Tuesday 23 August 2016

Gale Force Nine - TANKS - The British are Coming


Three finished British Tanks for the smashing TANKS Skirmish Game by Gale Force 9. These are the same plastic tanks that Battlefront produce for Flames of War but come seperately packaged with stat and upgrade cards for the skirmish game.

Comet - 23rd Hussars, 11th Armoured Division


The Comet tank was a British Cruiser tank that first saw use near the end of the Second World War. It was designed as an improvement on the Earlier Cromwell tank, mounting a 77mm Hvy gun in a new lower profile and part-cast turret. This gun was effective against late war German tanks, including the Panther and, at most ranges, the Tiger. The Comet was widely respected as one of the best British tanks of the war.




Cromwell - 15th/19th Kings Royal Hussars, 11th Armoured Division

The Cromwell tank, was one of the most successful of the series of cruiser tanks fielded by Britain in the Second World War. Named after the English Civil War Leader Oliver Cromwell, the Cromwell was the first tank put into service by the British to combine a dual-purpose gun, high speed from the powerful and reliable Meteor engine and a reasonable armour in a balanced package. This design formed the basis of the later Comet tank.



Sherman Firefly - 27th Armoured Regiment (Canadian) Sherbrooke Fusileers

The Sherman Firefly was a tank used by the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth and Allied Armoured formations in the Second World War. It was based on the US M4 Sherman and fitted with the powerful 3 inch British 17-pounder anti-tank gun as its main weapon. Originally conceived as a stopgap unitl future British tanks designs came into service, the Sherman Firefly became the most common vehicle mounting the 17-pounder in the war.





The Sherman firefly actually shows the 4th Canadian Armoured Division symbol. This has now been repainted.

Sunday 21 August 2016

Infinity ITS Tournament - Northern Alliance Open: Number 6


Second Infinity ITS tournament in as many months and after the great introduction I had in Preston, this time it was the Northern Alliance Open No 6 held in Leeds.

Another 300pt event where you could bring two lists for your force, which I did do this time and again consisted of 3 games covering the following ITS Scenarios:


As I have no other faction available/painted etc I once again took my ALEPH - Steel Phalanx Sectorial force.

This time with two lists,My force consisted of:

List A:
Achilles
Myrmidon Officer
Myrmidon with a Spitfire
Myrmidon Hacker
Myrmidon with Combi Rifle
Agema Marksman with Mk 12
Thorokitai Forward Observer
Thorakitai Engineer
Thorakitai Paramedic
Zayin HMG Bot
Netrod
Netrod


List B:
Eudoros
Myrmidon Officer
Myrmidon with a Spitfire
Myrmidon Hacker
Myrmidon with Combi Rifle
Myrmidon with Combi Rifle
Myrmidon with Chain Rifle
Thorokitai Forward Observer
Thorakitai Engineer
Thorakitai Paramedic
Agema Marksman with Missile Launcher
Netrod
Zayin HMG Bot

Game 1 - Supremacy vs Tim and his Pan Oceania - Neoterra.

In my first ever ITS game I played this scenario and got absolutely battered, so with some lessons learnt I went with List B for this game. I was going second and deployed with practically everything hidden. Forgetting to strip Tim of two orders by using a Command Token, he quickly used this mistake to rush a Locust along my right flank and tried repeatedly to deploy dropbears and mines. I was fortunate that none of these caused any damage. In the centre and on the left Tim had a Total Reaction HMG that would cause me trouble all game and a Camouflaged Uhlan TAG!

I responded in my first turn with my Agema, shooting missile after missile at his HMG Bot only for him to shrug off any damage, then it was the turn of my Zayin. HMG vs HMG and although tons of lead was thrown around the battle field not much damage caused.

Moving up my dual Enomatarchos link teams turn 1 ended and we both had 2 quadrants, drawing points.

Second turn and Tim again using his Uhlan and Locust started causing casualties in my Steel Phalanx troops. My Myrmidon hacker managed to get to the console on the left and tapped in a controlling subroutine, claiming it for ALEPH. My Thorakites FO managed to gain Telemetry on a Neoterran downed Bot and Tim also managed to gain a Classified Objective.

Moving into the last turn and my Hacker was taken out along with a couple of other troops and the Neoterrans managed to gain control of two consoles on his side of the board. In a last ditch effort my Myrmidon’s and their Officer popped off some smoke and Nibus grenades and the Officer dived off the building she had been using for cover and pelted towards a nearby console. Just then A Neoterran Black Friar using MSV through the smoke loosed off a shot which hit the Officer square in the chest just as she was diving at the console. As the life drained out of her, her fingers slammed down on the consoles command pad making ALEPH its prime controller.

End of the game and all throughout we had drawn points for the quarters, with my last ditch order I had managed to gain two consoles, as had Tim and we both had claimed our classified objective.  Result Draw 6-6 objective points.


Game 2 - Rescue vs Olly and his ALEPH - Steel Phalanx.

