Battlestar Galactica:RS Wargaming

This is the Commander. Moments ago, this ship received word of a Cylon attack against our homeworlds is under way. We do not know the size or the disposition or the strength of the enemy forces, but all indications point to a massive assault against Colonial defenses. Admiral Nagala has taken personal command of the Fleet aboard the battlestar Atlantia following the complete destruction of Picon Fleet Headquarters in the first wave of the attacks. How, why doesn't really matter now. What does matter is that as of this moment, we are at war. You've trained for this. You're ready for this. Stand to your duties, trust your fellow shipmates, and we'll get through this.

I am big fan of Battlestar Galactica series - either Reimagined,Original or stand alone pilot Blood and Chrome,  and least but not last Diaspora:Shattered Armistance pc game.   Full thrust IMHO is well suited for BSG gaming althought maybe Colonial Battlefleet will be suit better but i dont like Hexes anyway  first decision was easy first or second Cylon war. While first war will be easy on backstory as war rages on. The second in truth is easy too, only thing which is problem is CPN backdoors that Cylons used prior to attack on Colonies. Easily this could be say that Battlestar/s are returning from training maneovers and new system will be installed after return, like in Diaspora.

I looked into Studio Bergstrom miniatures line which features stylised non-BSG miniatures , new and old Battlestars, Basestars, vipers, raiders, Raptors and so on. There are others vendors that sells non-BSG minis namely Ravenstar miniatures,B3 Designs and Novastar. these vendors also make starbases, and civilian ships along with non-canon Cylon and Colonial Fleet ships.

Jump complete. Reading debris in low orbit and multiple nuclear explosions on surface. Virgon is gone, the Fleet is gone..... Incoming DRADIS contact!Single Cylon Raider!

So where to start, If you want to start Full thrust BSG you will need capital ships - i would suggest two Battlestars, and three or four Basestars for this reason i will choose two Battleships (they looks like Columbia class)for economical reason i would start with smaller complement of Vipers four of Vipers and one or two raptor flights to count as torpedo bombers . for Cylons choice was similiar Two Heavy cruisers and two smaller Deuce light crusiers, fighter escort will be 4 wings total with respawn - when wave is destroyed Cylon player can launch another.

Galactica has seen a lot of history, gone through a lot of battles. This will be her last. She will not fail us if we do not fail her. If we succeed in our mission, Galactica will bring us home. If we don't... it doesn't matter anyway. 

to the storyline we will be following two Battlestars conducting patrol along the Red Line BSG Athena and her sister ship BSG Rhea has been sended to emergency beacon set up by Armistice station, upon discovery that Armistice station is destroyed, and receving reports of massive assault againts Colonies they racing to rescue, unlike Galactica or Pegasus their Commanders decide to make a stand.

Since we aquired place to play Full thrust in local board games store with tables to play, we possible can aquire some new players, i am wishfull thinking we can make campaing called Fall of Colonies

Hecate my alien race to Full Thrust

As great Freespace  i always wanted to create similiar race into spaceship gaming, not even BFG allow it

something similiar - i dont want space "bugs" who only feeds but something more sinister  like Shivans.

While my Mystery fleet ships or on the way i decided to create some form of background of race, since i was always RPG player/gamemaster i just love this side of hobby - creating your own background.




It begun with name Hecate - Greek goddess of witchcraft among other things, apart from that it sound menacing so who are Hecate? Know your enemy and that stuff? Well basicly humanity dont know much about Hecate and their motives. Few months ago Hecate ships appear in Ross 128 system and destroyed human instalation along with military protection detail, and then disappear. Similiar attacks happened along border worlds in whole human space but without any pattern or it seems.

Face of Enemy

Since then Human diplomats and Inteligence services tried to contact Hecate, but without any success.
Durning battle of Beta Aquille humans was able to beat off Hecate, and also recover one smaller Hecate ship and thus founding dying bodies of  their enemy. Quickly they assume that Hecate evolved in water or in low/zero gravity which gave them they main advantage, they have far more better space coordination than humans allowing them using their ships in space to its limits.
Hecate ships are faster and more maneovrable than human counterparts, thanks to different propulsion system. Weapons of Hecate starships are similiar to humans although they are using different technology in terms of power and destruction potential are similiar


After Battle of Beta Aquille the Hecate dissappear and never to return, or it seems. Humans joked about how they crushed aliens with single stroke. But truth was different, Hecate were lurking shadows and prepearing for invasion. the first who faced the invasion was Admiral of 7th fleet with his ships for first time humanity faced Hecate Light Carriers and Dreadnought, and within matters of minutes 7th Fleet fallen ill prepeared to meet this kind of threat.

