Another Element for the Corps...

Hello all,

Continuing from my foray into the Marine Corps in Team Yankee.  When the initial releases hit my local gaming shop I decided to give it a shot and buy a few packages and see where they took me.  Needless to say, this was put on hold while I continued with other Team Yankee forces and the inevitable other distractions.

Anywho, once I finished up my LAV company, I thought I'd continue with my Corps plans and took a brush to a couple of AAV-7's.  In Team Yankee, the AAV-7 (assault amphibious vehicle) gives you some extra firepower and security for your Marines as they hit the European beach of your choice.

For every marine rifle platoon you will need 2 x AAV-7's...and this capability is available to almost any marine force except for the LAV company...I guess that means I'll have to collect a full rifle company or M-60 tank company.

Anyway, these beasts painted up very very quickly.

Enjoy the pics...

Hike up Lead Mountain, 2020

Painted:

28mm            -
15mm            22 (+3; 2 vehs, 1 crew)

Bought:         0 (these were bought mid last year)

Progress:     +22

SAGA - Battle Report

Hello folks,

A couple of weeks back I had the chance to get a game of Saga in with Duncan and Mike...it had been some time since I had put a warband on the table so I was pretty pumped to get my Crusaders into the field.  Similar to last time, my force looked great, but hit the field rather horseless...that's okay, I haven't had a serious go at trying to paint horses yet and given where my painting is at these days I am pretty happy with my current warband.

Anyhow, the game went pretty smooth, luckily for me the guys have a great grip on the ruleset and battleboard which let me focus on trying to relearn as much as possible and get engaged.  If I remember correctly, the scenario was the multi-player scenario from the book (I think there may only be one) and it came down to collecting as many points as possible...the warlord collected points by making charges (a little tough for grunts, pretty cool for horse soldiers), survivability, kill numbers, and killing the other warlord.

At the end, Duncan came in first, I was second, and Mike took final slot...to be fair, Mike did an excellent job of placing his troops in very accessible positions.  So yeah, he generously set up his force equitably...and Duncan and I may have made some liberties with that.

I'll do my best to write some narrative as the pics go by...but please enjoy them nonetheless.  Cheers.

Initial setup...ish.  This is near the beginning of our first turn.  Duncan has deployed to the left, Mike is at top of the field with some of his force, the remainder is in mid-field mixing it up with my Foot Soldiers.  They took an initial charge from Mike's cavalry and some hits between his archers and my crossbowman. 

bit of a close-up...lost a couple of men, took an archer or two with them...

The battle board...some very awesome abilities there...the board feels very crusadery...very apropos...

The Soldiers take another round of hits...Mike moves his troops forward, Duncan harasses his lines with charges and special moves 

Mike's archers finally fall to my crossbowman...his cavalry take a beating from Duncan...and I slowly move my grunts forward with my Warlord prodding them along.

My lone Soldier squares of against the galloping horde...dies a true crusader death...

My warriors move forward and have varied success mixing it up...

The rest of the force make their way to supporting my crossbowman...

 the crossbowman join their crusading brothers in the light...between the pics, Mike's troops are taken apart piecemeal by both Duncan and I, his Warlord goes out swinging, and Duncan and I start getting some close range contact.  AND then we run out of time.  All in all, an other excellent game.

1, 2, 3, 4..I love the Marine Corps

Howdy everyone,

I hope all is well with you and yours.  Over the Christmas holidays and leading into the new year I had a resurgence of 15mm painting.  Coming from success that I had in my summer games as well as what I'd seen in a few other Team Yankee battles with TOW launchers, ADATS, and anti-tank missiles I decided to boost my missile output for my 4 CMBG force.

As such, I took a look at possible options and elected to expand my force to include an allied support formation of a LAV-25 company with an AT support platoon.  At 18 points for 10 x Lav-25's with 4 x AT LAV's it is an excellent addition at a fairly good cost.  Not only do the AT launchers have the hammerhead turret which gives gone to ground even when firing, but the platoons have the recce skill and the LAV-25 bushmaster cannon has the anti-helicopter ability...so it gives a pretty solid short to medium range air defence capability.

All in all, a very good addition to the Brigade.

Battlefront already had plenty of painting guides for the US forces in Team Yankee...a little bit more google research gave me a bit more to work from.  The main colours that I used were Vallejo 924 Russian Uniform, Tan Earth, and Iraqi Sand.  After the base coats and camo pattern were painted down, I hit the vehicles with a mixed wash of Army Painter strong and dark tone, and then another heavily watered down camo coat of the VJ colours.

Anyway, bringing on the pics...

4 CMBG Allied Formation - USMC LAV Company

The headquarters element...to help differentiate the LAVs, I opted to paint up the left side of the turret near the gunners sight a separate colour for each combat platoon.  For the hq, in case I ever decide to collect another LAV company, I went with desert yellow band to show company and another desert yellow band for the command platoon...

The support element - anti-tank hunters...hammerhead TOW launchers...because these guys are pretty distinctive I didn't paint any designators on these vehicles.

The first combat platoon...the desert yellow stripe first, a black stripe is second to designate the platoon...

The second combat platoon - desert yellow stripe first, medium olive stripe second.

The force...

Hike up Lead Mountain, 2020

Painted:

28mm            -
15mm            19 (+17; 14 vehs, 3 crew)

Bought:         0 (these were bought mid last year)

Progress:     +19

Zona Alfa - A New Distraction?

Hey folks,

So yeah, working on a focused project is definitely a great way to pass the time...and in this hobby it is always great to have an objective to focus on.  BUT, and I am certainly no stranger to this...there are always distractions out there.

The latest of course is Zona Alfa from Osprey Publishing.  This little gem hit my mailbox near the end of January thanks to a Chapters gift card I got for Christmas.  Now I totally have too many rule books with not enough time to paint figs up for them, but it is hard not to jump onto some of the rules being offered by Osprey.  Not only are they a quick read...but they don't hold you slave to any particular figure company or scale.

In this case, Zona Alfa lives up to the figures 'agnostic' approach that Osprey has been following with this style.  Having taken a read of the book my initial impressions...

1. Scavanging in the exclusion zone - an excellent backstory heavily inspired by STALKER and Metro gameplay set in Eastern Europe;

2. any figure will do - literally you can go with post WW2 figures, ultra modern, Cold War, or even post apocalyptic figs, hell you could even work in Reds, Whites, and Frostgrave cultists.  There are no limits...if you go with the setting then something soviet themed fits the backstory, BUT you are not committed to this

3. More on the feel - I think what I like about this is that it looks to share a variety of similarities with Frostgrave...minus the Wizards of course...running into the Zone to search for fortune and glory in a post-nuclear wasteland or zone sounds somewhat similar to looting the ruins of Felstad.  With the possibility of mutated beasts, zombies, and irate survivors this leaves me thinking of a modern shoot-em-up take on Frostgrave...

Which of course, I really like.  At one time a few years back I had thought about what would a modern Frostgrave look like...more because I was thinking of what would assault rifles and smg’s do for the setting.

Next step for me...push through more Team Yankee stuff of course, however I think I will have to start planning some post-apoc terrain and see which of my figures I can purpose into this environment.

Oh, and I got to say, if you want further inspiration or insight into the ruleset, check out the Osprey Blog and hit the Zone Alfa tag.

Osprey Blog - Zona Alfa

Later folks.