Rescue, I thought seemed a straight forward mission but proved to be extremely difficult. Both players had 4 Objective Civilians which were placed on the on opposition’s side of the board. Objective points were scored for rescued civvies in certain areas of your side of the board with the highest amount being awarded if you got a civvie back in your deployment area.

As we both had Steel Phalanx forces (Olly’s obviously being False ALEPH) it was going to be fun as both of us could cancel each other out. Olly had a hard link team including Phoenix and Machon as well as the amazing sniper Atalanta. I set up using my List A including Achilles this time round, hoping his speed and high armour would help.

First turn and Olly locked down my right hand side of the board successfully with a centrally deployed HMG Bot and Atalanta. Her first sniper shot took out my Thorakites Engineer through a window and quickly negated my HMG Bot as well. My Agema in this list only had a MK12 and tried to get into position to take down the Bot but even with his high shooting skill couldn’t manage it as it was quickly repaired by a remote engineer.

Thrasamedes on the other flank made an error in his movement and Achilles was on him straight away, gunning down the Chandra Spec Ops.

Olly moved Phoenix and Machon linked down the flank close to one of his civvie objective markers but suddenly found himself out of orders and under the guns of Achilles. A hail of Spitfire rounds later and Pheonix, Machon and an escorting Myrmidon were on the ground bleeding out. I then sent a lone Thorkites FO running as fast as he could towards a civvie objective.

The Thorakites managed to sync the civvie and dashed back towards cover but finally fell to a well placed shot from Atalanta. Atalanta also managed to down my Mymidon Hacker but she was quickly revived by a timely Thorakites Paramedic.

Olly was in loss of Lieutenant which seriously hindered him, plus having his link team decimated didn’t help. Fortunate for me this left his turn pretty ineffective and I entered my final turn.

I moved Achilles into position and gunned down the false ALEPH HMG Bot although he took a wound in reply. With the centre fire defence negated I dashed my Spitfire Myrmidon around the large building on the right, hugging cover and then managed to gun down Atalanta from behind.

Achilles now free to roam headed straight towards the civvie that had been escorted by the poor Thorakites and synced him. Using his fast speed and my remaining orders I got the civvie back in my deployment area.

End of game and I had killed his Lieutenant, killed more of his troops and claimed my classifieds to win the game 6-2.


Game 3 - Supplies vs Jake and his ALEPH – Steel Phalanx.

Next game and versus Steel Phalanx again! This time round it was for supplies. This mission entailed 3 Tech Coffins placed along the centre of the table and each Coffin contains one supply box. The owner of the most supply boxes at the end of the game gets the most objective points.

Back with List A which included Achilles (Jake had Achilles as well as a link team consisting of Phoenix and Machon-see the pattern here) I got to go first for a change. Straight away I used my Zayin HMG Bot to reduce his bot to complete scrap and my Agema happily gunned down his Agama, who was in cover but it did no good.

My Myrmidon link team ran straight towards the central tech coffin and the Hacker happily broke it open and dashed away with the supplies. On each flank I moved up a Thorakites specialist towards the remaining two tech coffins. Whilst Achilles loitered moodily, waiting for targets.

Jake responded immediately with his Hero heavy link team. Phoenix rocket launched to death my Agema and also downed my HMG bot. His link then moved closer to the Tech coffin and took out my lone Thorakites on that side of the board.

False Achilles moved next to the abandoned bus and set up in suppressive fire, over watching the other tech coffin.
My engineer crawled towards the Zayin and repaired it. The HMG bot opened up on Jakes link and caused some wounds but not enough that Machon couldn’t heal them. Phoenix’s reaction with his rocket launcher completely destroyed my Zayin and took the engineer down as well.

Not being able to get anywhere near the supplies controlled by the False Phoenix and his link I sent my Thorakites FO to snatch the remaining ones under cover of smoke from the friendly Myrmindon link. After grabbing the supplies the FO ran for his life but was pursued by the False Achilles who managed to kill him, leaving the supplies unguarded. The False Achilles was seriously wounded by my Achilles however during this exchange.

My last turn and I broke the Myrmidon link to send the Myrmidon with spitfire to the rear of False Achilles and with a double crit sent the pretender to his death.

The Myrmidon Officer dashed forward, grabbed the loose supply box and then used a Command Token, reformed enough Myrmidons into a link and headed towards a building to defend their hard won supplies.

With no chance of gaining anymore advantage Jake ended his turn after maliciously gunning down one of my Netrods.

At the end of the game I had killed his Achilles, controlled more supplies and had completed Classified Objectives. Jake managed right at the end to trade a Classified into a control HVT but I had won 6-3

My second Infinity ITS tournament done and I had Won 2 Drawn 1. Very Spooky I came 6th (the same as my first tournament) out of 22 and once again came away from the tournament extremely happy and had a great day meeting new people.


Just a few of the very nice tables we got to play on












 Most of the Awesome array of painted forces used on the day