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Newsletter July 2003 |
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Newsletter July 2003 |
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Next meeting:
Saturday July 12th 2003, at St. Johns Church Hall, Norrie St., Drury, starting at 9a.m.
Games arranged:
Morning session: 9.30 am to 1.00pm
| 1 | Arthur vs Kevin | FOW | 1500 Points |
| 2 | Glen vs Damien | WHFB | 3000 Points |
| 3 | Barry vs Visitor (or Rob) | WHFB | 2000 Points |
| 4 | John vs Marcel | WHFB | 3000 Points |
| 5 | Pete vs Anthony` | Necromunda | |
| 6 | Daniel vs Wade | WH40K | 1000 Points |
| 7 |
Afternoon session: 1.30pm to 5.00pm
| 1 | Arthur v Pete | LOTR | 500 Points |
| 2 | Kevin vs Damien | LOTR | 500 Points |
| 3 | John vs Rob | WHFB | 2000 Points |
| 4 | Garth vs Glen | WHFB | 2000 Points |
| 5 | Wade vs Barry | WHFB | 2000 Points |
| 6 | Maecel v Daniel | WH40K | 1000 Points |
| 7 |
Copy for the news letter needs to be to me by week before we meet .- Kevin
Each month we organise the next month's games during the day. This usually happens between the Morning and Afternoon sessions when I, your Club Secretary (I prefer P.A. but the rest of the club executives dont appreciate my secretarial uniform of a tight black skirt - I do so have nice legs) will be going round trying to fill in slots for the next month. Now the rules are that fully paid members will be given first preference - we have limited space and those members who have paid for the year will have priority. At the meeting you can organise games amongst yourselves and the tell me or simply tell me what you want to play and I'll try and find an opponent for you. If you are not at the club meeting and you want to organise a game for the next meeting you can contact me by email at arthur.young@whitcoulls.co.nz, and I will see what I can do. Now if you have a game booked then you will get a table, if you have not organised a game with me then you will have to make do with whatever is spare (if there is anything spare).
Arthur
The Forum
| Games Workshop National Tournament: Fields of Blood 2003 |
| Games Workshop's annual tournament is on again, set for the weekend of September 13-14 |
| This, unfortunately, is the same weekend as Games Club, so it's either one or the other |
| Me, I'm hoping to attend, and as always will be dragging Damien along to it also |
| So, suffice to say, I'll be looking for some tough, challenging practice-games, if anyone's offering |
| Tickets go on sale on Friday the 1st of February, so if you want to go, you have to pretty much be there early on that day or you'll miss out on a ticket. |
| So, I'm going, anyone else up to the test? |
| Necromunda |
| This brilliant little battler of a game is about due for a re-release, Ivan has told me new models have been sculpted, but I haven't seen them yet, so it SHOULD hopefully be out fairly soon. |
| I'm also working on rules for Imperial Guard squads in it, playing around with a genestealer cult uprising setting as I've been rambling on about the past few months. Anyone interested in giving old Necromunda a bit of a whirl, I strongly advise you to do so, it's a great game |
| Warhammer Campaign |
| I'm thinking I should get an early start on developing rules for this, but also the map would help. |
| So, for this, I need to know where I can get my hands on some hexagonal grid paper. |
| Also, if anyone has some interesting ideas to incorporate into the campaign, feel free to tell me. |
| Other than that, I'll sort out the rest of the details myself, and hope I can get a good following into the campaign, although it probably only needs about 5 people to make it work well |
| Lord of the Rings |
| The Shadow and Flame expansion pack is closer than I had thought, and I have to say, Dwarf King Balin looks to be a damn-good figure. I'm looking forward to that release, definately going on my 'To-Do' list |
FireWarrior The game due for release about September looks to be a VERY nice game visually, exploring in fair detail a lot of the background of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, throughout 20 single-player missions. But the extra-good news is it appears it may be featuring a 4-way split-screen multiplayer mode with specifically designed areas, which should be a blast Also, to increase the gameplay experience, the developers of Kuju and Games Workshop worked on some new weapons for the Tau to use in the game, which will be added to the tabletop 40K game also. Sounds interesting, doesn't it?
