It’s a new year, but not just any new year – 2020, a new decade and DAMN if this wasn’t always the future in pretty much any sci fi film or literature you cared to pick up..
So with this in mind, we decided we wanted to do something BIG. And that meant bringing everything.
Everything?
EVERYTHING.
Our three games systems (yes we’ve only managed to get one actually done and published, but what do you want? There’s only two of us, and at least one of us is usually mashed) all use basically the same engine, and while we haven’t specifically designed them to be compatible, we’d like it if they were.. and so we decided the best way to achieve that was by throwing everything we have onto the table!
We divided the forces into “goodies” and “baddies”:
“Goodies”:
Atlantic Alliance (A:E)
League Of European Nations (A:E)
People’s State Liberation Army (FFW)
Ancien Regime (HW)
Sky Marines (HW)
“Baddies”:
Holy Soviet Army (A:E)
Da Skooderia (FFW)
Virum Naasci (HW)
No real attempt at balance, we were just throwing down and let the dice gods sort it out!
“So who are they?” McAuliffe whispered to Lt. Grant.
Grant sighed. “Look, Mac, you were at the same briefing I was”
And what a briefing it had been. Lots of exotic terminology thrown around – “temporal displacement anomaly”, “quantum entanglement” – but Grant couldn’t shake the feeling that nobody knew quite how this had happened. Something to do with the Deep Space program, according to the whispers. One thing was for sure though – Ivan would be wanting this place too..
Lt. Polikarpov smelled a rat. Literally. That wasn’t an issue in itself, though. The real problem was that the rat in question was stood on hind legs, almost six feet tall with a vicious looking sword, and his political officer was talking to it. Even worse, the rat was replying, in a sibilant but still discernible dialect of Russian. The hulking great creature looming over both of them didn’t help his mood either – it bore a striking resemblance to the Siberian assault troops the task force included, which was intimidating enough in itself, but this one was green.
The lieutenant pondered the situation and decided to quit drinking next week instead.
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We lined up the opposing forces on the wide 6′ edges of the board, up to 24cm forward. No limits to flank deployment, there was too much to squeeze in! To our mutual surprise, the “bad guys” won the deployment roll, picking the southern table edge with the hedgerows and ruined village and forcing the “good guys” to deploy first. Grab yourself a beer, this is going to be a big one!
Sky Marines and Ancien Regime forces deploy firstPSLA (or teeny weeny Astra Militarum, depending on the day) set up on the “Goodies” extreme right – the pile of Ratmen aren’t casualties (yet), just trying to organise the huge hoard into regiments! Buffalo 2-7 arrive! Rocketeers and Silverbugs act as a central “fire brigade” along with the Dreadnought squad and the faster Humvees, while the main force rolls along the extreme left led by the M60A3 Centurions Quite a spectacle!How could we forget ze Churmans? League of European Nations force slots into place next to the PSLA on the rightThe Holy Soviet Army rolls up to greet them – tanks on the left flank, infantry on the right, superheavies anchor the centreRATS! A massive hoard of the chittering, fast moving little buggers desperate to get their claws into the enemy.. while on the “Baddies” left, Da Skooderia take up position, support by a platoon of T-48s and ElektraSpecial forces and assassins infiltrate forwardsWhoah…That’s a LOT of figures!
Battle plans were fairly rudimentary on both sides – the idea was table domination, we placed an objective counter square in the middle of each table quarter, the idea being that whoever controlled more at the end of turn 4 would be the winner.
And with that, battle was joined!
