with a unit of Wolfhounds for scale.
I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out considering they are just $5.00 toys from the Dollar General store.  Hopefully the rest of my projects will go this smoothly.

Tanksgiving Update. Wolfhound Super Heavies painting WIP

Here is my first Tanksgiving update!  I've got the basic paint job finished on this two super heavies I am doing for the Wolfhound Friekorps.  I found some heavy machine guns to add to the turret for some additional fire power.
Next step is to put a wash on them then do the weathering.

Tanksgiving Marathon! Pass the armored pie.

As Tanksgiving approaches we take this time to reflect on all the armor projects we have collected and have yet to build.  Yes it's time to think about how tankfull we are and how tankfull we hope to be in the coming year.
The wargaming wife and I get a 5 day break for Thanksgiving this year so I have decided to do a tank and AFV building marathon from now until December 1st which is the last day of our break.  Hopefully we will be able to get in a large tank battle to wrap the project up.
I don't know if I will get all of these done in that amount of time but hopefully I will be able to finish a few of them.
Wish me luck!

Five Dollar Super Heavy Tank....

 I picked up this $5.00 toy tank today at Dollar General that I intend to use as a super heavy tank for my sci-fi setting.  As you can see it's pretty big.  The tank is 4 inches wide, 7.5 inches long, and 2.5 inches tall.  I think it scales okay next to these Wargames Factory Shock Troopers.  I intend to remove the electronics, it's a cable controlled remote control tank.

Stylistically it looks very similar to a German Leopard II tank or a Type 99 Chinese tank but it doesn't see to be an exact copy of any existing tank.  The biggest down side to the toy is that it has only one gun and no secondary armaments.  I plan to add at least a few other weapons to the finished model but I would have preferred additional weapons.

 Although it is pretty big it is no where near as large as this Games Workshop Baneblade super heavy tank or other sci-fi tanks so I'm pretty happy with it.  I'm not sure what army I am going to use it for yet but I play to buy at least a few of them and I may even use them for more than one force.