Station 42 Battle Preview!

We were going to have another battle in our new campaign centered around Station 42 but we spent too much time preparing so we ran out of time to play.  Hopefully we will fight this battle before the work week starts up again. 
The Hell Knights will be attempting to silence a militia broadcasting station and drive the Titania Militia from a small compound they have taken over. 

What madness is this? Improvised Technical Vehicles

We've decided that the militia needs some extra punch for our Station 42 campaign so we are working on some improvised armored cars and technical vehicles for them.  Here is a WIP shot of one.  They body is a very cheap car we got at the Dollar Tree shop.  They come in two pack for a dollar so these are very inexpensive to build.  We've plated them up with some card stock and put various weapons from model and miniature kits on them. 

Hell Knights Sniper finished and more WIPs

 I actually finished this sniper when I finished the scouts but I forgot to photograph and post him.  I'm happy with the way he turned out.  The sculpt is a little odd in places but he will make a nice additions to my army.

Here are some reinforcements for my scouts and armoured assault squad or Catachans and Storm Troopers if you prefer. 

Hell Knights Scouts Finished

I finished the scouts for the Hell Knights.  This would actually be two squads since in the No Limits rules the maximum size of a squad with infiltration is 6.  I'll be adding a couple more troops to these so I can field full strength units.  I've got enough GW Catachans to make a whole scout platoon so I'm planning on that and a squad of commandos which will be elite units using the Catachans as the base models. 

Of couse when I'll also be using them as Imperial Guards for 40k.
 
I'm pretty happy with these.  I think they match the rest of the army quite nicely. 

Defiance Marines came in today!

Well after a very long wait my Defiance USM....  ehh UAMC Marines finally came in.  This new game company had a lot of trouble getting these off this ground.  These Marines are their first offering and they came out months after their release date.  That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that they took pre-orders in late November of 2011 with a release date of January 2012.  Well they kinda missed the mark and that made a lot of people angry.  Myself included. 

I pre-ordered.  I put down my own money up for these and had to wait quite a while longer than expected to get my product.  I certainly vented a bit about that on some of the forums I went to but I was surprised a bit about one thing.  A lot of people got really angry at Defiance about just about everything. 

However it seemed that the people who got the most upset were people who had not in fact put any money down on the pre-order.  It seemed some people were determined to hate these minis no matter what.  Again most of these people were not they people who actually pre-ordered.  Every complaint in the book was lodged against these minis by people who hadn't invested a dime.  They hated their design. They said their proportions were off.  They said they looked like shit because they were computer renders. A lot of people hated the helmets.  They even hated the fact that you got extra legs and arms.  I think a lot of them even hated the fact that the company was U.S. based.  Mostly the hate came from people with no money invested. 

In my opinion most of their complaints were complete bullshit.  They are certainly entitled to their opinions but that doesn't make their opinions any less bullshit. 

Most miniature companies are not Games Workshop or even Reaper.  Most of them are very small companies with very limited capitol.  I'm certainly not letting Defiance off the hook completely but sometimes a small business can't recover from set backs so easily.  People are used to big business in every day life.  They are used to prompt service without delays and big companies with deep pockets that can fix things much more easily than small companies. 

Now all bullshit aside I think these are nice minis.  A set of non-gothic, non-Nazi styled sci-fi troopers.  They are a good value too.  I'll post a better review when I get them together but I'm plenty happy to finally have these minis.  I'm planning on getting at least one more box to assemble as is and probably another box or two to assemble with some Pig Iron heads.   

Hell Knights Mech Build "The Guts"

I'm working on this Iron Man "Assault Armour" to use as a mech for my Hell Knights.  It's a really cool. toy and it only cost me about $20.00 U.S. which is way less than any similar game model would cost.  The biggest problem with the toy is that they middle of the torso and legs are basically hollow.  The idea is that you put the little Iron Man action figure inside the armour.  Well that's all good but it makes for a pretty silly looking mech.  What I needed to do was figure out a way to make the guts to fill out the torso and legs. 

