Warzone, Imperial vs. Bauhaus

It seems, this is one of those cases where I waited too long posting something. About two months ago I played my league game with Björn. Which means that by now my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I am going to try my best to summarise the game.

It was somewhat special. Since one of the other members of our group and myself were on the team redesigning the factious for Warzone, I had access to the new Bauhaus rules, before they were published. Therefore it was not only a league game, but also a playtest for the new Bauhaus. In addition we decided to play a somewhat larger game, playing 1500 points and a Mega OOC.

These were the forces we fielded (if I remember correctly):

Bauhaus were led by Angelica Drachen and featured four squads of Hussars, two squads of Etoiles Mortants (only one with Rapid Deployment), two squads of Juggernauts, one squad of Venusian Rangers and two close combat Vulkan Battlesuits.

Imperial were led by a close combat Blood Beret Custom Warlord, four squads of Trenchers (one led by a NCO with Imperial Banner), four squads of Imperial Special Forces (two of them Infiltrating Black Berets), one squad of Life Dragoons / Young Guards, one squad of Blood Berets with plasma carbines, one large squad of Blood Berets with Heavy Chainrippers led by  SGT McBride and accompanied by Isaac Alfreds and a single Grey Ghost sniper.

We played on a table with inner city run-ins and rolled a scenario where one side had to control three objective markers along the centre line by the end of turn 3 or later.

Before the game started, Björn was unlucky with his Bauhaus. I had won the set-up initiative and placed my Infiltrating units first. Due to the sheer number of infiltrating units on the Imperial side (four in total) virtually every spot on the table where one could infiltrate was already taken when it was the Bauhaus infiltrators turn. Which meant that the first squad of Etoiles Mortants had to set up in their own deployment zone and the Venusian Rangers could only set up slightly in front of it.

The game started with the two squads of Black Berets that had infiltrated into the centre of the table rushing forward, attacking Angelica Drachen, a squad of Hussars and Juggernauts with their chainswords, rifles and flamethrowers. But they were not too lucky, as Bauhaus losses were minimal and they hardly caused any wounds to the Juggernauts or Drachen. In return they were counterattacked by their Bauhaus adversaries as well as one of the Vulkans. In addition, the second squad of  Etoiles Mortants parachuted in to take them on. Even though one of them was pretty lucky with his Heal Rolls, the last of them perished  early in the second turn.

On the left flank there was a constant slugging match between the Life Dragoons and the Venusian Rangers supported by a squad of Hussars. Due to the heavy cover, both the Dragoons and Rangers were in and their camouflage skills this led only to minimal losses, until two of the Dragoons charged to of the building and fired their automatic shotguns at the Rangers, taking them out of the game.

On the right flank things were even more heated. Even tough the close combat Blood Berets had infiltrated onto the table, they were far from the enemy and took heavy losses on their way in. But once they were close to the enemy, their Heavy Chainrippers made short work of both the Hussars and Vulkan. Even one of the Juggernauts that had charged them through the ruins could not turn the tables and was taken out as well.

If you look at the first turn, things did not look good. Imperial had lost almost a fifth of their points and Bauhaus only two Hussars. By the end of the second turn Imperial had barely caught up. But all the heavy losses in the beginning had paid off. The Bauhaus forces in the centre had taken too long to mop up the Black Berets and on the flanks the situations had stalled enough to prevent a Bauhaus advance. All the time the remaining Imperial units (Trenchers, the other two squads of ISF and the ranged combat Blood Berets) had advanced towards the centerline, while their comrades bore the brunt of the Bauhaus wrath. By the third turn, they secured all three objectives. Out of the Bauhaus forces only a single Juggernaut would have been able to (maybe) contest one of the objectives, but he would have run into a torrent of fire from up to five units. So the game ended with an Imperial victory. And here are the pictures to accompany the story:

Trenchers in the street

Fighting in the Bauhaus deployment zone

Etoiles Mortants taking out the Black Berets

Clash on the flank

Blood Beret taking out a Bauhaus Juggernaut

Black Berets struggling with a Vulkan

 

Warzone games that I never posted

Games wise, this year has been strange this year. I playe a bout a dozen games (everything from SAGA, over Star Wars: Armada and Battlegroup to Warzone) that I played, but did not take photos of and thus never posted. But there are also a few where I took photos. I think now is the time to at least post those. Ithaca been a while since they were played, so the details have become a little too fuzzy for game reports. Hope you enjoy them anyway!

Imperial (Ministry of War) vs. Bauhaus

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

Bauhaus vs. Imperial

 
Imperial (Wolfbanes) vs. Bauhaus

Warhounds vs. Vorreiter

Vorreiter firing on the Warhounds

Vorreiter assaulting

Table (Imperial corner far left)

Table (Bauhaus corner far left)

One of only two surviving Blood Berets after the Etoiles Mortants have landed

Oakenfist taking on the Etoiles Mortants

Meet your destiny

Drawn into the Blood Berets

 

Imperial (Ministry of War) vs. Brotherhood 

Valkyrie drop

The enemy is down the road

Table (Imperial side front left)

Table (Brotherhood side rear left)

Mortificator screen

Look who is coming to the party

Imperial firing line

By the village

Brotherhood bastion

Blood Berets advancing

 

First game of our Warzone League season

This month sees the start of the next installment of our Warzone League. Now last season there was five us. Which meant it was gritty, hardly representative and over too fast. In other words, it was not much more than a few friendly matches. So I just featured some reports of the games I played in the league.

And while we are still not playing for anything but glory, there are now ten of us. So this will last much longer and be much more representative. So I felt, it would be a shame if I just left you with my reports again and talked the others into supplying some reports of their matches as well, to feature them on this blog. To do all this, I set up a sub page of this blog to host the Warzone League games (although you can also access it directly through the NavBar at the top. I will also post a short article here on the main page to give followers a short heads up, that there is something new when there is a new report.

Anyway… last Sunday saw the opening match of the league with a game of Andreas Dark Legion vs. Björns Bauhaus. so who won? Lets click here and find out! Enjoy!