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| BATTLE REPORTS!!! |
| Yes, this again |
| Come on now, it's not hard to write them. A few lines to say who you fought, and basically who won, and what big event happened? |
| Anything going in the newsletter is a good thing. |
| Glenn Osbourne (Chaos Warriors) beat Peter Colson (Lizardmen) |
| Never have I seen that many spiky-armoured figures in one game. |
| Masses of Khornate Chaos Warriors, with minimal characters and minimal upgrades, damn it was scary! |
| And a massive unit of Knights... damn. |
| Essentially, three blocks of Chaos Warriors set up in the centre of his deployment zone, to his right hid the Furies, to the left the Knights, then on the other side of a building, further down, were three Chaos Spawn |
| Facing off against this, I had skinks hiding in the trees on my left (Chaos Right) two blocks of Saurus Warriors screened by Skinks, and a Stegadon, whilst on the right side of the building, facing off against the Spawn, were my Saurus Cavalry and Chameleon Skinks. |
| The Chameleons managed to draw away the Chaos Knights, and then throughout the game generally avoid the spawn, and even take one out with shooting. |
| The Saurus Cavalry fared worse however, being unable to kill a Spawn on the charge, were locked there until the last unengaged Spawn managed to wobble and flop into combat with them, eating them up wholesale. |
| A combined charge from a Stegadon and well-equipped Saurus Lord against the Chaos Knights only managed to kill one, whilst the resulting return strikes managed to take out enough skinks to break both the Steg AND the Saurus Lord, oh the shame of it all. |
| After this I was on a bit of a back-foot, and the Knights found themselves up close and personal with the saurus warriors, going toe-to-toe for several turns, until only one knight remained (refusing to flee entirely too often) and the chaos infantry managed to releive the Knights, and kick seven shades of crap out of my remaining saurus, who staunchly stood and took it like the bred fighters that they are... that is, until there were too few of them left and they decided to run like hell. |
| I received a severe kicking in this game, and maybe with a bit of luck and more forethought things could have gone much differently, but for now I'll concede my defeat to Glenn. |
| Peter Colson (Lizardmen) beat Andrew (Wood Elves) |
| I can't claim to be a great general here, Andrew hasn't really learnt the rules yet so rookie mistakes were his downfall |
| However, I must say that killing a Dragon with my Saurus Lord WAS most gratifying. |
This was my first ever game of Flames of War and I’d only flicked through the rules once so I wasn’t really expecting too much from the Italian army I have been gradually building (and still am!) over the last few months. However I was in for a pleasant surprise, but more about this later.
My Mid-War Italian army is exactly the same as the sample 1500 pt Italian army included in the FoW rulebook. It’s essentially a tank army consisting of thirteen M14/41 light tanks with some Semoventes (self-propelled anti-tank guns) and supported by a platoon of Bersaglieri (infantry). It’s a fairly mobile army with good morale and lots of little guns including a very healthy amount of machine-guns per tank! However it’s tanks have very thin armour for protection and individually those little tank guns are very puny. This means that the tanks have to gang up, try to outflank their enemy and overpower them by sheer volume of firepower, all as quickly as possible before the enemy punches through that thin armour and destroys them!
Arthur was using a British Army based on an 8th Army Infantry company. It consisted of several Infantry platoons along with a mortar platoon and a machine gun platoon, with support from a Crusader tank platoon, a Matilda tank platoon and some AT guns mounted on the back of light trucks. A very impressive army, fully-painted in desert colours and finished with some very neat desert bases (unlike my Italians who are mostly still waiting for some paint).
The terrain was supposed to represent the Western Desert, so it was fairly open, some hills mainly in both sides deployment zones, and with some clumps of palm trees (which we classed as difficult ground) scattered around the table. Maybe the terrain was a bit too open and next time I think I’d try and use a few buildings and maybe some more difficult ground, mainly because the tanks seemed to dominate this game with the infantry relegated to entrenching (or trying to!). But then I suppose that’s typical of the Western Desert battles.
Objectives were placed with both sides spreading their two respective markers as far apart as allowed. Arthur deployed a big group of infantry around each objective on his side and his two tank platoons deployed together on his right flank partially behind a hill, whilst his AT gun portees took the left flank. My left flank objective was held by my Bersaglieri, covered by an M14/41 platoon and facing Arthur’s Crusaders and Matildas, the rest of the M14/41’s (two platoons) plus the Company Commander in a M14/41 deployed in the centre, whilst the Semoventes deployed around the objective on my right flank, facing Arthur’s AT guns.