After fall of 7th Fleet the humanity , lost almost every border colony forcing whole fleets to retreat to core worlds and earth itself. Will humanity be able to turn the tide and defeat Hecates are will they succumb to total destruction of human race?

Hecate Fleet (Courtesy of  http://starbase-spartan.blogspot.cz)

Capital ships space combat

While various players prefer historical or modern battlefields, there those - and iam sure that there are lot of us who love the epic battle scenes where space capital ships firing and destroying itself in deadly gauntlets.

you see it in various movies and shows - Star trek, Star wars, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly,Stargate series, Babylon 5, Battleship Yamato  and many others. same goes for books - Warhammer 40.000, Honor series, Battlestar Prometeus,Crimson worlds or even classics like Enders game. Even Pc games starting from EVE: Online, Homeworld series, Nexus to even less known games like Flotila or  Stellar Impact

There are lots of gaming rules for space combat, Firestorm:Armada, StarArmada, Task Force Zeta, Battle Fleet Gothic  to A  Sky full of Ships. but ruleset that far most popular around world is old Venerable Full Thrust which comes through various reedition and remastering by players, and with cooperation there is 3rd Edition of FT on way.

so apart from famous ranges (Babylon 5, Star Trek TOS and other official ranges) we will look on other ranges what they have to offer to casual new player.
Brigade games created ships for their own universe called Iron Cow now featured in game Stararmada X: Brigade. their range contains 10 different nations , two of them are aliens. personally i dont much like design of the ships they lacked deepth of GZG models but now the new range called british came out i changed my mind these new ships are more than good (and germans or american rep. aren´t bad either

Ground zero Games, IMHO the best and largest ranges on market up today. Created specially for Tuffleyverse which is featured in Full thrust,Dirtside II and Stargrunt II games. the Full thrust range contains 16 different nations, four of them are alien - two of biological origin, one your typical warlike aliens and lastly hightech crusties ships which were long labeled as mysterious fleet. also the models are some of the best on market , and Jon from GZG is good bloke and always there to help you out, the postage is little higher but you get your stuff here in europe really fast - in matter of days. (cca up to three days)

Zandris IV one of the smallest vendors in space gaming wargaming currently offering 3 different ranges , two oftem resambles ships from famous space combat game, there was fourth alien race but it is discontinued and offered only two ships but they were closest to the Shivans from Freespace series i have found yet. i personaly own ships from them,  and they were flawless, quick delivery worth money.





Antenocitis workshop got FATC Hiigarian fleet  that means if you join not-Vaygr forces from Z4 and these Hiigarians you can wargaming battles from HW2, the miniatures are really nice somewhat big but really nice, however you can buy them only in deal packs which is shame also the price tag isnt much player friendly.

Ravenstar miniatures got some archaic style of buying, pics of things showed on blog and you must order via
mail, pretty strange but otherwise great service. lots of non-BSG ships from Battlestars( of various size and classes) through Basestars to civilian fleet, essential for every BSG fan. he also selling his Cold navy range which are greatly designed.  they also selling some 1" scale non-BSG fighters for those who are intersted in dogfighting




Studio Bergstrom had some nicest ranges based on movie or pc series. like Ravenstar they also produce 1" Scale fighters, and few original ranges like Hive or ORC, ever want to field Rodger Young cruiser? here is your chance.

B-3 Designs is old sculptor of B5 ships for Call to Arms: Babylon 5, he got his range of his own for B5 and BSG while it is not big there are many original designs even with backstory excelent. also got range for fleetscale ST fighters and range of B5 1" scale fighters still itching to get some Star Furies and Nials for Tacship/BSG Mass combat and do some dogfighting.