 

 

Warzone Resurrection: Dark Legion vs. Bauhaus

Last Sunday Andreas and myself met for the final game of our Warzone mini league. And mini it was indeed, for this season there were only 5 players which meant a meagre 4 games for each of us. I actually planned to post this a couple of days ago but I was down with a flu most of tis week, so it took a bit longer. Also my apologies for the report itself. The flow of the game was pretty strange, so it is a bit hard to report on it. Hope it will still make sense to you!

The game was played out in an abandoned mining outpost. Most of the terrain was open, with three large buildings, a large tank and acid waste canal, some crates, bushes and a few fences (essentially these blocked off the far left of the table).

Our primary mission was a resource grab. Meaning there were three resource marker along the middle line of the table, of which we had to get two off to our deployment zone to win. We also had secondary objectives. In Andreas case he would have to have troops on the highest roof by the end of round eight, while I had to find an ammo dump at one of the three locations already markered and blow it up. In addition we both also had corporate agenda objectives. I would have to kill three times as many points with one of my squad leaders as he was worth himself, while Andreas had to lose one of his (both Leaders had to be written down before the start of the game). Lets just mention here, that neither achieved his mission. Mine was killed the first time he was shot at and while I fired a lot at Andreas Squad Leader he simply would not die.

So what did we field?

Andreas was playing Dark Legion: A custom close combat Necromutant Warlord led his force consisting of two squads of Undead Legionaries (without heavy weapons and led by Necromutants), two squads of Necromutants, 4 Nasca Razides (two on their own and two in one squad) and two Necrobeast Riders.

As usual I was playing Bauhaus: My custom close combat Juggernaut Warlord, two 5-women squads of Etoiles Mortants (each with a flame thrower), a 10-men squad of Hussars (with two LMGs) lead by a Venusian Kaptain, a 7-men squad of Hussars (with one LMG) and three 5-men squads of Venusian Rangers.

I won the set-up initiative, but chose to let Andreas deploy first. He spread his troops out evenly in his deployment zone. My large squad of Hussars deployed in the middle of the board, while the small one deployed on the left flank together with the Warlord. Since Andreas had no infiltrating troops my Rangers deployed their booby traps in the middle of the board. One squad each deployed right on the left and centre objective markers, while the third deployed 4 men on the highest roof, with the last Ranger in contact with the right hand objective marker.

Initial deployments

The game started with Andreas playing a strategy card which meant that unless my Troop types (Hussars and Etoiles Mortants) used just one action this round, they would take automatic hits and therefore potential damage.  On this first round I therefore just advanced my Hussars slowly and decided not to deploy my Etoiles at all.

Hussars in starting position

None the less Andreas put a lot of his troops on sentry to safeguard against a deployment of the Etoiles Mortant. The unit of Rangers on the right saw the trooper in contact with the objective marker carry it off into the warehouse. His comrades on the roof either had no targets in range or in sights, so two of them just went into sentry as well. There was also an artillery strike card I played on the Dark Legion deployment zone. This was cancelled by a card Andreas played, at the price of his Warlord taking a wound (later in the game he would use the same card once more, again rolling bad and taking a hit with his Warlord).

Venusian Rangers in overwatch

The Venusian Rangers on the left picked up the objective marker and started making for the rear. This did not work out too well. While they were at the extreme end of the weapons range, three of them were still killed by weapons fire (including the squad leader carrying the objective marker by a natural one on the to hit roll [which allows no saves at all]). The Venusian Rangers in the centre had already lost one of the two men in contact with the objective marker, when they found that this was the location of the ammo dump as well. The remaining trooper just chose to set explosives to it and make for safety. Before the end of the round, they would see two more of their squad killed (again the squad leader by the roll of a natural one). The round ended with the Necrobeasts climbing the roofs of the near buildings. The two Venusian Rangers on the roof used their Sentry to fire at one of them and even though they had no AT weapons, they even causes one hit, which was unfortunately repaired at the beginning of the next round.

Necrobeast rider after climbing the roof

The next round saw Andreas win initiative again. Before much could be done, the Necrobeast charged forward (destroying two of the booby traps in the progress). One of them charged and killed the Venusian Ranger inside the Warehouse who was carrying the objective marker. The other Necrobeast rider fired a few shots at the Venusian Ranger on the roof, killing the Squad Leader (guess what he rolled… a natural one). I played a card on the Necromutants on the left flank that would see each of them killed generate a supply token for my Kaptain. With this in play, the Etoiles Mortant deployed near them and killed four of them, two Undead Legionaries from the adjacent squad and a Nasca Razide.

Etoiles Mortants attacking Necromutants

The other unit of Etoiles would later in the same round deploy in the centre of the Dark Legion deployment zone taking out 5 Undead Legionaries three Necromutants and damaging another Nasca Razide. This now forced the Dark Legion to clear them out, which took most of this and the next round, but eventually saw all of the Etoiles dead with them “only” being able to kill one more Necromutant. In the centre the Hussars now tried their best to kill or at least tie up the Necrobeasts. The Kaptain used two of the supply tokens to give the LMGs At capability for this round. I also raised their rate of fire, but out of their six shots, they failed to even score more than a single hit. To add insult to injury, this hit did not even cause damage.

Hussars advancing

Two of the Hussars ran into the warehouse. One to carry off the objective marker the next round, the other to tie Necrobeast rider up in close combat. Outside two of the other Hussars (they got the other two supply tokens to give them AT capability) fired at the other Necrobeast, but while they hit, they failed to do damage. One more Hussar and the Kaptain charged the Necrobeast in the open, but again failed to do damage. The rest of the squad just advanced towards the objective markers. The Venusian Rangers from the centre and left squad had taken more damage from the Dark Legion troops in the deployment zone (before the second unit of Etoiles Mortants dropped) which saw the centre unit annihilated and the left one reduced to one man who ran away.

The undead hordes

The other units just advanced as best as they could, with the Hussars trading some shots with the Necromutants left by the first Etoiles Mortants attack.

