The European Union

That's the name of my new super hero team for Super System 4. I've only played a couple of games with 4th ed. but I like this revamp better than the edition 3. It's a lot simpler in many ways but some of the character building still baffles me.

We'll be playing a short campaign at NWA this month and this is my team: The European Union.

My characters are:

ICEBERG - Bjari Thorsson ,The giant man-mountain who was transformed by alien radiation, from a strange artifact discovered deep in a Icelandic glacier. His crystalline form is as tough as diamond with all the properties of the ancient ice. He can grind down a skyscraper or blow a mighty arctic breath to freeze his opponents on the spot.

Euro-Vision - Small in stature and of unknown origin, Euro-Vision is capable of debilitating her enemies with a piercing sonic attack. She also possesses vast mental powers that can protect her from her foes and give her strong telekinetic abilities capable of stopping a tank or hurling it through the air like a child's toy.

Hoplon - The living embodiment of the ancient Greek warriors, Hoplon has outstanding defensive abilities that also aid his fellow team members in the tick of the action. His attack drains his opponents of their energy through the use of his powerful Plutonic Spear.

Red Rocket - Uri Blavatski, a ex-soldier with the elite Spetznaz from the former Soviet Union, wears an armoured rocket suit that gives him great strength, endurance and toughness. The suit also carries a payload of lethal mini-rockets that turn him into a flying artillery battery capable of battering his foes into the dust.

The Bog Dweller - AKA: The Creature from the Brown Lagoon. This unfortunate Irish  wanderer fell into a bog near a mysterious factory pumping out a cocktail of toxic chemicals. The transformation that took place left the poor soul twisted and deformed. The Irish Amphibian is fast and dangerous, he can leap like a frog, climb like a monkey and his dangerous claws & thick hide make him a formidable fighter.

The Bugs are Coming.

I'm making another force for Firefight. This time it will be a hoard of bugs using the Plague list for stats.

I really wanted a bunch of the Starship Trooper plastic arachnids for this list but I soon realised that that wasn't going to happen. So I searched around for something else. I eventually settled on the Parasachnids bugs from Khurasan Miniatures and prepared to make a large order. But their website closed down for maintenance for a long while so I had to wait.

During the wait I attended the Traders Day at Nunawading Wargames Assoc. (my club) and lo-and-behold. Nic from Eureka was there getting rid of all the vast accumulation of shite that h'e collected over the years. Amongst his treasures was a full box of 20 Starship Trooper's bugs at an extremely attractive fire-sale price.

Oh, lucky day!

So here they are. They're not quite finished yet but I couldn't wait to show them (all I have to do is their beady little eyes). I brushed them a flat beige colour with a wash of GW sepia. Then today, I set up my airbrush and did some red. I was also going to do black tips on their legs be decided against it because they look pretty nice, as is.

So here they are:

These friendly little fellows are Arachnida, the spiders, our finest collection...

Different Spaceships

I finished the UCM (United Colonies of Man) ships from the Dropfleet Commander starter set. The basic frigates and cruisers can be built in half a dozen, or so, various configurations so, like the Scourge, I built them in the recommended starter configurations.

These models required a different approach and needed quite a bit more detailed brushwork. I gave them a basic grey undercoat followed by a black wash. I then airbrushed them with white. They look like a uniform grey in the photos but that's just because of my crappy photography. They actually have a bunch of subtle shades.

I took the colour scheme from a painting I saw while decided how I wanted them to look. I think I captured the effect reasonably well.

Toulon & New Orleans Class Frigates.

Berlin Class Cruiser, Seattle Class Fleet Carrier & Moscow Class Heavy Cruiser

I'm going to name the Moscow cruiser, the Marshal Ney. It seems appropriate.

My Second Lot of Spaceships

Following fast on the heels of my last post, I finished the rest of the Scourge ships from the Dropfleet Commander starter set. These ones took a bit more effort (being bigger and all) and I was unsure if they would come out looking any good.

But, I needn't of worried. They came out looking nice. I think the paint scheme of washes and dry brushing works well and is pretty easy to accomplish.

Next thing is to move on to the UCM (United Colonies of Mankind). Which I'll be doing using an airbrush. Let's see how well that idea works out.

Ifrit and Wyvern cruisers.

A Raiju heavy cruiser from two different angles.

My First Spaceships

I'm delving deeper into Dropfleet Commander and I've finished my first few spaceships. These are the smaller Scourge ships that come with the starter set. The two smaller ones are Harpy frigates and the larger ones are Gargoyle Strike Carriers for dropping troops onto planets (the game is all about attacking planets from orbit and capturing objectives).

These were pretty easy to paint. I used a silver undercoat and applied a bunch of different washes then gave them a dry brushing of gold. I wasn't very keen on these models but after painting them they came up really nicely and my photos don't do them justice.

I can't wait to have a game.

