Frondula VI: Show and Kill - The Game

There were six of us for the game. Each with a 1000 points 6mm FWC army

• Graham: X31 / Tau 
• Mark: Terminators 
• Mike: Hunter-Scavengers / Orks 
• Shaun: Andrayadans 
• Steve: Space Marines 
• Me: Hunter-Scavengers / Orks

The table was the usual 6x4 desert style
There were 8 Frondulan colonies spread around the table waiting to see the precious things.
Shaun's Andrayadans and my Hunter-Scavengers landed close to each other. My precious things were being transported by a de-activated Ogrethullu .
Graham's Tau appeared at the Research Centre whilst Steve's Marines appeared in a firing squad formation very very close to Mark's soon-to-be-terminated Terminators. They even managed to present to the same Frondulan.
My transport getting ready to present - those claws were useful for carrying the Enemy Killed bonus cards. Meanwhile Graham boldly pushed his Tau forward leaving his transport to get captured by Mike's Orks

There was a lot of transport being captured mainly because it was easier to capture other people's transport rather than move your own - a flaw in the scenario.

Steve captured Mark's, Mike captured Graham's and Shaun's and Shaun captured mine.

A double presentation by Mark and Steve whilst Mike captures Shaun's transport with his bikers

It was quite a bloody game with Mark being destroyed twice and Shaun once

Here is Mark's description of the game

 The Terminator Assault Wave lasted all of 2 moves - in Steve's 1st turn - & 1 initiative assault move in mine (but at least we presented precious things to the Frondulans). I think the idea of using a Breakpoint:2 army despite it being 'well-'ard' Cyborgs needs a bit more thinking & practice ...

 The Progenitors arrived right into the midst of a gun-fight between Grahams Species X31 & Mikes Orks - did a bit of OK shooting (Smart-Missiles at Steve's Marines ... smoking ... as well as lobbing a few shells at both the Orks & Tau ... probably not the best plan ... shoot at all 3 of your neighbours at once) but then got well & truely mauled by Graham & finally tuffed up by Steve's marines ... but again we managed to 'present' to the Frondulans ... gaining points ... and we all know what points make now don't we boys & girls? 

Unfortunately the next army choice didn't manage to make it onto the planet (as we'd run out of time) ... but it might have been my BP:10 Orange Orks or another BP:3 army - my Kra'Vak fast armour attack squadron ... but we'll never know.

I managed to own a hill until Shaun attacked me. Mind you I had shot up loads of his kit.. My cunning plan was to drop infantry off at each Frondulan colony but as I only got to one it wasn't that cunning


We each managed 4 turns which isn't bad considering there were 6 of us with a 1000 points each - that's 24 turns.

The final score was Mark, Mike & Steve with 2 presentation points, Shaun and myself with 1 and Graham with 0.

With hindsight I would change the scenario so that transports  move at 30 and instead of being captured they flee 30cm in a random direction when overrun.

Frondula VI: Show and Kill - The Scenario

This is a Sci-Fi scenario - we used Future War Commander with 6mm figures

Frondula VI is an Earth-type world with an extremely sentient plant life-form that dominates the planet. This plant, known as the Frondulans, manifests itself as colonies of tentacles or fronds. It has been impossible to ascertain whether each colony is a separate entity or whether it is a single world-wide organism.

Due to it’s immense economic importance, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frondula, almost every other sentient life-form in the galaxy desires access to the planet. However in order to establish a base on Frondula it is necessary to placate the all-pervading Frondulans.

 These tentacle-like plants love nothing better than extreme violence and precious things. Therefore once a year any life-forms intending to maintain a base on the planet must engage in combat and display their precious things to the Frondulans. 

Failure to amuse them results in the Frondulans denying access to the life-form and in some cases to all life-forms as was the case in 2524 when the plant got so annoyed with the MacGregor clan for presenting Bugmans beer yet again that it put on a growth spurt that enveloped the entire planet to a height of some 2 miles and then slowly pulled the arms, legs and other appendages off anything that had not been crushed or strangled by the irate vegetable.

Unsurprisingly it is that time of year when extreme violence must be committed and precious things be presented.

Forces will be transported to the planet’s surface using random orbital deployment ie roll a dice to see where you are located on the table

In order to present precious things to the Frondulans transport unit must start the initiative phase in contact with a Frondulan colony. A player can never present more than once to a colony.