Now the next two rounds are hard to describe. As I said before, it consisted a lot of the Dark Legion mopping up my Etoiles in their deployment zone. The Hussars slowly battled it out with the Necrobeasts, but while they did no damage, they started falling one by one (including the Kaptain). This was only made worse by the fact that they became subject to the same card they had been at the start of the game (the one that meant they potentially took damage if they use more than one action). Having to secure at least one of the objective markers and having to fire at the advancing Dark Legion troops, four of  them had to take this risk. While for minimal gains, three of them actually took damage and died.

Venusian Kaptain charging Necrobeast rider

Once done with the mopping up, the remaining Nasca Razides and Necromutants moved forward. One of the Razides was killed the other damaged by the remaining booby trap, but two of the Necromutants threw grenades at the Hussars. The one who targeted the Hussars in the centre did surprisingly little damage for the high strength of the grenades, but the one who targeted the ones on the left wiped out virtually the whole squad. No matter what the grenades also reduced the attack skills of the remaining Hussars to half for the rest of the round. And one by one the Venusian Rangers on the roof were also killed by fire. In the following round, the few remaining Hussars managed to take out the two Necromutants who had attacked with grenades. The fleeing Venusian Ranger, who had previously recovered his nerves, returned and carried one of the objective markers off to the deployment zone.

At this point we were both left with shambles of our forces. I only had my Warlord, the odd Hussar and one Venusian Ranger. Andreas had his Warlord, the Necrobeast Riders, two Nasca Razides (one of them damaged) and less than a handful Necromutants and Undead Legionaries. At this point I had already completed my secondary objective, but I held no illusions that I could prevent Andreas from achieving his. Neither of us could complete the primary mission (I did not have the troops left to carry a second marker to my deployment zone and all the markers were too far away for Andreas to do so). So at this point, we decided to call it a day and agreed on a draw.

So this was my last outing in this mini league. With a win, two losses and a draw this left me on a shared third place together with Andreas in the total ranking (not too representative with so few games anyway). And this was also the last outing for my Bauhaus troops for the near future (unless for some non-league games). For the next season, starting in February, I decided to play Imperial. So you can expect me to showcase some of those troops soon.

 

 

 

 

Warzone Resurrection: Bauhaus Venusian Marschall and Venusian Rangers

A couple of weeks ago, I official called my Bauhaus minis finished… that is until Prodos released some new stuff, which they did for Spiel in Essen last month. One of them was the Venusian Marschall / Kaptain mini. As I said before, one of the aspects that drew me in on the first and second editions of the game was the Paul Bonner artwork showing the Marschall and I think it has been one of the most iconic pieces for most players!

So with the new mini out, I had to get one. I wanted to stay close to the artwork, but also wanted him to be an individual piece. As such I made a few changes to the colour scheme. For one I changed the colour of the cape from brown to grey to get a better contrast with the fur, I changed the backdrop on his shoulder pads to red instead of blue and gave the horse brown leather briddles and such (always hated the look of colored leather). Looking at the painting now though… I think I might go back to the mini soon and give the horse grey flesh around the mouth / nose and black tips to the tail and mane. Which only proves, that one should not just remember a painting, but also look at it, when you take it as a reference! 😉

Venusian Marschall

Venusian Marschall

Venusian Marschall (top)

 

And last, there are new models for the Venusian Rangers as well. I really love my original converted ones, but these were just too great to pass by! I painted them in the same colour scheme as I did my original ones, to make sure they fit in. That being said… I am not sure if I am ever going to play three squads of them, but it is good to have them ready should I need them! While the booby trap marker that come with the new models does not match my custom build ones, I still liked it a lot and painted it up, too. No harm in having two different types of markers, right!

(new) Venusian Ranger models (back)

Booby trap marker

 

 

Four player game of Warzone Resurrection

Last Friday we got together for a big 4 player game of Warzone. So what did we play?

Major Richard Meier was not too happy. Just last week a Mishima force had landed in the regions of Venus guarded by Bauhaus 274th Garnisions Regiment. The had caught the roops in the region in the rear, their lines being orientated towards the Dark Legion citadel close by. As usual when the enemy managed to break the Bauhaus lines in the cold regions of Venus, it fell to the 23rd Gebirgssturm Brigade to push them back and this time Meiers battalion had drawn the short straw. His attack was scheduled for tomorrow and now that they were making final preparations he was called to a meeting with the Fenrisbrigades commanding officer. He did not like having his preparations interrupted at such a moment. But what he liked less was an operation being called off. He really hoped, that his was not what this meeting was about.
Meier entered the office, snapped his heels together and saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed another person in the office, but could not clearly make him out. “Herr Major, how far are your preparations for the liberation of Schwarzbrunn?” “Well under way, sir. My Rangers scouting the area have reported that the Mishima forces have set up positions facing our lines only. It seems they rely on the hope that the Dark Legion has not noticed they have taken over our holdings, so they can leave their rear unguarded until reinforced.” “I fear their plans are more sinister than that!” said the other person lurking in the shadows of the room. Rising from behind his desk the commanding officer said “May I Introduce you to Inquisitor Ignatius. He has some information you might find interesting. Inquisitor…” “The Brotherhood has gained information, that this attack last week, was not sanctioned by neither the Mishiman Overlord, nor the Lord Heirs. This was the action of one heretical Clan, trying to establish a holding of their own. They are not hoping that the Legion has not noticed their presence. The Legion actually knows they are there fully well. Tomorrow at dawn there will be a high level meeting between the head of the Clan and a leading Nepharite of Algaroth. And we want to purge the heretics. The Bauhaus high command has assured us your support. Will your troops be able to smash a way through the enemy lines for us so we can crash the party?” At this Meier grinned. “One of my Venusian Ranger squad leaders was born and raised in Schwarzbrunn. Why smash through the enemy lines when we have an unguarded mountain pass to get into their rear and crash their party!”