Turn 1
The “Goodies” won the initiative and struck hard! I chose to activate my most lethal units first, the deadly Silverbugs –
Lead Silverbug disables Stompy Uncle Joe with a Stinger/ TOW shot, before ripping through him with the Avenger cannon, toppling the beast – first blood to the Atlantic Alliance!As we were trialling a new activation system, the initiative stayed with the “Goodie” side for a time – the wingman Silverbug immobilised the Rampager super heavy but was unable to destroy it, whilst on the right flank, the PSLA got stuck in, the “General” ripping in to Da Skooderia Dreadnought and a pair of T-48s with battle cannon and laser cannons!As the initiative swung back to the “Baddies”, the Holy Soviet Empire struck back! Twin 130mm cannons on the immobilised IS-6 Rampager…..spell bad news for the PSLA! One destroyed APC and one gutted command section – just the Captain, Commissar and Psychic left!PSLA Heavy Weapons squad wreak absolute havoc on the “Baddie” left flank – immobilising Elektra, another T-48 and sending the Dreadnought into a frenzy, attacking the nearest T-48! Well, they do say no plan ever survives encounter with the enemy.. Having appropriated all that cover in the deployment roll off, the “Baddies” are discovering it’s getting in their way as the second T-48 platon moves forward damaging a couple of Kugelpanzers
Sky Marines and PSLA trade shots with the remnants of Da SkooderiaAfter the utter failiure of either the Soviet Holy Mystic or the Virum Nascii Seer to accomplish anything with their psychic powers, it’s doubly galling when the PSLA Psychic successfully manages to telekinetically drop the 100 ton carcass of Stompy Uncle Joe onto Da Skooderia’s “Big Red” battewagon, destroying it utterly and squishing most of the Orc command (and close combat elite) troops!Virum Nascii Assassin Lord leas his elite troops into combat in the centre, destroying the missile armed Humvee and slaughtering a full squadron of Ancien Regime Grenadiers!Marching grimly over the bodies of their fallen comrades, the second Grenadier squadron charge forward to avenge their fallen brethren! The remains of Da Skooderia finally manage to get going and clear the logjam on the “Baddies” left flank – autocannons on Charles’ Leclork’s buggy gun down PSLA infantry while Kimi Rorkonnen in Red 7 uses his heat cannons to sever the General’s fuel line, crippling the tankThe Big Push begins! Allied armour rolls forward..Holy Soviet infantry are gunned down by machine guns and cannon fireIn the centre of the battle, the Virum Nascii assassins swarm forward, dismembering the minigun Humvee.. Not so lucky now…..Humvee explodes – after failing to kill anything with it’s minigun, in death it redeems itself, wiping out almost all the assassins! Holy Soviet Shock Drones sacrifice themselves to take down an M60A3 Centurion, severing its fuel line and immobilising it!End of turn 1 It’s not looking good for the “baddies”Alot of rats but nowhere for them to go.. The view from Da Skooderia
Turn 2
Silverbug No. 1 darts forward in the centre, Avenger cannon and Stinger/ TOWs incapacitating the remaining Holy Soviet armour Over on the “Baddies” right flank, amidst the remains of the slaughtered Holy Soviet Army infantry platoon, the surviving Virum Nascii Poison Grenadiers spring from cover, their noxious gasses immobilising a Centurion and destroying another!
A string of lucky command rolls allow them to follow up this attack with the sole surviving Tesla trooper missing his target but frying a combat ‘bot and the Virum Nascii Seer manages to telekinetically hurl Silverbug No. 2 at the bottled up Allied APCs, which just dodge being crushed – a dramatic start!Still rolling hot on the command rolls, the Virum Nascii regiments detour to find away towards the battle – their original routes now blocked by hedgerows and burnt out Holy Soviet tanks..Looking for some easy meat, Alliance rocketeers home in on a Virum Nascii archer slave regiment, killing three and suppressing them – but the regiment next to them return fire… 32 arrows, needing 9s to hit.. a Rocketeer falls! And with that the unit becomes suppressed – and so close to enemy forces, with no friendlies nearby, they are captured! That wasn’t part of the plan..Amidst a lethal firefight on the Baddies’ left flank, the damaged Kugelpanzer squadron blow the cannons off Charles Leclork’s Red 5 warbuggy, but poor old Kimi Rorkonnen and Felipe Masha fare even worse as Red 7 is annihilated! Not bad for some tarted up ping pong balls 😉 Alliance Dreadnaught squad line up the Virum Nascii Warrior regiments…….yeah. Miniguns vs shields – this was only ever going to go one way. The few remaining Orks of Da Skooderia attempt to take on the PSLA, Sky Marines and League Of European Nations forces! The view on the “Baddies” left flankSwitching focus back to the “Baddies” right flank, the immobilised M60A3 Centurion nails the Holy Soviet Army APC with a Stinger/TOW shot destroying the vehicle – worse still, the mutant Siberian assault troops that we’d been pinning our hopes on!As turn 2 draws to a close, it’s carnage! But the weight of forces is clearly stacked against the “Baddies” now.. hang on, aren’t the “good guys” always supposed to be the underdogs?!? Looks like it’s going to be down to the Virum Nascii to turn things around in turn 3.. As turn 2 draws to a close, Da Skooderia are largely either dead or on fire, huge casualties amongst the Holy Soviet Army and the Virum Nascii haven’t got off lightly either – still not all plain sailing on the other side, a Silverbug is down, all the Atlantic Alliance tanks are either damaged or destroyed, two Humvees are down, both PSLA vehicles destroyed, and Ancien Regime and PSLA forces have taken pretty hefty casualties too.. what will turn 3 bring?