The force with the most presentation points wins.  If a force is destroyed then it keeps it’s presentation points but discards all other presentation bonuses and is brought back in via random orbital deployment.

Colonies block line of sight and fire and are impassible to all – even grav units

How to Present

Presentation involves rolling 2 dice and consulting the table

Double 1	Remember 2524? Roll 1 dice and lose that many units All other players lose 1 unit
5 or less	Yuck – wrong shade of pink. Lose 1 unit
6-8	Didn’t we see a bigger one of those last year? Gain 1 Presentation Point
9-10	mmmm Nice Roll 1 dice and add that to any CV rolls this turn Gain 1 Presentation Point
11 plus	Ab Fab! You can’t get that in Harvey Nics Roll 1 dice and add that to any CV rolls this turn Gain 1 dice to re-roll once per turn Gain 1 Presentation Point
Double 6	Precious – we wants it! Roll 1 dice and add that to any CV rolls this turn Gain 3 dice to re-roll once per turn CO’s CV goes up 1 for remainder of game

Dice Modifiers
+1 Every enemy unit destroyed by your force
-1 Every turn without presentation (ignore 1st three)

These must be used when presenting after which they are discarded

Forces

1000 point army
- no aircraft, tunneller units or massive units
- no off-board artillery or orbital strikes
- no minimums - however maximums still apply

You will require 1 transport at no cost to carry "The Precious Things"

This has the stats

Troops	Arm	Move	Attacks	Assault	Hits	Save
Transport	Armour	20F	0	0	200 S	2 T

Notes

1. Shield is passive so does not inflict hits
2. Cannot be targeted for recce
3. Can be overrun in which case it is immediately captured
4. Does not block line of sight or fire

FWC - Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster Galore!

This  scenario is based very very loosely on the film Whisky Galore!

The automated deep space bulk carrier "Gordon Malcolm" with a cargo of several trillian decalitre of Presidential grade Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster was damaged in a geomagnetic storm and forced to land on the planet Todday in the New New New Hebrides system.

The carrier had come down in an arid region of Todday inhabited by clans of ne'er-do-wells that eke out an existence by robbing each other blind.

The objective was to loot as much Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from the carrier and get it to one of the four shanty towns situated in each corner of the board. Note - make sure all towns are the same distance from the carrier otherwise it might giver one player a very big advantage.

Each player was allowed 1000 points - massive units, off-board artillery, orbital strikes and air strikes were banned. In addition each player had 3 trucks which could not be targeted but could be captured by being overrun by a unit. Trucks could move 20cm but only in the player's initiative phase.
Shaun had his Andrayadans - mainly target acquiring recce units and auto-linked walkers. Graham went with EuroFed - tough hover tanks and IFVs
I went with my latest force - Hunter Scavengers.

The battle was pretty chaotic with 3 sides. Shaun was helped by having his shanty town a whole move closer  to the carrier than anyone else. Graham's EuroFeds were lethal in a fire fight and my troops zoomed all over the place.
The highlight of the game for me was getting my scavies onto Graham's flank, giving them the order to fire and then rolling Double 1 which allowed me not only to fire on his flank but then have a free assault move which took out a fair chunk of his force.
However this was then followed up by me ending my turn too close to Graham's remaining tanks. He destroyed several of my bikes and death trucks with tank fire. On my turn as I was within initiative range of his tanks I had to assault. His tanks destroyed every unit that assaulted with defensive fire. I failed my break point roll so therefore I had to start again with a new force.
Whilst Graham and I were merrily destroying one another Shaun was merrily looting the carrier and getting the contents back to his shanty town.
Graham finally failed his break point roll only to return with a fresh force that destroyed everything in it's path. I managed to capture one of  Shaun's trucks but it was not enough as Shaun managed to get the other 2 back. Game to Shaun

FWC Bootcamp 2012 - Sunday

On previous FWC Bootcamp's the Sunday game has been a big two-sided multi-player game which although fun has been a bit shambolic. This year I asked Gordon to come up with a multi-game scenario for "The Big Game" and he did.

His scenario synopsis was Space Marines  land on  Formahault-7, a desert world full of unfriendly natives, looking for a damaged pirate ship and some important hostages.  The hostages mean that WOMD are not available. The success of the mission will be influenced by the outcome of several recce missions.  Storyline credits go to ‘Star Wars ’ and ‘Black Hawk Down’.