And so they did! We had already split our forces up in teams. Arnd (Mishima) and Andreas (Dark Legion) on one side (“team evil”) with Ingo (Brotherhood) and myself (Bauhaus) on the other (“team good”). And the forces were:

Mishima: A custom Demon Hunter Warlord, a squad each of Ronin Samurai, Hatamoto, Demon Hunters and Shadow Walkers, as well as two Meka suits combined into one squad.

Dark Legion: Galgotha as Warlord, two squads of Undead Legionaries (with Necromutant Leader) and one of Necromutants, two 2-men squads of Nasca Razides and a two-men squad of Praetorian Stalkers.

Brotherhood: A custom Sacred Warror Warlord, one squad each of Troopers (with Inquisitor leader), Inquisitors, Mortificators and Guardiani Oblati as well as two squads of Sacred Warriors (one led by Lukas).

Bauhaus: Custom Juggernaut Warlord, two squads each of Hussars and Etoiles Mortant, one squad of Venusian Rangers and four Vorreiter combined into one squad.

Table (view from the side that would see most of the fighting)

The table was a rectangle (2,5m x 1,5m) cut in half by a river which in turn was spanned by a large stone bridge. There were a few small woods and bushes on the board. Also some houses (two of them ruins) and gardens lined by hedges.

We rolled for missions and got an Ambush. Team evil chose to be the defender, so team good had to place our units first being the attacker (pretty strange, but that is the rules). Each of us had to have one unit within 6″ of every board edge. Ingo put his Warlord and Sacred Warriors on one of the long edges with the Inquisitors in the near corner. Going clockwise from there, came my Vorreiter on the short edge. On the next long edge, but on the other side of the river came one squad of Hussars, the Troopers and the smaller squad of Sacred Warriors in the corner. My other squad of Hussars  and the Bauhaus Warlord were in the remaining corner.

Team Evil had to set up all units with at least 2 men of every squad within 6″ of the table centre. So essentially they all huddled on the bridge, in the river and on its banks. The only exception were the Demon Hunters. On account of them being Dispersible (they double the range for their coherency) they formed a long line from the deployment zone pointing towards the Bauhaus Warlord. All in all there was a distinct emphasis on that flank with almost all units of team evil oriented that way.

“Team evil” deployment zone

Next came our infiltrating units. The Venusian Rangers deployed in the ruins on the neglected side of the boards, while the Mortificators deployed near the Bauhaus Warlord in the woods and hedges.

The objective was for team good to reduce team evil to about ¼ of its initial forces by the end of turn 5. We all had a Corporate Agenda mission as well, but we all completed ours so I am not going to go into that.

We had decided, to roll for initiative within a team and then had the winner roll for team initiative, with the order of activation alternating between the teams. On the first round Ingo won. Up next would be Arnd, then me and Andreas last.

Ingo began with his Warlord, who played a card that would prevent Galgotha from using her skills (including the one which would deny one of our units all cover). After moving forward a bit, he called in an artillery strike on the bridge, which killed one Ronin Samurai, two Undead Legionaries and caused two Nasca Razides from one squad a wound each. Up next came Arnd. He wanted his Meka suits save from harm and played a Snipe of the Cobra card on my Venusian Ranger with the rocket launcher. He failed his armour test and our best anti vehicle weapon was gone (not that it would matter too much). But he also activated his Demon Hunters and  the squad leader and the other Hunter hammered my Warlord with their HMGs. Inspite of a massive 7 or 8 hits, the Bauhaus Warlord saved all but one (and that one would later in that round be healed by a special piece of equipment build into his suit). Now I activated my Hussars near the Warlord. It was obvious, that my Warlord was going to be the prime target so they moved into position to screen him. Three of them also managed to get some shots off at the Demon hunters and inspite of their good armour and high Heal skill, they even managed to wound the trooper. Now it was Andreas turn and he advanced his Necromutant squad at my other Hussars. They started firing at the closest Hussar, but he managed to take shot after shot with his armour. Frustrated Andreas shifted his fire on the squad leader, only to have the seemingly bulletproof Hussar throw himself in harms way and take the shots for his NCO.

Bridge over busy waters

At this point, it was Ingos turn again. He activated his larger squad of Sacred Warriors to move them forward and protect his Warlord, but Lukas also used a skill which would deny the Mishima Meka suits cover for the rest of the round. Arnd found most of his troops boxed in on the bridge and decided to activate his Hatamoto and move them towards the riverbank. Now I decided to go Warlord hunting myself and Rapid Deployed my first Etoiles Mortant squad close to Galgotha. Unfortuntely for them, the Mishima Warlord had an early warning system and saw them drop from the skies. So he was able to fire at them before they do anything. Two of them took the hits on their armour, but the trooper with the flamethrower died. Her mate picked up the flame thrower though and fired it at both enemy Warlords. They had enough troops around who willingly sacrificed themselves, but none the less this still killed two Undead Legionaries and two Ronin Samurai. The remaining three Etoiles Mortant charged Galgotha in the rear and managed to cause her two wounds. When Andreas activated, he found most of his troops in no position to come to Galgothas help, so he actived his two Nasca Razides close by. One went into Sentry, while the other shot at the Hussar who had so far managed to survive all the fire coming at him. This time it was too much, but we calculated that it had taken well over 20 shots (with more than half of them being hits) to kill him! Unfortunately he also managed to kill the Hussar squad leader.

Hussars and Trooper

Ingo now actived his Inquisitors. They advanced towards the enemy and their squad leader cast a spell on one of the Meka suits damaging it in the hull. With things heating up around them, the Mekas decided to charge the Etoiles Mortant and whipped them out in close combat. While charging through the river, the one that had already been damaged took some more damage to its legs. With things having gone well for the first Etoiles attack I decided to deploy the second squad as well. But their combat drop did not go as well. They scattered into the Razides and being stunned were unable to do anything else. In turn they would be cut up by the Razide who had gone into Sentry and by Andreas now activating his Undead Legionaries. To add insult to injury, one of the Etoiles was also turned into an Undead Legionary when she was killed by the Necromutant squad leader.