I had some other considerations.  I plan to get several of these so I didn't want to use model kit bits because I only have just so many of them.  It would have looked really good but I would have had to have made the guts of each mech different or track down several model kits of the same kind which would have made this project much more expensive.  What I needed were cheap bits I could pick up almost anywhere.  I used a bottle cap to fill out the main part of the torso and a little weapon bit from the toy that hung under the arms and looked stupid.  The "gyro" is just a wooden barrel you can get from various craft stores or craft suppliers on line.  The leg structure is made from half a plastic cloths pin cut in half.  The nylon cord will by the myomer muscles I will wrap around the legs and inside the torso.  The network cable will be stripped of it plastic coating and the smaller wires will be used as wiring. 

I think this will go together pretty easily.  I'm going to paint the guts silver then give them a wash.  The wiring I am just going to give a wash.  Then I'm going to put the guts in after the mech is painted.  I think this will produce a much more real looking mech than just painting up the toy as is.

Oh and this is post 200 for my blog!  

Avengers toys for the Hell Knights

 Well I went ahead and picked up two of the Avengers Toys.  Here is a shot of the Iron Man "Assault Armour".  It's about 7 inches tall so I think it will make a nice light/medium sized mech.  The torso and legs are hollowed out so I'm going to have to come up with something to fill those gaps but I have some ideas already.  I've got the toy shown here with all the weapons but I'm only going to use a couple of them for the final version. 

The other toy I picked up was the Iron Man "Firestrike Assault Jet".  Apparently Iron Man likes to "Assault" things.  It does in fact come with some landing gear and an underbelly turret with a pair of really big guns.  I think this would be a great support VTOL for my Hell Knights for the Mech/Tank hunter role. 

Avengers Toys for converting to 28mm Sci-Fi vehicles.

 I recently picked up an Avengers Quinjet from Walmart to convert to a Sci-Fi drop ship.  I haven't done anything yet but since then there have been a number of cool Avengers toys released that could be useful for miniature gamers.  I hope to get another one or two of these ships to use as transports for my Hell Knights mercenary army. 

 These little VTOLs look really interesting.  I can't tell from the packaging if they have any landing gear but I can probably manage some if they don't.  I think these would be great for Shadowrun and a number of other Sci-fi settings.  I'm planning on getting at least two to use as air support units for the Hell Knights. 

 I'd like to get at least two or three of these "tanks" to use as self propelled guns for the Hell Knights. 

 My setting has Mecha in it but it's hard to find good robot and mech toys.  These look pretty good and I think with a little modification they would work nicely.

Most Robot toys are either too tall or two short but these look really good.  I think these would make good medium sized mechs.  I'm planning on getting one each for my Hell Knights mech forces but I'm going to change up the armaments so they don't look the same.  The little holes in the chest are for the figures heads to show through but I will be filling these. 

I hope to pick up one of each of the mechs and the tank and VTOL tonight after work.  This is one of those cases where I may still get in trouble for buying all this stuff even though I have a wargame wife but I think she will change her mind when she sees how cool they look. 

Hell Knights Scouts skin and hair WIP

I got the skin tones and hair done on the scouts.  Now I just have the weapons and bases.  I'm pretty happy with the way they are turning out. 

Hell Knights Scouts and Sniper WIP

I got the drybrushing done, blocked in the skin tones and applied the wash.  Now I have to highlight the skin and finished the details.  I really like this stage because it always feels like I'm almost done. 

Hell Knights Scout Squad and Sniper

I've been working on this squad for my Hell Knights mercenary army.  We are using No Limits for our rule systems and infiltrating squads can't be any larger than 6 models but I am also making these guys up as an Imperial guard army so these guys will just be used as a veteran squad for that version of the army. 
I'll be putting more up about the background of the army for my own setting soon.  These guys will soon see action in the Station 42 setting. 

Painting my "Hell Knights" rifle squad (Cadian Imperial Guard with Pig Iron Heads)

 Just thought I would share a technique I have been using to quickly paint up squads of troopers.  It works really well for military type minis and Battlemechs and such.  Here are a selection of Games Workshop Cadian Imperial Guard minis with Pig Iron heads.  These guys took a while to put together.  I cut off all the imperial symbols from the guns, armor, and canteens because I want to use these guys for several different games.  They will be the main troops for my "Hell Knights" mercenary army for my own generic sci-fi setting.   
First thing I do is select the base color.  In this case I chose a dark brown.  I used a Rustoleum cammo spray paint as my base cote.  Krylon makes a cammo paint system as well but the local Walmart doesn't carry that line anymore.  These paints are designed for people who think painting their pickup in a cammo pattern will actually help them sneak up on Deer and Turkey and other woodland critters.  No shit they really believe that. 
Anyhow after I base cote them then started blocking in the cammo pattern I've selected for this army in a warm medium brown. 