Agents of Gaming aren´t sculptors, they are selling old aging ranges from fallen games like Babylon 5 Wars or GROPOS. for B5 gaming you got everything here.


there is big Star ranger comunnity where not only players gather but also sculptors and vendors lots of various talk, battlereports, advices inspiration and so on. Mechworld.de is another page where some players gather but mostly Full thrust ones, MW created Full thrust Lite rulebook. and lastly there is The Miniature Page which have they own Space combat board

so still interested in epic space battles? lets gets some ships and start fighting!

Anvil Industry - potencionalně nové miniatury pro Tommorow war?

Republic Grenadier a Raider Exo-mech

Díky Warlordu a Bolt actionu jsem začal zase přichazet na chuť měřítku 28mm, dlouhou dobu jsem se zaměřoval na 15mm hlavně díky výběru pěchoty i vozidel. Postupně však na trh pronikají vynikající a skvělé miniatury ať už jde o Dreamforge, Pig Iron, Khurasan games nebo zmiňovaný Anvil Industry se svojí novou modelovou řadou Afterlife.

Unity Council Marines

Anvil Industry je firma která před lety vznikla a začala vyrábět custom bity pro jednu nejmenovanou sci-fi hru v měřítku 28mm, nyní však začíná vydávat další další modely pro jejïch Afterlife projekt který je dílem uspěšného kickstarteru a tohou dělat něco jiného.

Co mají dnes tedy Anvil v nabídce v první řadě jsou to dva sety pěchoty  Unity Council Marines a Republic Grenadiers, k tomu nabízí dva sety lehkých AFS/Mechů/ Power armouru a dvou specialních jednotek (pasové dróny v TW znamé jako AGP a útočny scifi psy)

Trochu mínus je že pěchotní družstva nemají těžší zbraně jako různé varianty SAW atp. ale díky množství zbraní které nabízí Anvil jako bity není problem si družstva na customizovat.

Krom řady Afterlife nabízí také robotické protivníky (připomínající Skynetovo přisluhovače ze Serie Terminator)  s možností vybavy pušek, ostřelovacích pušek,energo pušek nebo plamenotů

další dobrou zprávou je že další rozšíření řady Afterlife jsou na cestě , takže tyto miniatury určitě jsou zajímavé pro použití v Tommorow war ale i jiných systemech.

Rangers Leads the way!

in some previous article i wrote about building 41st Armoured, while playing few games i realised i want to something different, as i always liked US Rangers durning WW2 and their famous actions but question was how - having both kits - Rangers and USMC kit i started thinkout how to paint those heads with helmet covers and then i run into this photo

Decorating of US Rangers after battle of Pointe du hoc (take not of helmet covers)

And so i started repainting a bulding new force. To keep to the theme which envisioned Rangers as light Infantry  i dont add any vehicles but whole force is infantry based on 1000 points i am playing usually this

• 1st Lt. Taylor with an orderly
• 3x Infantry Squads with BAR and two SMGs
• Light Mortar
• 2 Bazooka Teams
• 2 MMG Teams
• Sniper Team
• Air Observer
• Medic

After some playing i realised that mobility can be sometimes issue but i won Top Secret scenario againts mechanised Panzergrenadiers. As i played demo-game againts my own Rangers using my friend Germans i realised the only way how to play Rangers is Aggresive - if you let enemy bog you down you lose (and don´t call both Airstrikes on your own force )

The 1000pts army is almost painted (only MMG a mortar teams left to paint) and then i need build opposing force the 500pts Fallschirmjager box is on the way , to put into the action againts my other friend UK Paras
here are some pics of Rangers

US Armybook review

As more reinforces for my Bolt-action Americans came in i also recieved Armies of the United States armybook which gave more in-sight into units and vehicles used by US durning World war 2. I already review German Armybook, and also take a look at Soviet book (which i will be reviewing soon) i will also compare US book versus these so let´s begin

Cover of US armybook

The book it self is standart Bolt action smaller format which i found ok, because it is more easily carried in backpack than classic A4  format. As with every BA book it is covered with miniatures photos, Osprey Artworks and wonderfull graphic layout. First pages of book is about US involvent in World War 2 , their battles and tactics.

Next chapter is armylist where you found two new rules for US forces. First is called Gyro-stabilisers which gave your veteran tanks capability to fire on move without modifers. second one is Modern communications which negates modifers for calling reinforcements, both new rules are ok in my opinion and not game-breaking, although as always German players would disagree - since they not get any new rules in their book.