Mekas going for the Etoiles Mortants

At this point, Ingo advanced his Troopers and managed to get some shots at the Necromutants (but I cannot tell to what end, since I was away from the table for a few minutes). Arnd also advanced his Mishima Warlord towards the Bauhaus one. I activated my Warlord and he fired his HMG at the Demon Hunters, killing the one who had already been wounded and wounding the squad leader. Andreas advanced this other Razides out of the river and towards the Bauhaus Warlord with guns blazing. But failed to wound him, but they wiped out two Hussars close by.

The next activation saw Ingo advance his remaining Sacred Warriors and Arnd his Remaining Ronin Samurai. Now the Vorreiter charged forward and hammered the Meka suits with their HMGs. Andreas tried to prevent this by playing a Dark Legion card that would keep me from firing, but Ingo managed to take that out of play with one of his cards (never have I been so happy to see Brotherhood on the table!!!). Unfortunately they spread their damage on virtually all locations, but destroyed the already damaged one. Andreas advanced his remaining Undead Legionaries.

Vorreiter advance

The rest of the first round was quiet uneventful, with the remaining troops either advancing or my Venusian Rangers firing their rifles at the Legionaries on the bridge, killing one. The Praetorian Stalkers deployed on the side of the river where the majority of the team evil troops were.

All the Dark Legion hordes

Before the next round began, Arnd placed markers for his Shadow Walkers amidst the pines close to the Bauhaus Warlord. Now it would be crucial who would win the initiative for him to survive. But Arnd won the initiative, so this would be hard. Next would be me, followed by Andreas and Ingo coming last.

Obviously Arnd activated his Shadow Walkers first and their markers were replaced with actual miniatures. He played another Snipe of the cobra on the Hussar blocking their approach on my Warlord killing him. Now the two Shadow Walkers charged my Warlord, scoring seven hits. This was though luck, since their attacks do not allow for armour saves (unless it is impenetrable armour, which has to be re-rolled on a successful test) or heal rolls. But he managed to save three of them. This cost him all his four wounds, but then the chemical resuscitator kicked in and he regained his last wound, keeping him alive! It is amazing how good my dice were that day! Up next came m Vorreiter. Their initial goal was to shoot the remaining Meka, but that one was covered by the two Nasca Rizides close by and hard to hit. So the first two Vorreiter shot at the Razides, killing them both. Now the other two were free to shoot at the Meka, hitting it in the rear and leaving it barely intact. Unfortunately, their fire also killed the last remaining Etoiles Mortant, but a small sacrifice it was. Andreas used a card to remove his Praetorian Stalkers from the board and Re-rapid Deploy them close to the Vorreiter. Their drop went wrong, but they did not scatter too far. One of them was close enough to use this flame thrower on two of my Vorreiter.

Praetorian Stalkers attacking the Vorreiter

Just like I had seen in my previous game, these weapons are so strong, they cut through any vehicles armour and it was no different this time… both Vorreiter perished! The other Stalker fired his HMG at the Vorreiter squad leader, but only managed to damage his bike. Ingo activated his Inquisitors, again all they could do was advance and have the squad leader cast a spell at the Meka, but damaged as it was, this was enough to destroy it.

Inquisitors advancing

There was not much, that Arnd could do, so he advanced one of his Demon Hunters. I activated my Venusian Rangers who moved out of the ruins and fired at Galgothas back, causing her one more wound (she was now down to only one). Andreas activated his Necromutants who cut into Ingos troopers and my Hussars with their fire. Ingos Troopers also took a heavy beating, loosing all men but the Inquisitor leader. Now Ingo activated his Mortificators again and they charged forwards throwing grenades and blazing away with their pistols. The first used a flame-thrower like ability to toast the Demon Hunter squad leader and kill a Necromutnat. The others managed to kill the remaining Ronin and inflict a massive 4 wounds on the Mishima Warlord. His resuscitator failed to kick in and he was dead.

At this point we had to call it a day since one of us had to leave. While we had already played a couple of hours, we had only gotten into the second round, but it was clear to see where things were going. Ingo had only lost his troopers and I about a third of my points. While my Warlord was in a pretty bad shape, we were sure that he would be able to take care of the Shadow Walkers with some help of the Hussars, especially since the Mortificators were releaving the pressure on him. The Brotherhood Warlord was still in mint condition, protected by his best troops and his Guardiani Oblati bodyguards still undeployed. On the other hand, Arnd had lost more than  ¾ of his force and was left only with a squad of Hatamoto and half a squad of Demon Hunters. Andreas was better off. Galgotha was in as bad a shape is the Bauhaus Warlord, but presented a good target. His two remaining Nasca Razides were down to one wound each and we all agreed that the Praetorian Stlakers would not last a round, if my Vorreiter were to activate first. So we all agreed, that this would have resulted in a win for team good!

All in all it was a pretty bloody fight, especially since team evil decided to concentrate its fire on one flank, virtually ignoring the other. In can not speak for the other team, but I had a feeling that Bauhaus and Brotherhood paired quite well. For the first time I had the feeling that Bauhaus really packed some punch in this combination where the other side was not able to influence me as much with their cards. Having already seen the revised Bauhaus cards, I think they shall do fine on their own in the future as well. Oh and for those interested, we played with the V1.3 errata of the rules previewed last week.

 

 

Warzone Resurrection: Bauhaus vs. Dark Legion

Last week on Tuesday, I had my third an pan-ultimate game in our Warzone mini league (yes it really is that small this season). Michael came over for a game and this would be the first time I would face the Dark Legion in our league.

I decided to stick with the unit composition I had used in the game vs. Ingo two days prior. So again the Fenriswölfe were led by a custom Juggernaut close combat Warlord, with two squads of Hussars (one with six men and one LMG the other with just five men and no support weapon), two five-women squads of Etoiles Mortants with a flame thrower each, one five-men squad of Venusian Rangers with one rocket launcher and a three-men squad of Vulkan suits (all with Rapid Deployment, one of them in close combat configuration).