 Next I blocked in the rest of the cammo.  I'm only painting the armor and boots on these guys cammo. 

 After I got the cammo blocked in I started on the web gear and grenades and equipment. 

 At this point I dry brushed all the models with a light sand color.  This way I highlighted the model with one color.  This works really well for drab colors and really speeds things up. 

 After the dry brushing I put in the flesh tones and brighter colors.  I painted the visors on the helmets blue and the little lights and optics green. 

 After that stage I put a wash over the entire figure.  I used dark burnt umber with a drop of dark blue.  I also added some future floor wax to the mixture.  I use this kind of wash quite often.  It really gets into the cracks and ties the mini together. 

 After the wash I added details and highlights to the skin tones and brighter colors.  I also added the metallics at this stage. 

Finally I finished their bases and clear coated them.  I'm really happy with the way they came out.  I've used this technique or variations on it quite often with good results.  They actually painted up faster than they went together.  I spent a couple hours a night on them for a week so I have perhaps 10-12 hours in the entire squad. 

Battle of Bunker 1138 (No Limits battle report for Station 42)

 Recently a group of mercenaries identified as the "Hell Knights" have been raiding farms and other settlements around Station 42.  Marshal Malcom Reed recently fought off a small team of heavily armored merchs at the Redwing Farm.  The attacks however have continued and the mercenary patrols have been bolstered with armour and light mechs.  Still uncertain about the mercenaries motivations Marshal Reed contacted Carson Boon a local militia leader to solicit his assistance in putting together a more organized militia to combat the merenaries.  All attempts to get help from the Tatania government have fallen on deaf ears. 
Several months ago Boon and his men defeated a band of smugglers at an old Military com bunker outside of Station 42.  This seamed like the perfect place to set up a supply for the militia groups operating under his command.  Boon assigned a squad of militia to guard the supply depo along with as AC 10 Autocannon. 
Yesterday a "Hell Knights" attack craft attempted to recon the supply depo but it was hit by the AC 10 and barely managed to escape.  Boon figured that the Mercenaries would send a more substantial force to attack his supplies next so he decided to re-enforce that position. 
 

 The Hell Knights commander on Tatania decided to send in a small strike force to take out the militia base. The mission was nicknamed "Operation Ragtag Recon".  The strike force consisted of :

An Armoured Assualt Squad of 4 troopers and a sergent who was the force commander.  These troops wore Medium Carapace Armour and carried Heavy Blasters as well as frag grenades, smike grenades, and pistols. 

Two Veteran Rifle Squads of 4 troopers and 1 sergent armed with Light Laser Rifles, Frag Grenades, and Flack Armour.

One "Marksman" Battle Suit armed with an AC 5 Autocannon, Laster Sights and a Distortion Field.

One "Hobelar" Light Hover Tank armed with a Pulse Laser and Laser Sights.

 Carson Boon had assembled a ragtag militia force consisting of a mix of trained militia and green militia which were basically just armed citizens.  He also managed to scounge up a couple of light guns that he hoped would counter any heavily armoured threats.  His small army consisted of:

Boon's Irregulars armed with Assault Rifles and Armoured Battle Uniforms.  Boon's Personal militia unit.  Somewhat infameous locally.

The 3rd Tatania Volenteer Infantry armed with Assault Rifles and Armoured Battle Uniforms.  This militia unit commanded by a man known only as "Bear" normally operated in and around Titania City but Boon managed to recruit them to his cause. 

The Pleasant Valley Neighborhood Watch armed with pistols, shotguns, and stub rifles.  This "posse" was raised by Marshal Reed. 

Dutton's Gang armed with pistols, shotguns, and stub rifles.  Dutton's gang hails mostly from Hardscrabble and Ramshackle. 