Following special rules is unit availible to  US players - it contains 21 infantry units (the infantry weapons teams and command units counting) including profiles for Engineers,Glider troops, Marines, Rangers or Paratroopers. they are following by 9 artillery units (AT, AA cannons and real arty pieces) 30 vehicles and 14 transports and tows.

the last chapter is Theatre selector which gaves players specific armylists for battles/campaings they are divided to three parts - first is fighting in North Africa, second consting of Western Europe and Italy armylists and the third is for forces fighting in Pacific.

Very interesting that US army doesnt have ability to choose standart troops as veterans  (while you can choose US veterans through Additional Units PDF availible through Warlords webpage.

it is worth mentioning only US infantry unit who get somesort of additional rule is Rangers who are capable of running before game begins thanks to their Rangers lead the way special rule. on other side what i like that Marines are just regular GIs with different weapon loadout (well they carry much more BARs) - but if you want to make real Devil dogs you can always make them veterans.

What i really like on book are background information boxes which are put across book, it includes info about some unsung American heroes (other than Murphy,Winters etc., while these men was heroes without doubt some less known US heroes are nice addition) and some other informations about US army in WW2.

Overall i like this book it had nice layout, no game-breaking things, and  essential for every US player out there

Bolt Action Silence the gun AAR - now in english

Previously published battlereport or After Action Report from game we played this week it was our first game. We played at approx. 750pts i was playing US reinforced platoon from book AoUS while my friend used AoG reinforced platoon. list we´re following. We are begining with Bolt action so sorry about table and unpainted miniatures but hope you will like it.

Elements of 41st Armoured Infantry Regiment:
All Veteran

• 1st Lt. Taylor armed with thompson smg
• 2 squads each of eight men armed with two thompsons and two BARs, squads had tough fighters upgrade
• Sniper team
• Medium mortar
• MMG team
• Forward Air observer
• Bazooka Team
• Lone Medic

German Defenders

• Lt. with assistant both equipped with STG 44
• panzergrenadier squad with hanomag counting 8 men, 2 two MG42, squad leader with MP40 smg
• grenadier squad counting 8 men, 2 MG-42 and squad leader with MP40 SMG
• SS squad of six men equipped entirely with STG-44 transported by Hanomag
• MG-42 MMG team

From Report of Lt.Taylor:

My patrol discovered large artillery gun located in Village Dreils , i then contacted my CO for futher orders, and as i predicted we had been tasked to take it out before Krauts know what hit them, the gun was lightly guarded only one grenadier squad and stationary german MMG so it if we would be lucky we can move in and out fast, but in this goddamned war nothing goes according the plan......

AAR:

Germans started their game near objective they deployed one squad in ruin and MMG team deployed in undamaged

house. mobile reserve in form of panzergrenadiers is already on way while SS in not far behind.

US troops deployed their snipers on hill, Mortar on open ground  MMG and observer in white ruin and 1st squad, Platoon leader, Bazooka and Medic on edge of forest. 2nd Squad is left in reserves and trying outflank maneover from right. Us observer calls down airstrike on the ruin with grenadiers while mortar put some shells on house but unable to smash through the roof and snipers arent able to harm MMG team. US strike group advance to the forest near the bocage planing to takedown grenadiers in ruin. Knowing that Dough boys are comming grenadiers lying in ambush aiming at bocage.

In second turn the Americans ordered another Airstrike on MMG house, while first strike has been delayed, the Waffen SS squad arriving on scene and rushing toward
battle. the Germans sprung their ambush as US forces moved to the bocage, and while US troops took heavy casaulties they inficted also same on germans, MMG returning fire on mortar and while taking down two crew-members , mortar returning fire but without effect.

Observer was finally able to contact Air force and one P47 strafed the ruin while attack was not devastating the more effect was worse and US troops charged the building while second outflanking squad arrived on scene.

The second squad is wiped out by arriving SS troops but giving enough time time to send squad commander and bazooka team took positions in ruin. Air observer managed to target SS squad.

at the start of fifth turn second Thunderbolt arrived and wipeout SS squad  - only single trooper remained, the germans then tried to assault building with everything they´ve got but every assault failed (killing three americans) due morale issues last squads was unable to launch attack and US contested the objective the mission ended draw