Michael had his troops led by custom close combat Nepharite Warlord, with another custom Nepharite Lord. There were two seven-men Squads of undead Legionaries (each led by an extra Necromuntant and sporting and LMG and flamethrower. There were also two six-men squads of Necromutants, a lone Nasca Razide and two Praetorian Stalkers (ranged combat version) to round the force off.

We had several missions to accomplish in this game. The primary mission for both sides was a “kill them all”, which I think speaks for itself. As a secondary mission we had to find and blow up an ammo dump. For the Corporate Agenda mission the Dark Legion had to capture two of my men for interrogation (or possible worse), while one of my squad leaders (the Vulkan leader) had to kill more enemy soldiers than any of the other Bauhaus squad leaders.

The table was kept fairly simple (due to the good weather I decided to set up outdoors last-minute) with a large wooded hill in the centre, two woods in the corners and a large ruin along one table edge.

Table seen from the Bauhaus side

I had lost set initiative and put my Warlord with the two hussar squads in the corner facing the ruins. Michael put his Nepharite Lord into the opposing corner surrounded by one squad of Legionaries and behind a Necromutant screen. Further towards the middle he placed his Warlord with the Necromutants and behind those, the other squad of Legionaries. Between those two formations was the Razide.
When it came to the infiltrating forces, I put my Rangers into the large woods in the centre, adjacent to one of the possible ammo dumps.
My Etoiles Mortants and Vulkans as well as Michael’s Stalkers were kept off table to Rapid Deploy when called for.

The first round literally started off with a bang. I activated my Venusian Rangers first, one of them investigated the possible ammo dump, found it to be real and set explosives to it to blow it up at the end of the round. The other four squad members fired at the Necromutants accompanying the Warlord, killing one of them. Michael started by playing a card on me, that would turn all my weapons into plasma type weapons for this round. Usually this would be good for me, expect that Necromutants are able to heal quiet well vs. plasma weapons, which eventually meant I decided to delay any possible Rapid Deployments. Now Michael returned fire with his Necromutants but their fire was not as good although more men with a higher rate of fire fired (mostly due to me being in cover) and he managed to kill one of my Rangers.

Illian Templar (stand ins for Necromutants) advancing towards their secondary objective

Otherwise it was mostly consolidating. My Warlord advanced with the Hussars. Michael’s flank Necromutants advanced while the Legionaries in the centre tried to keep up with the Warlord and Necromutants to their front. On the flank the Nepharite and Razide went into sentry, while the Legionaries huddled around them and put up a wall of fire with the flamethrower. They were pretty afraid of my Rapid Deployment troops.

The next round saw my drop my Vulkans close to the enemy Warlord. They were right on spot and the squad leader and the other suit in range combat configuration were able to kill all the Necromutants surrounding the Warlord with their flamethrowers and HMGs. Now it was time for the close combat version to charge the Warlord in the back, but unfortunately he did not roll as good and caused only two wounds. But all in all things did not look too bad.

Vulkans going for the Warlord

Three suits in mint condition and not much to do them harm… What could go wrong. Well as it would come to show, a lot. One after the other, Michael’s Praetorian Stalkers dropped close to my Vulkans. One of them botched up his drop, but was still close enough to attack. Their weapons came with a flamethrower that is pretty effective vs. vehicles. So instead of getting a good chance for an armour safe (Vulkans have a 13 and 14 target number on a D20) it got down to a 5% chance. I was still able to prevent some damage due to good dice rolling and their auto repair function, but bottom line was… They all could no longer take more than minimal damage. For the rest of the round they were fired at by the remaining squad of Necromutants and the Legionaries. Some of the closer Legionaires also charged them… Undead claws are pretty effective vs. armour, too. In the end all Vulkans perished and with them more than a third of my points… Ouch!

Dark Legion Forces looking at the site of the provious skirmish

In the corner the Dark Legion was going back to its corral tactic. So my Etoiles Mortant went in for high risk drops (only the slightest scatter would have meant disaster for them). The drops went fine and between them, they managed to kill both the Nasca Razide and Nepharite and a good portion of the Legionaries. Unfortunately, one of the living corpses was able to pick up the flamethrower from his now more than undead partner. When their turn came he manged to toast all (including the flametrower) except the squad leader from one squad. One of the undead also a manged to kill the other flamethrower. Otherwise my Warlord and Hussars advanced further.

Warlord and Hussars advancing

The next round, my Etoiles Mortants cleared off the remaining Legionaires, but at a grim cost. When one of them slew the Necromant Leader in close combat, his body fluids splashed over one of the Etoiles, turning her into an Undead Legionary as well, who had to be killed by her former mates. For protection, they also threw some flash grenades, but during the rest of the turn they were still picked of my fire from the Necromutants.
In the centre, my Rangers were falling to fire from one of the Praetorian Stalkers and remaining Legionaires until only one of them remained.
But the big blow was with to come to the troops accompanying my Warlord. By playing a card Michael was able to teleport one of his Stalkers back to their “mothership”, only to instantly rapid deploy him again right besides my Hussars and Warlord. He also played a card which turned the armour on the bigger of the two Hussar squads extremely hard, except for the weapons type the Stalker was using. In the end a total of seven Hussars perished with my Warlord taking minimal damage. The remaining Hussars did their best to take down the Stalker, but failed, so in the end my Warlord had to turn on him and kill him.

Re-rapid-deployed Praetorian Stalker

What did this leave us with? Well Michael had little under half his force left, while all I had was my Warlord, four Hussars and a Venusian Ranger. I had achieved my Secondary and Corporate Agenda Missions, but there was a snowball’s chance in hell that Micheal would not take the primary one. So right now it was a draw. At least if I could keep him from completing his secondary mission as well. (Yes, we played this wrong. If we both have the same secondary mission, only one can achieve it and since I had already blown up the ammo dump, this would have been the case.) so I shifted my aim to blow up his ammo dump as well.