This meant 3 2-player Recce missions in the morning where the Space Marines could gather Intel and a multi-player Assault in the afternoon using that Intel

The Recce missions were 2000 point affairs with the SMs deploying in the centre of the table and getting victory points for each table edge they reach, returning to the Drop Zone and then getting Evac'ed. On all 3 tables they were faced by Orks.

The first table was desert with "wild beasts". Steve lead the SMs and Mark took the Orks. The SMs found out to their cost that the "wild beasts" were huge Spiders. However they managed to get the full 12 VPs that were very influential in the Assault game.

On table 2 - mountains, valleys and a hydro plant - Gordon's SMs dropped in on Colin's Orks only to be delayed. Eventually they came away with 2 VPs

The last table - the Neptunium mines - was a bit of a blood bath between Paul's SMs and my Orks. The terrain looked great on this table as Gordon had learnt a few tips from Richard P at the recent CWC weekend.

From their DZ the Marines spread out only to start taking casualties from the advancing Orks.
However the Marine FAO started calling down Orbital Strikes which took out a large number of my troops. Even though I managed to kill enough SMs to make them start checking their Break Point they passed it every time and managed to get most of their troops evac'ed

But not all escaped....  Paul came away with 3 VPs for the Space Marine Intel.

The Intel results allowed the SMs to pin-point the location of the hostages and to discover that the "Hubcap" mining complex was in fact a hologram generated by the Pirates, who turned out to be Eldar-aarrr, in order to hide their ship repairs.

The ship was placed on the table and the table was extended to include the area where the hostages were held. Mark prepares to guard his "Manor"

Gordon once again putting out some lovely terrain and even doing an overnight paint job on the FWC Bootcamp 2012 Souvenir - the Shanty Town Watch Tower - made by Shaun at Dreamholme Scenics

The Eldar spaceship - actually a Revell Star Wars Republic Star Destroyer - acted as a very heavy command bunker. The Eldar had a 1000 points of Infantry defending it as well as some Anti-Tank turrets.

Helping them hold the town were Mark and Colin with the survivors of the Recce Missions.

The Space Marines had two objectives - rescue the hostages and capture the pirate ship.

The first they achieved without any loss but they declined to assault the Space-ship due to the number of casualties they were likely to take. No doubt they will wait until the ship leaves the planet.

Thanks to Gordon for organizing the day's gaming - it was interesting to fight the mini-campaign.

And thanks to everyone for turning up to take part. Before this weekend I was thinking of pulling the plug on future Bootcamps due to lack of interest. However I feel that this has been the best one yet and  I'll definitely be putting it on next year

FWC Bootcamp 2012 - Saturday

The 3rd annual Future War Commander Bootcamp took place on May 26th/27th 2012 at the Tudor Arms in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. FWC Bootcamp is not a tournament or competition instead it aims to teach the game to new players as well as allowing us to try out new armies, rules and scenarios.

Numbers were down this year due to a clash with Expo. Normally we have between 8 and 10 players but this weekend saw us reduced to 7 - oh come on - what do you expect  - this is probably the niche-est of niche wargaming event :)

On the Saturday we normally have a couple of 1 v 1 2000 point games but this time we started with a 7 player 1000 point Mad Max free-for-all game on an 8x6 desert-themed board. We had Orks (Mark), Space Marines (Angel Barracks' very own Michael), Eldar (Paul), Euro-Feds (Graham), Khazari (Gordon), Kratonians (Steve) and Pax Arcs (me) - Kiwi Dave later took over the Space Marines.


Here we see Paul - who had travelled all the way from Portsmouth - good on you mate - surveying the terrain and then ordering his Eldar to their doom at the hands of the Kraytonian Twins - 2 Pink Grav tanks that wouldn't die!

As we enjoyed playing this game we carried on playing it for the rest of the day - if you got wiped out then you returned with another 1000 points of whatever took your fancy - for instance Paul came back with his stairs-defying Daleks.

My Pax Arcs had a bad day, firstly being wiped out by Orks after taking out loads


The Pax Arcs seen here being taken in the rear by the Orks but managing to turn and take out hordes of Death Trucks

We then got taken out a for a second time by the Kraytonian Twins who in turn managed to destroy themselves due to fall-backs.

I'm not sure who got the most wipe-outs - I think it may have been Steve's Kraytonians.

Michael from Angel Barracks brought his 6mm Sci-Fi stock down including his new buildings - excellent stuff.

