2015 First dice rolling of the year!

I had a fun game this Saturday with Jonathan Rogers and Simon Moules.  Had to get the gas heater on in the garage because of the cold but we managed to stay warm enough to roll dice and push models around. The Pizza break also helped with the cold. 

The Gruntz 15mm SCI-FI game was played on my small 3x3ft terrain table which I normally take to shows as a demo table. If we are not using many vehicles it is a good size, however for a larger game I prefer the 6x4ft size to give armour and grav skimmer type vehicles more room for manoeuvre. 

I had my older East Hyadum Trade forces (Futuristic East India Company troops) and Jon had his mostly Khuransan miniatures Neo-Sov force. 

On around turn 3 I appeared to have the advantage but lost my APC after I had loaded it with my droid unit. It suffered a catastrophic engine failure when destroyed and the Droids perished with it. At that point I resorted to mostly just pounding Jon's NeoSov forces with my mortar from a distance and indirectly. It was a bloody game and I think ultimately that the East Hydadum forces held the ground before the NeoSov's withdrew.  I was successful in holding up his main powered armour unit by suppressing them each round which really slowed their progress. 

Here we are setting up with Jon checking his mobile.

These did not come into play but Jon wanted to show his work in progress on his Grav Skimmers from Antenocitis workshop. He has made various kit bash modifications to the turrets. 

This is my East Hyadum Trade force.  A High Energy Laser specialist, a Mortar an a mix of Gruntz squads all from Ground Zero Games (GZG.COM)

Jon's nearly finished Neo-Sov troops and walker (GZG Crustie Walker).

The full 3x3ft layout aerial view.  Having the stack like hills in place gives even a small board plenty of places for tactical movement. 

An early move got these troops into cover. 

This is a GZG APC which I have modified with a plasma turret and a couple of extra bits.

You can see for speed of play I had 

I wrote Gruntz but I still need to check the rule book! I was reminding myself that a rear shot on my APC was going to get a +2 damage on the damage roll in the rear arc. 

Water vaper blown over the board to give it a smoke filled look for the photo.  Jons Khurasan Power armour troops are modified by using a robotic style head. 

In the distance you can see my shielded Spider droids held the line with their force shields in position. 

One of the Spider Droids shields has been over powered. 

Making use of the shielding provided by the Droids giving the troops an added screen. 

My GZG skimmer grav bikes were able to put pressure on troops quickly with their fast movement but they were a little fragile and were soon wiped out. 

Cards placed for Card activation using the Gruntz activation cards which can be bought on Wargames Vault It added a chaotic feel with random activation of units between players. 

Shields Up! 

Robotic assets. 

Activation cards on the dropship launch pad.

Full Thrust New Anglian vs Federal Stats Europa (British Vs French).

I had a fun game of Full Thrust from GZG at the local club on Friday.  I am still amazed at how satisfying it is to play Full Thrust, after many years my old fleet still feels fresh to play and involves some in depth tactical play. Sadly my great tactical ineptitude kicked in and I moved my missile firing vessels in far to closely which, presenting big easy targets for the NAC.  I had the FSE (Federal Stats Europa) fleet with some additional models from Zandris IV and Ninja Magic.  I simply did not have enough in FSE models to be able to match Steve's "New Anglian Confederation" (NAC) fleet so I had to drag out some additional models from my collection.  

For those interested, the game Gruntz was influenced by Full Thrust and the damage tracks and critical process was an inspiration for how I built the damage system in Gruntz. 

On my left flank I sent in a group of four Sub-Munition pack Hydra Class Destroyers which I had stated up as larger ships than the model would normally dictate. This was not really fair on Steve because he thought they were smaller vessels than I was representing with the small models. However I had limited models to use so they were the only thing close to size I could use.  It is worth discussing sizes with your opponent to avoid a surprise when a tiny approaching ship is actually supposed to be a carrier! 

Here is the Hydra class (represented by the small green group of 4 ships on the top left of the above photo).  Image from the http://fullthrust.star-ranger.com/FSEstats.htm web site where I pull most of my stats from for the game.  I drop them into a doc and print them. 

You can see the three submunition packs on the ship design (circle with black filled triangle on top). They are powerful one use only weapons, best used at a range of under 6" for the most devastating close range damage.  After using the one shot submunition packs,  the ships then fall back to using just beam weapons which are the circles with a two Class1 and one Class2 in the front arc only. Class1 beam weapons are the weakest with a range limit of 12". Class2 have 24" range. 

Early game my main FSE fleet splits. The moon and planet models provide a block to line of sight and I decide to split my forces. This is a mistake in the end round or two because I simply can't bring them to bear against the NAC fleet because they are too far from the main battle. 

Zandris IV models in the foreground. GZG FSE fleet (old style) in the background. 

Ninja Magic ships. This model in the foreground was my main flagship for my fleet. You can see the small fighter launch bay along the edge of the ship.  I used the following Littorio Class Battledreadnought statistic card to represent it. You can see the single triangle which represents one flight of onboard fighters which I can launch.  The image in the top centre are two missile launchers and the attached magazine of single use missiles.  The FSE fleet is very missile heavy, tending to be lighter armoured than the British New Anglian Confederation and better at longer range with missile launchers. Something I forgot for this game and got in too close! 

Steve's New Anglian Confed (NAC) fleet. These are from the earlier sculpt range from GZG. 

I used the yellow counters to note when a ship had fired each round. 

You can see my Lego Planet in use next to a sphere. These stone spheres are from a crystal shop on the Isle of Wight. The polished stone looks very moon like and you will find many of these stone orbs available on new age crystal web sites or ebay. These ones only cost me about £3 each and make easy drop on terrain. 

My single fighter group is launched from my main dreadnought. Fighters can move 12" a turn in any direction. 

Close up on my older FSE fleet. 

FSE heavies again. These earlier models from GZG tend to be smaller than the more recent re-sculpts on the GZG site. I must admit the newer ships do look nicer and I need to start investing in some of the new models again.