An AC 10 Autocannon and a Field Gun.  No one is sure where these guys came from but they seem to know Boon and they seemed well trained.  Rumor has is they are part of the Planetary defense force who hijacked these light artilary pieces from their units armoury.

Carson Boon and Redjack the leaders of Boon's Militia.  Redjack was armed with a sniper rifle with laser sights.  Boon was armed with an Assault Rifle. 

 Boon watched as two Transports landed just out of range of his base.  He couldn't tell the exact size of the force that was deployed but he could see a light hover tank and some kind of small mech or warbot in the force.  Boon was hoping his support weapons could handle them.  Unfortunately the "Plesant Valley Neighborhood Watch" "Dutton's Gang"  were not being coperative.  They wanted to hold back despite having shorter ranged weapons so he was forced to send the more experienced units out to engage the merchs. 

 As the merchs moved in the militia AC 10 opened up on the lead unit.  Three mercenaries were taken down instantly.  Unfortunately the trooper with the grenade launcher servived and fired a grenade at the 3rd Titania unit dropping two of it's members and knocking a third to the ground.  The militia returned fire killing the merch with the grenade launcher.  The mercenary hover tank popped over the hill it was behind and took a shot at the AC 10 killing one of the crew before dropping back down behind the hill. 
On the oposite flank the militia field gun took a shot as a blurr they assumed was the mercenary mech but they overshot their target by several meters.  The Mech responded by shooting at Boon's Irregulars with it's AC 5 killing one of the unit's members. 

 The mercenary mech contined to move up on the militia's left this time taking aim at the field cannon killing one of the crew.  Seeing this Redjack loaded a round into his sniper rifle and returned fire at the mech damaging it with a well placed shot.  Boon's Irregulars also fired at the mech with their assault rifles but most of their shots missed or failed to damage the machine. 
The Hover tank was hit hard by the AC 10 with two shots from the support weapon doing damage.  The lone rifleman from behind the blast crater took aim with his Light Laser Rifle and dropped one of the 1rd Titania members while the other rifle squad moved in behind several supply barrels. 

 The "Hobelar" Returned fire at the AC 10 killing it's final crew member.  Suddenly Bear's 3rd Titania were feeling very exposed. 

 Combined fire from the hover tank and the veteran riflemen killed Bear and reduced the 3rd Titania to half strength.  Despite holding their moral they fell back and took up positions behind a pair of parked civilian cars.
The mercenary Armoured Assault Squad moved up behind some crates and took down one of Boon's Irregulars.

 The mech moved up but failed to hit anything even at short range. To make matters worse Boon's Irregulars managed to further damage the mech with Assault Rifle fire
.   

 After doing little more than watch the entire battle the green militia units decided to try to get into the fight.  This proved to be too little too late.  Both traied militia units were hit hard by combined fire from the mercenaries. 

 The 3rd Titania were wiped out by grenade shrapnel and pulse laser fire.  Their boddies lay scattered across a wide patch of ground. 

 The Mech and the mercenaries on the other flank hammered Boon's Irregulars who lost their nerve and fled. 

 The Mech moved it's armoured body around a large civilian truck and started laying into the Marshal's posse. 

On the other flank the Hover Tank moved to the top of a large hill and gunned down three of Dalton's Gang including Dalton. 
At this point it was obvious the battle was lost for the militia.  With their guns silenced and their best troops laying dead or fleeing the remainder of the force fled from the battle. 
With no orders to pursue The mercenaries called in medivac units for not only their own wounded but the militia members as well. 

Notes:  Well this battle is the first in a narative campaign we are starting for the Station 42 story line.  We used the No Limits rules for this battle.  They are completely free and allow a great deal of customization.  This was rougly a 1000 point battle.  The battle was actually much closer than it seemed.  The mech had only one wound left and the tank was down to two wounds.  Up until about the 3rd turn when the AC 10 was silenced it could have gone both ways.  I expected to loose either the tank or the mech and I came close to loosing both. 