My Venusian Ranger was killed while he crouched next to it, waiting to place his explosives. Two Hussars were killed in a blocking position, while the other two were cut down en route. I also managed to kill two Necromutants, but this was of little consequence. In the end it was a head to head race between my Warlord and one of his Necromutants to see who would get there first. Since we were both the same distance from the ammo dump, one initiative roll would see who of us would activate first and therefore set his explosives first. Micheal won that initiative and therefore made sure it was a win instead of a draw. But a narrow result it was none the less and a very fun game!

 

Warzone Ressurection, Bauhaus vs. Brotherhood once more

The other weekend Ingo came around for a match of Warzone again, this time outside our mini league. Just as with our league games, this too was played using the advanced game rules, at 1000 points using the standard OOB. We rolled a Delta Mission which meant in addition to the Primary Mission (Reconnaissance) we also had a Corporate Agenda Mission each. The former meant that we would have to control three table zones for a win or two for a minor victory by the end of turn 5. The Corporate Agenda Missions were different for both of us. Ingos mission was for more than 50% of the members of one of his squads to survive (he chose the Sacred Warriors) while mine meant that one of my squad leaders had to cause more wounds than any other squad leader (I chose the Venusian Rangers, although I am not sure why in retrospect).

The table was a large hillside rolling down to the Bauhaus left, with a small hilltop valley on the centre right. There were two small woods in the left corners and a larger one on the right flank, with another woods and two bunkers in the centre. Since the Primary Mission called for set-up in opposing corners, this meant, that one of us would have to set up in the open, while the other got the woods. To be fair, we rolled for this. I won and decided to set up in the open.

Table set-up

So what did we field?

I decided to go a new direction with my troops. So this time they were led by a custom Juggernaut close combat Warlord, with two squads of Hussars (one with six men and one LMG the other with just five men and no support weapon), two five-women squads of Etoiles Mortants with a flame thrower each, one five-men squad of Venusian Rangers with one rocket launcher and a three-men squad of Vulkan suits (all with Rapid Deployment, one of them in close combat configuration).

Ingos force was led by a custom Sacred Warrior Warlord. There were two Trooper Squads, both with two snipers each and an Inquisitor Squad Leader, one squad of Sacred Warriors led by Lukas and a squad of Mortificators. To round things off there were two three-men squads of Inquisitors.

When the regular troops deployed, I put my two squads of Hussars in my deployment zone, with the Warlord being sandwiched in between them. Ingo put his troops into the woods (left to right from his view) Inquisitors, Scared Warriors, Troopers, Inquisitors, Troopers. Up next came the infiltrating troops and I put my Venusian Rangers in the larger woods on my right flank facing the Brotherhood deployment zone. Ingo found a small spot in said woods that was far enough from my troops to deploy and put his Mortificators and Warlord there. My Etoiles Mortant and Vulkans remained in reserve.

Brotherhood forces emerging from the forrest

I activated first and chose to activate my Venusian Rangers, to turn them around and fire at the Mortificators. But this was not to be, since Ingo played one of those fine Brotherhood cards on them that prevented them from firing (am starting to hate this card). So they just moved to bring them closer to the Hussars and Warlord and cut off an easy route of retreat for the Mortificators. Not that this would have been neccessary, since the Mortificators instantly charged my Rangers cutting them all, except for the Ranger with the Rocket Launcher, to pieces. I had previously played an Arachnid Infestation on the woods, but the Mortificators managed to dodge all poisonous spider attacks and took no harm. Same went for the Brotherhood Warlord. Otherwise not much happened that round. Both of us advanced our troops some more, with my Hussars shooting at the enemy Warlord, who always transferred the damage to the Mortificator close to him, who managed to dodge every single one of the attacks. My Rapid Deployment troops decided not to deploy just yet.

Hussars attacking towards the forrest

The next round started with the Mortificators killing he remaining Venusian Ranger. They then stormed towards my troops lobbing grenades at them. While two of them fumbled (unfortunately we played this wrong did not have them explode in their hands), the others still managed to kill of four Hussars in the smaller squad. Again, they managed to simply dodge the return fire. It is amazing how Ingo managed to succeed on all dodge rolls those two first rounds, even though he only had a 50% chance! 😦
But the real action this round was around Ingos deployment zone. Here the first unit of Etoiles Mortants Rapid Deployed into the back of one squad of Troopers. The flame thrower managed to kill all troopers except for two and their Inquisitor leader, but those were easily dispatched, when the rest of the squad charged them in the rear. One of the ladies had so little to do, she even managed to fire her pistol at the nearby Inquisitors (who had already activated and could thus not fire back), but failed to do damage.

1st Etoiles Mortant drop

The other squad of Etoiles Mortants wanted to Rapid Deploy at the other edge of the woods, but their drop went slightly wrong and they scattered into the open fields. Their flamethrower could get into position, but not as good as anticipated, and only killed one Inquisitor and wounded another, plus two Scared Warriors. The other members of the squad were too far away to engage the enemy so just fired their pistols at them, but failed to make an impression, due to the heavy armour of their targets. This squad was subsequently cut up by fire of the Inquisitors and a charge by the Scared Warriors.

2nd Etoiles Mortant drop

This round also saw my last unit, the Vulkans Rapid Deploy, but their drop went really bad. They scattered into the woods and could not activate this round. The squad leader even dropped right into close combat with the Mortifocator leader.

Next round, I was lucky enough to win the initiative and active my Vulkans first. Their squad leader picked his Mortificator opposite up and through him through the air, killing him on impact (I rolled a natural one). The next Vulkan moved out of the woods and fired his heavy flamethrower at two Mortificators killing them both and ridding the Warlord of his protection. The Warlord was now charged in the back by the remaining Vulkan in close combat configuration, who caused the Warlord one wound. This was on account of his ridiculously high ablative armour rating. But as more and more armour panels exploded defeating these attacks, his armour grew weaker.