I won the roll for the first turn, my M14/41’s all advanced, the Bersaglieri entrenched and the Semoventes moved up a little to come into range of Arthur’s AT guns. My left flank M14/41 platoon then shot at the Crusader platoon that was exposed by my movement, causing one of Arthur’s tanks to bail out. The Semoventes all missed, and that was my first turn over. In Arthur’s turn he advanced his Crusaders around the hill (the bailed out one failing to return), whilst the Matildas awaited developments. His infantry attempted to dig in but this was only successful on his right flank. The infantry on the other flank found the ground too hard, which was to have a decisive impact in the next turn! Shooting saw a Crusader make a M14/41 bail out and on the other flank an AT portee destroyed a Semovente. First kill to Arthur!
The next turn saw two of my M14/41 platoons (the platoon on my left and one of my centre platoons plus the Company Commander) remain stationary to pour as much fire as possible into the Crusaders, destroying one and causing another Crusader to bail. However the best fun was to be had in the centre where my other M14/41 platoon advanced into machine-gun close range of Arthur’s infantry who had unfortunately failed to entrench last turn. Suffice to say that these little Italian tanks have an awesome amount of machine-guns with devastating results for the British. After some awesome dice rolling from me and some sub-par saves from Arthur, he removed eight stands of infantry leaving the objective they were defending nicely exposed! Then to finish my turn a Semovente destroyed an AT portee – revenge for the Semovente Arthur destroyed last turn! Sweet. Time for the Matildas to make their presence felt, so they rumbled forward towards the centre and promptly destroyed a couple of M14/41’s. Nothing much else happened other than the remaining Crusader deciding to hightail it.
The next turn saw a full on drive by my right flank M14/41 platoon towards the exposed objective, machine guns blazing at Arthur’s mortar platoon which was, along with some remnants of his infantry platoon, trying desperately to hold the objective. The shooting had little effect (pay back I suppose for the good round of shooting last turn) so the M14/41’s carried on and assaulted the mortars.
Elsewhere on the battlefield the Semoventes destroyed the remaining portees, whilst the other M14/41 platoons on my left engaged the Matildas. These M14/41’s let the Matildas have everything they had – two platoons stationary at close range and in the flank – an amazing number of dice, but only getting one Matilda to bail. Boy, those Matildas have some mighty thick armour! Back to the M14/41 assault on the other flank, the poor mortars didn’t have a chance and it was quickly over for the Mortar platoon, and I swiftly broke through into the infantry platoon remnants and dealt with them as well. I couldn’t quite claim the objective though, as Arthur had a machine gun platoon close enough to still contest it. It was now really down to the Matildas to try and make a difference, they moved forward and shot at the Semoventes advancing towards them, destroying one.
The final act was now drawing close and all that really remained was for me to assault the machine gun platoon to clear the objective, but first I tried shooting up the Matildas again, trying to stop them intervening, but this had no effect due to their thick armour. The M14/41 assault went in and the infantry machine gunners were duly defeated. I just had to hold the objective until the start of my next turn to claim victory. Arthur now had to make a Company motivation test for all the casualties he had been taking but passed this easily. His last chance was to try and shoot my M14/41’s on the objective with his Matildas. One Matilda was still bailed so he fired the other two Matildas into my tanks, destroying one. Not enough, and my M14/41 platoon hangs on and wins the game!
After this game there were some comments from other people at the Club that Tank armies were certainly tough, especially playing against an essentially infantry army and that the Italians are well up there amongst the best. That may be true, but the Italians are very lightly armoured and really lack any big guns in my army for a knock-out punch. I think the ultimate army is the Russian tank horde from the guy who recently won Nicon and featured on Battlefront’s website – 24 tanks in total, now there is a tank army to be feared. Makes my eyeties look tame, eh Kevin?
Well, in conclusion what can I say? Arthur is a superb opponent, along with his awesome looking army, and my first game achieving my first victory – FoW is a very playable set of rules!