We don't like the No Limits rules for cover.  I hate games where the ammount of cover a model recieves is based on how much of that model is sticking out.  Rather we assume that a trooper/vehicle or whatever is trying to make the best use of the cover that they can so instead of assigning light, medium, and heavy cover based on how much of the model is in cover we assign the same modifers to the type of cover.  Light woods, crates, brush, civilian vehicles, and light fencing become light cover (-1 to RA).  Heavy Woods, Rocky outcroppings, military vehicles, most buildings, and walls become medium cover (-2 to RA).  Reinforced bunkers, and similar hardened structures become heavy cover (13 to RA). 

We had a blast playing this game.  We have been playing AE Bounty and running Savage Worlds games in this setting but we wanted some larger scale battles as well.  No Limits was a great choice because you can build any type of army using any type of miniatures you have.

Mr. Bigg's big supprise (AE Bounty game report for Station 42)

 The bounty hunting crew known as "The Valkyrie" were hired by an unknown employer to capture Mr. Biggs the boss of the Venture Star Prospecting Company.  They were also to capture Nancy his secretary and Karl Mason a scientist who works for Venture Star.  They were told Mr. Biggs would be inspecting a prospecting camp later that afternoon and that they might find it easier to take him there.
 

 The Venture Star Prospecting Team 1 were working at a site when they received a distress call from their base camp.  It was their boss Mr. Biggs who said he was under attack from bounty hunters.  Fearing for their paychecks the team headed back to base to try and stop the kidnappers. 

 The Venture Star base camp was small.  One large tent, a power generator, some fuel tanks, a few vehicles, and some other equipment.  Mr. Biggs has arrived in his flying sports car. 

 The prospecting team decided to split up and approach from several angles.  Victor the crew chief and Johnny the explosives expert would sneak up behind the camp with their backs to a large Mesa.  The security team Arnold and Joe would attack on one flank while the equipment operators Harry and Xavier would attack on the other flank.  The Valkyrie were getting the hostages together in the middle of the camp trying to figure out how to get them out of the area.

 Arnold and Joe began the shooting using suppressive fire to pin Alecia behind some fuel barrels.  Vera drug Karl away from the shooting around the back of the dump truck.  Kara ran up behind a car to get in a better position to shoot at the attackers while Valarie unloaded with her LRF slugthrower at Arnold and Joe.  Harry and Xavier tried to shoot Valarie but found they were out of range while Victor and Johnny moved in from behind.
 

 From her new position Kara was able to gun down Joe but Arnold still managed to pin down Alecia with more suppressive fire.  Victor moved up and took some shots at Valarie but missed.  The bounty hunter then returned the favor but her shots bounced harmlessly off the crew chief's personal magnetic field.  Valarie then decided that they needed to get Mr. Biggs out of there so she ran back and grabbed him.  Johnny wasn't able to find a clear path to charge Vera so he simply moved up and engaged her in hand to hand.  Harry and Xavier decided they needed to get closer so they move up towards some equipment crates.     

 Johnny and Vera traded blows.  Vera went down but managed to wound Johnny.  Valarie threatened Mr. Biggs to get him to sprint towards safety with her.  Alecia tried to drag Karl and Nancy out of the camp but was pinned again by suppressive fire from Arnold as well as Harry and Xavier.   

 Again Johnny couldn't get a clear path for a charge so he simply moved up to engage Alecia.  The two fought but neither damaged the other.  Kara moved up to grab Nancy. 

 Kara tried to move away with Nancy but was pinned by Harry and Xavier.  Johnny and Alecia kept fighting. 

 Alecia knocked Johnny out but both her and Kara came under suppressive fire from the prospecting crew so they were unable to move very far. 

 The prospecting crew continued to move in and try and pin down the bounty hunters.  Victor moved up and engaged Kara in hand to hand. 

 The bounty hunter made short work of the crew chief.  His personal magnetic field was of no use in hand to hand.  Alecia tried to run but was again pinned down. 

As the rest of the prospectors moved in Kara and Alecia decided that getting the boss was enough so they released their hostages and retreated. 

Notes:  We did a ton of things wrong in this game.  We forgot several special abilities during the play and we got the rules for suppressive fire wrong so it was a bit more effective than it should have been.  We counted it as a bounty hunter victory because they got both their faction objective and their secondary objective while the prospectors only got the primary objective.  It was still a fun fight but I didn't post a lot of the detail because we made so many mistakes.  The Valkyrie were bounty hunters and we used the mercenary list for the prospecting crew.