I will cover the Sunday games in  the next post

Camerone - 149th anniversary re-fight

The Battle of Camerone or Camarón first came to my notice through reading Look and Learn in the 1970s and 80s. Angus McBride did quite a few illustrations for the magazine and his images of the ferocious fight at  Camerone caught my imagination.

Today, 30th April 2012, is the149th anniversary of the battle and it is also the night we meet at the Slimbridge club so I decided to do a re-fight.

Last stands are always tricky to do on the wargames table as it still needs to be an entertaining game for both sides even though everyone knows the outcome. A search on the internet throws up quite a few rule sets and scenarios for Camerone.

I decided to use the scenario from Tim Tilson's Colonial Campaigns book Maximilian in Mexico. Although Tim's scenarios are geared towards using The Sword and the Flame rules, I find that with a slight tweak we can use our own rules - well Rodge's rules.

I spent the weekend making a very functional Hacienda. This morning there was a post on TMP from the Mad Guru about his 150th Anniversary Camerone blog which has some very interesting picture, plans and descriptions. Mad intends to build the Hacienda in 25mm . I intend to wait until he has fully researched it and then get Rodge to build it in 15mm  8)

The walls of the Hacienda were too high to climb and the Republicans had no ladders so the only entrances are two at the north wall by the road and one in the south-west corner.


The game starts with the Legion already in the Hacienda. They have 4 units each of 12 figures plus 3 officers, Capitaine Danjou and sous-lieutenants Maudet and Vilain,  so bizarrely there are 51 figures on the table representing 49 men. Danjou can be seen in the centre of the right-hand photo with Vilain just up and to his left and Maudet between the 2 units holding the north wall

The Republicans attack in 3 waves. Each wave is either 4, 6, 8 or 10 units of regular or irregular infantry chosen by the Republican players. Each regular unit is worth 2 Victory Points (VP) to the French and each irregular unit  is 1 VP. The Republicans get VPs for killing the French. There are also VP awarded  to each side for other activities but I'm sure Tim would appreciate it if you bought his book to find those out.

An assault wave ends when the Republicans roll less than the number of units they have lost.


For the first wave the Republicans decided to send in 10 irregular units. They also get a half unit for free that starts on the roof of the Hacienda which is why Vilain's squad is lined up ready to give them a volley.


The Republican irregulars armed with muskets avoided a shooting match and went straight into the attack. After losing a couple of units they failed their assault wave roll and left the table.

VP score  The Legion 10 Republicans 8

Our rules for shooting are very simple - the shooter rolls a D6 and modifies by -1 if over half range and -1 if target is in cover - the target then rolls a D6 and has to equal or better the shooter's dice otherwise they receive 1 hit. If the score is double then they receive 2 hits. Officers with units hit are killed if they roll the number of hits received.

Melee is the same except that modifiers also include +1 if officer attached to unit and +1 if supported by another unit.  Hits are the dice difference divided by 2 and rounded up so a score of 5 to 3 would inflict 1 hit. As well as hits both sides get a fatigue for fighting in melee. When this reaches a certain level then a -1 modifier is applied

In the photos red counters are hits and yellow counters are fatigue.

The Republican second wave had 6 regular units and 4 irregular giving the French an extra 6 VPs.


This wave saw sous-lieutenant Maudet fall with his squad defending the front gates and Capitaine Danjou shot as his squad held the breach in the south-west corner. Although the Republicans failed their assault wave test they carried on by giving the French a VP for each turn they stayed on.

VP score The Legion 30 Republicans 31.


The 3rd and final wave again saw the Republicans charge on with 6 regular units and 4 irregular giving the French yet another 16 VPs. This time the Republicans fired off several volleys which saw the squad at the south-west die and also one of the squads holding the gates.

The last remain squad commanded by sous-lieutenant Vilain retried to the stables to hold off 10 Republican units.


And they did!

The number of 6s the Legion rolled in succession was astonishing - the 2 French players even changed their dice. Eventually the Republicans failed their assault wave roll. Carrying on by giving the French a VP for each turn they stayed on would not make any difference so the Republicans retired leaving sous-lieutenant Vilain and his very fatigued squad holding the Hacienda and awaiting the Relief Column

Final VP score The Legion 51 Republicans 40.

The French were lucky in the huge number of 6s they rolled and in the fact that the Republicans didn't stand-off and shoot - although the French get VPs if no Republican units charge in a turn.

My thanks to Tim for an excellent scenario, to Rodge for a excellent set of rules and to Steve, Paul, Shaun and Graham for playing

More photos can be found here