Turn 3
Turn 3 kicks off with the Baddies winning the initiative and Big Mek Michael Schumorker crippling a Kugekpanzer with his laser cannon, severing it’s fuel line
Carnage in the centre as the surviving Silverbug immolates a T-48 and assault gun, slaughtering Virum Nascii stormt… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Apocalypse: Earth (@ApocalyseEarth) January 24, 2020
The surviving Silverbug hovers eerily in place, Stinger/ TOW missiles incinerating a T-48 and the assault gun, which explodes killing the Virum Nascii Seer! Meanwhile the chin mounted Avenger rotary cannon rips through the Virum Nascii Stormtroopers Inferno on the Baddies’ right flank as the Holy Soviet Army infantry falters – in the midst of a burning wood, Lt. Polikarpov battles the M85 Assault variant combat bot, but falls to it’s vicious assault saw. His sacrifice buys time for the last surviving Holy Soviet rifleman to heroically bring the ‘bot down before being gunned down by Atlantic Alliance fireteam Alfa 2! With the Baddies rapidly running out of units, the Virum Nascii see a chance to enter the fray, charging the Alliance Special Forces team..…overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers, and enacting some small degree of vengeance for the losses they’ve suffered! Unfortunately, the Charge of the Virum Nascii has led them right into the path of the Atlantic Alliance Dreadnaught squad. Servo assisted miniguns, flamethrowers and fragmentation missiles wreak a bloody harvest! Lt. Grant leads his platoon forward, capturing the last survivors of No. 2 Rifle Squad.Autocannon fire from the Stealth Tank combined with machinegun fire from the M113s scythe through the Virum Nascii at practically point blank range, massacring the Warriors and Slaves – in the bottom left you can see the Ancien Regime cavalry squadron charge and encircle the Warlord…
Under a flurry of sabres, the Warlord falls!As Turn 3 ends, devastation reigns!
Turn 4
By this point it was pretty clear who the victors were going to be – Baddies reduced to half a dozen Virum Nascii Slave Archers, the Soviet Holy Mystic with but a single bodyguard and Skooderia Mek Michael Schumorker, but very sportingly Dan wanted to go down swinging, so away we went!
Bad day to be a Baddie..…but not a great one to be a Silverbug pilot either! Summoning his last remaining strength, the Mystic telekinetically hurls the remaining gunship at the Sky MArines/ PSLA comman group and heavy weapons position on the hill opposite the remaining Baddies position. He misses, but that’s the second powerful Alliance asset demolished in this battle. League Of European Nations Fallschirmjagers activate their jump packs to clear the hedgerows and engage the Mystic and his bodyguard with submachine gun and flamethrower at point blank range.. The bodyguard is gunned down, the building set on fire, but still the Mystic has one wound remaining!Having set up a beautiful point blank laser cannon shot into an Alliance Humvee and then promptly whiffing it, Big Mek Schumorker falls to massed PSLA laser fire – death by a thousand pewpews!The few remaining Archer Slaves are whittled down by PSLA, Sky Marine and League Of European Nations fire, before the Ancien Regime Witch Colonel (who, it should be noted, had accomplished F**K ALL all game – whiffing every psychic roll, getting nowhere near an active combat..) pulls out a psychic Heart Punch on the Soviet Holy Mystic, removing his final wound…
….And with that, it was game over! Total Baddie tabling, but not without loss to the Goodies, aside from the two Silverbug gunships, the M60A3 Centurions were all damaged to some degree or other, a regiment of Grenadiers was wiped out and another one not far behind him, significant casualties amongst League infantry, Allied Special Forces team wiped out, a Humvee lost to rampaging ratmen, the PSLA armour was knocked out, and a smattering of moderate casualties through the rest of the infantry.