Vulkan attacking Brotherhood Warlord

The remaining two Mortificators now charged my Warlord, almost killing him. The Hussars charged them in turn to protect their chief, but again all attacks were dodged or sucked up by their armour. Those Hussars too far away decided to fire into the melee with the enemy Warlord to reduce his armour, but only hit the Vulkan (luckily they did him no harm). The Brotherhood Warlord turned to face his assailant, but though he slashed him seven times with his sword only did one damage, which the Vulkan auto repaired. On the other flank the remaining squad of Etoiles Mortant were attacked by the Inquisitors, but suffered only one killed by some kind of dice god miracle. In turn they annihilated said Inquisitors through a combination of flamethrower fire (which also caused massive damage to the other Trooper squad) and close combat attacks.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

The next round saw Ingo win initiative and his Mortificators promptly killed my Warlord and one of the Hussars in close combat with them. Now things did swing back to my Vulkans. While the Warlord managed to safe the first hit from the Vulkan, the other two were able to defeat his now weakened armour and killed him. The other Vulkan managed to kill the remaining Mortificators by firing his flamethrower into the close combat (unfortunately killing one of the Hussars as well. On the other flank, the remaining Etoiles were killed of as well by the remaining Inquisitors and Troopers. So essentially this meant, that both of us had cleared their deployment zones with more or less losses and both had lost their Warlord.

Now we would both have had to maneuver our troops into position for the next phase and probably to secure those target areas. But it Was clear that we would most like each take one and contest the other. Already having played six hours (no idea why it took us so long to play those three rounds) it was already well into the evening, we both decided to call it a draw and end matters here.

 

My last Bauhaus units (for now)

As you have seen over the past few months, I have been working hard to finish my first army for Warzone Resurrection. That is Bauhaus. Yesterday evening I did the bases on the last minis… well the last minis until Prodos releases new stuff.

What did I save for last? Well those troops I never liked too much and those troops that were not numerically necessary in the beginning. Up first the former. These are two squads of Etoiles Mortant. Essentially this a unit of close combat troops, who all have one thing in common. They all lost relatives or loved one to the Dark Legion and are out for revenge. While they also fight the other corporations their adversary of choice is the Dark Legion. Over the centuries, this has grown into an all female outfit, although no one really knows why, since they have no recruitment restrictions.

Why do I not like them? Well in previous editions of the rules they were never bad, but honestly, never too good either. Apparently they are far better in this edition, but since I have not fielded them yet, I cannot tell. One thing they had in common in every edition is, that I never liked their minis. Here we actually have two versions from this edition. The second squad is the Kickstarter version, the first the more dynamic post-Kickstarter version. A lot of people have complained about the scale creep between the two sets and honestly… it is massive. The newer models almost look like dwarfs next to the old ones. That being said, I think the new ones are more to scale. I painted them at the same time as some male Hussars (see below) and given the average size difference between males and females and the fact that the Etoiles Mortants wear far lighter armour, the new minis just seemed more to scale to me.

As you can see, their weapons are geared for close combat with swords and pistols. The heavy weapons troopers carry the Gehenna Puker flame thrower. This weapon was often depicted with a red plastic housing in previous editions, which was something I always loved and so I decided to paint it that way, too. Except for some pinning through the legs to make the new poses more stable and new hair on one of them, these are straight out of the box. I would have loved to give their uniforms a winter look like a did with my other minis, but their armour hugs so close that this was not possible without looking daft. I guess their burning hatred must be enough to keep them warm!

Etoiles Mortant squad #1

Etoiles Mortant squad #2

As indicated before I also painted some more Hussars. A fourth squad to join the other three I did before. In this one the heavy weapons trooper carries a rocket launcher bringing the total rocket launcher / LMG ratio to two all. This squad is six men strong, not five like the others. Why? Well playing around with the points, I found that it is often easier to field six men squads than five. I also found some combinations, where there simply are not enough points to give those squads a heavy weapon at all, so all five men (the minimum squad size) will have to carry just assault rifles. Having five men with rifles per squad will allow me to do that, too. But since I did not want the other three squads to be the black sheep, I also painted an extra trooper up for them, too,

Hussar Squad #4

extra Hussars

For those who want to see the whole unit, I have added a Bauhaus gallery to the Gallery section of this blog, which can also be accessed via the tabs at the top like the other galleries.

Bauhaus group shot

So now that my first Bauhaus army is off the table, what is next? The rest of the year will be spent mostly on terrain, WWII minis and hopefully the next or possibly next two armies for Warzone. Mishima and Imperial. If time permits I also plan to add some Napoleonic minis to the fold, since I have done far too few of those this year. So I hope, there will be something for everyone there!

 

 

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit… the one that got away

Well not really the one that got away. When I did the first two close combat Vulkan suits showcased on this blog last month, I realized that I would like a third one. Reason is simple… these suits can be deployed in squads of up to three suits, either in the close or ranged combat configuration. Having three each will allow me to field any kind of mix, or even complete units of each configuration. Thanks to Christopher G. and Hendrik D. on the Warzone Facebook page, I got the parts I needed for a third suit, now the only question was… what to do with it! When I converted the squad leader from the original duo to hold an iron girder, my better half commented, that it would have been way cooler if he had held a street lamp. Back then I had already heated up the heads to remodel the fingers around the girder, so I was in no mood to do that again and left it like it was. But this new model gave me the option to go down that route. And this time I wanted to go really dynamic with it. I envisioned this suit charging at the enemy, jumping over a boulder on the ground (quite handy that all my Bauhaus basing contains boulders) to bring said lamppost crashing down on the enemy. Dry-fitting the parts showed that this was possible So I set to work. One of the legs had to be repositioned to achieve the look of one legs straightened to propel the suit off the ground the next moment. Just heating the leg was no option here, so it was cut apart at the knee joint, pinned, repositioned and resculpted using greenstuff. The rest was actually fairly simple with the hands being placed around a 1:48th scale Tamiya lamppost and then glueing one arm after the other to the suit. I was pretty happy I had left the container off the back off the other close combat suits (I assumed it held extra ammo, not needed on the close combat version), otherwise things would have looked a little tight there, but that was it. Anyway… here you go with the photos:

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suit

Not the easiest pose to photograph, but I hope the photos give you an idea! And here is another group shot with the other two!

Bauhaus close combat Vulkan suits