Something New ~ Dropfleet Commander

I've been eyeing off two games by Hawk Wargames - Dropzone Commander and Dropfleet Commander and trying to make a decision as to which way to delve. I like the look of both games but in the end I decided to go for Dropfleet. The reason for this being that I'm already playing ground based sci-fi wargames with Firefight and, if I'm going to do something different, I'd rather play something with spaceships.

I watched lots of the You Tube videos before making my decision and, I have to say, they're really well presented. I even watched some of the demo-games on the big screen in the lounge with my feet up and a drink in my hand.

Sometimes life is so hard.

So, I bought myself the starter set which has two small fleets, the rule book, a simple game mat (full colour, folded glossy paper 3' x 3' - I think). I'm looking forward to making up the little spaceships and painting them up. I'm going to use my newly acquired airbrushing skills to do these little blighters. I just hope I don't ruin them.

The two fleets are The UCM (United Colonies of Mankind) and The Scourge!!!

I hope I can paint them up to this standard. I'm quite sure I can but it's just that I've never painted models of this type at this tiny scale before. I'll post my results and let you know.

More Firefight ~ This Time it's Enforcers!

Another game of Firefight and this time, as the title says, it was against a force of Enforcers. I expected these guys to be quite tough and they were. But I also expected them to be few in number, which they weren't because they had a bunch of GCPS Marines with them to make up the numbers.

I set up my "abandoned, rundown, overgrown mining operation in a jungle" terrain. It looks okay even if it's a little unimaginative. But it does provide plenty of cover for fire and movement.

My opponent was another Ian (who's surname I don't know). He's taken me though a few games of Dux Bellorum previously so this time I took him through his first game of Firefight.

We set up, my opponent got the initiative and we started. The way initiative is works is you roll a d6 to work out who deploys first, then the last player to deploy a unit is the second person to activate a unit on the first turn. In subsequent turns the player who last activated is again the second person to activate in the next turn.

Anyhow, I got quite a few pics of the first couple of turns but I then got too involved and forgot to take pics.

Colonel Fank Phraxus looks on with insolent calm.

Initially we both opted to move our troops into position with very little effective shooting. I maneuvered a couple of marine squads on the left and made a beeline for the central objective but my squad got pretty much shot up and suppressed.

I did manage manage to reduce the suppression on my central squad and got them into the objective (the central habitat hut) with some back up from a Mule Transport carrying a couple of veteran marine squads.

Unfortunately a hidden enemy heavy weapons squad with a couple of flamethrowers advanced toward the objective supported by an Enforcer Strider. I was doing better on the left with my heavy weapon rocket launcher laying some serious hurt on an Enforcer squad lurking near the elevated landing pad.

The very dangerous flamethrower squad in hiding.

Unfortunately, for my guys they met a flamey death and the objective was once again unclaimed. But I also managed to damage one of the Enforcer Striders with the thermal rifle mounted in the transport. Not enough to kill it but enough to hurt.

Elsewhere, my marines were getting pretty shot up and suppressed and their own shooting wasn't doing much against the Enforcer's armour. The same is true for my mortars. Hitting but killing very little. Tough little swines!

Combined shooting from my transports' guns and the squads inside it destroyed the enemy flamethrower squad but after a couple of turns of shooting the Strider eventually took down my Mule and the veteran squads inside had to abandon their ride. One of them again took the objective but accurate fire from another Heavy Weapons squad (this time with rocket launchers) took them out and the objective was, once again, up for grabs.

The Strider moved up to blast my other veteran squad and did a pretty good job of it but my laser cannon took aim and melted the mechanical beast and the operator into molten slag.

But there was another Strider on my right, so I brought in a squad of Rangers (Drop Troopers) from reserve. They took a shot at Strider #2 and hurt it pretty badly but got shot up pretty badly in return (I forgot that they could have laid a smoke screen). They eventually destroyed the Strider but the were wiped out by small arms fire.

This is the stage where I forgot to take photos...

My remaining couple of veterans were charged by a single officer armed for close combat. It took a couple of turns but they eventually lost (again, that good armour defeated my best efforts).

During this time there was shooting and movement on the left with both of us taking casualties. My Strider kept advancing and eventually advanced right up to the enemy, shooting up and heavily suppressing Enforcer unit in the center, taking out another and smashing the GCPS mortar squad. All this without taking so much as a scratch.

One of my marine squads managed to drive of the heavily suppressed Enforcer squad in close combat. What was a decent effort would have been better if I'd remembered to add their bonus dice into the mix!

Anyway, the game was coming to a close. The objective I'd taken twice was captured by the hated enemy and there was nothing I could do about it. The other two objectives were also taken and I had no hope of winning this one.

The last act of the game was the infamous Close Combat Officer jumping onto the back of my Strider in the hope of bringing it down. But he failed. Ha, H, Ha...

The insolent fool!

All in all another good game - Thank you Ian.

By playing a different opponent he did some things that neither I, nor others I've played have tried before and it opened my eyes to some different tactical options. Sometimes you play and get use to what you're doing without looking further. This was only my third game using my GCPS and I've found that, for me, they are not as easily understood as Asterians' which fit my usual style of play much easier.