To be fair, we had no idea about balance and it’s clear that the odds were stacked against the Baddies from the get go in terms of forces. Dan also wryly noted that the hedges he’d intended to use as cover actually just ended up blocking the big Virum Nascii regiments in, and with his left blocked by burning Skooderia and Holy Soviet armour, they had to detour around which led them right into Atlantic Alliance guns, so a few rule tweaks I think – maybe next time count hedges as difficult terrain that slows you down as you get your sword out and hack through it rather than impassable..
Overall conclusions though.. it was a BLAST! Not the most tactical game we’ve ever played, but immense fun, and nice to see that in fact you can link these three different gameworlds and although the fantasy troops got a kicking they were more than just cannon fodder – the image of the SAS fireteam getting eaten by a regiment of giant rats is something that I think will stay with me in terms of game moments!
If you’ve made it to the end, well done, and thanks for sticking with us – it’s pretty obvious why we’ve been a bit quiet the last couple of weeks! Stay thrifty out there, we’ll see you soon
One last look around the battlefield after an absolutely EPIC battle! Stay tuned for the full report in the next few days 👍 pic.twitter.com/7E9c7NtAhH
It’s 2020. The future is HERE. And as our hangovers recede from biblical to manageable (and we plan something BIG….) it’s time to review our 2019!
The year kicked off with a trip back to 1993 as we played through the Warhammer 40k 2nd Ed mini campaign, Marines vs greenskinsin the ash wastes of Armageddon, but we did find time for a diversion to Central Europe of an alternate 1954, for a quite ludicrously violent scrap set in the early days of the Apocalypse War as Stalin’s legions flood across Central and Western Europe. As it turned out, this made for a cracking backstory for the origins of the feud between Lt. Grant and Lt. Polikarpov!
This is definitely something we’re going to have to revisit, as Lt. Grant is currently a POW residing in a Holy Soviet internment camp somewhere on the Orkneys, so a definite game on the horizon will be the insertion of a Special Forces team to break him out, reconstitute Buffalo 2-7 and save Britain from the dastardly Soviets! Something to test our Black Ops game with, I think…
Speaking of One Page Rules, after watching our hobby sensei Wyloch we decided to give them a try- Grimdark Future and it’s skirmish cousin, Grimdark Future Firefight. Although we weren’t 100% converted, it’s a fun and quick system thoroughly well suited to a pickup game – no codexes, everything free, no rules bloat.. it just works! In fact, it’s managed to be everything 40k would like you to think it is, but isn’t (if that makes any sense..).. it’s also inspired a project for this year that is pretty high on the ambition scale… DIY Adeptus Mechanicus! More on this as it starts to take shape.
Counteracted by THIS. Scratchbuilding escalation in Epic scale!
So – busy year all round, really, lots of games played, lots of terrain made, lots of miniatures made and painted. On the horizon for 2020?
Well, I mentioned DIY Adeptus Mechanicus in 1/72, but I also fancy getting some reinforcements for our “legit” 40k armies – most likely in the form of Patoroch papercrafts – as well as more Epic shenanigans, the Virum Nasii to finish, and maybe, just maybe….. just maybe…. we’ll get some more of our rulesets actually put together and published!
So what about you out there in hobbyland? What goals have you got this year/ decade? Send us your comments, and stay thrifty out there!
EDIT: Forgot to mention – one slight negative, this was our first year on record where we had fewer views and visitors – 325/ 81 in 2015, 4095/ 1897 in 2016, jumping up to 18358/ 10297 in 2017 and 21124/ 11324 in 2018.. but down to 16399/ 7578 in 2019.
That said, I’m still pretty pleased as we had an absolute record number of likes and comments, so I’ll take that as a win – clearly more people have realised what we do and made the decision as to whether or not they’re into it, but the ones who do dig what we do are clearly keen! So shout out to Pete S/ SP, John@justneedsvarnish, Imperial Rebel Ork, Davekay and all the rest of you guys out there in hobbyland, keep ’em coming!
Skinflint Games 