Later in the afternoon at the same Club meeting I went on to play another game, this time against Kevin Carberry’s German Infantry Company – I used my Italian Tank Company as before (obviously a training exercise as per the FoW rulebook!). Kevin’s army consisted of several infantry platoons and a machine gun platoon, supported by an 88mm gun and a platoon of Stugs with some Stukas as air support. Kevin’s army is superbly painted and based and once again my Italians were put to shame in the painting department (this is being rectified soon), however this did not stop the Italians performing admirably, but more about this below!
This game took place in the Western Desert with the terrain remaining much as before – a few hills mainly in both sides deployment areas and a scattering of palm tree groves as difficult ground. I placed my two objective markers as far apart as possible but Kevin decided to place his two markers much closer together. Hmmm, knowing Kevin I thought this was some devious ploy (by the way, any reason for this Kev?). Deployment saw Kevin concentrating his infantry around both objectives, with the 88mm on a hill on his left surrounded by infantry, the machine gun platoon in the centre and the Stugs on Kevin’s right flank. I deployed my Bersaglieri around the two objectives (the objectives were close enough so that the one Bersaglieri platoon could defend both objectives – thanks, Kev!), the Semoventes went down on my centre-left with a platoon of M14/41’s on my far left. The other two M14/41 platoons along with the Company command M14/41 were deployed in the centre.
I got the first turn so it was full steam ahead with all the tanks, whilst the Bersaglieri just stood around doing nothing (I forgot to tell them to start digging!). Shooting saw all those lovely tank machine-guns on my M14/41’s in action against Kevin’s infantry on my centre-right. Not quite as spectacular shooting as in my earlier game against Arthur but first turn infantry are pretty vulnerable none the less! Kevin’s turn saw little in the way of movement, his aircraft failed to turn up, but his Stugs did come out from behind a hill and start working their way down my left flank towards my waiting M14/41’s and Semoventes – brave lads! However in Kevin’s shooting I learnt respect for his 88mm. Two destroyed M14/41’s in the blink of an eye and that 88mm had to go. His machine gun platoon also took out a stand of Bersaglieri as well, whilst his infantry all dug-in.
Next turn and the Bersaglieri, after taking some casualties, remembered to dig in this time. My tanks all remained stationary so they could put out the maximum amount of firepower. One platoon of M14/41’s and the Semoventes on my left taking on the Stugs – destroying one and bailing another, whilst the other two M14/41 platoons in the centre concentrated on the 88mm, blowing it into a million pieces! No aircraft again for Kevin so not too much reply from him in this turn, although his bailed Stug returned and then together with his mate, bailed one of my M14/41’s in return. My turn again and all those infantry in front of my centre M14/41 platoons looked pretty tempting so machine guns blazing and the assault goes in! My left flank M14/41’s and the Semoventes tidy up the Stugs and take care of that threat. Bit of a mixed bag on the assault with me killing off some infantry stands but then Kevin passing his motivation test and counter-attacking and bailing a M14/41 after I rolled a one, then me coming back again and missing altogether and then Kevin back again bailing another M14/41 and eventually winning that assault and destroying my poor little tanks. Kevin’s turn and his aircraft arrive, but they belong to me (hahaha!). However they fly off and don’t do anything. Kevin then re-organises his mauled infantry and awaits a further assault. I don’t disappoint him and advance my tanks, unload all my machine-guns into his infantry and assault him again, this time not only in the centre but also on my left flank against his infantry platoon defending the second objective. Shooting does some good damage to Kevin’s infantry and the assaults go well. It looks like I may be able to take both objectives at the same time, however the centre fight stalls but my left flank assault is successful and the objective is secured and, with no troops remaining on that side of the table for Kevin to contest it, the game is mine.
Another victory for the Italians. Two games and two wins – almost unheard of for me! As ususal, Kevin took his loss in his stride, and even though he knew he would be in for a tough game by using an almost all infantry force in very open terrain, he was very sporting throughout, declining several offers for him to concede. Good on yer mate!
This newsletter is edited by Kevin Carberry so anything you would like included in the newsletter should be sent to me at 48 Beaumonts way, Manurewa, South Auckland. Phone 2670319, kevin@profax.co.nz
Peter "Evil Gnome" Colson is the Club President so any queries, problems, issues or suggestions about the club should go to him at colson@xtra.co.nz or deathloveswar2@hotmail.com (for e-mails with attachments only), monday-thursday, and all day friday and saturday (09) 298-7293