Gruntz Battle Report - FMC vs Khanate strike force

We played half of another game of Gruntz last weekend.  The action was broken up by other considerations, brewing beer and making dinner, so we didn't get to finish the game.  This was my second game and The Traveller's first.

The table.

Sci-Fi Monday - Battle Report - X-Wing

The other night I arrived for our Thursday night game and Tony was running Jonathan through an introductory game of X-Wing.  They both had bought starter sets, and I had brought mine with me.  After the intro game we decided to play a big game of X-Wing instead of the scheduled LotR.  100 points each side, and nine ships on the table later, we were ready to go.

The brave and scrappy Rebel line prepares for battle.

Sci-Fi Monday - Firestorm Invasion

Studio Sparta is preparing to release three games set in the Firestorm Armada universe.  Spartan has spent the last few years developing the background for this system, and there is plenty of scope for them to add to it.  There has been speculation about what scale their long promised ground game would be in.  The two most common scales discussed were 28mm and 15mm with 10mm and 6mm thrown out as ideas from time to time.  The surprising thing is not the choice they made but, rather, that they didn't choose...

Dindrenzi and Terrans face off in a tank knife fight.

Sci/Fi Monday - Gruntz card building

Gruntz is my current ruleset for 15mm sci/fi.  Having said that, I haven't played a real game of it yet, but that's beside the point.

Gruntz uses cards to depict the units.  The cards have all of the stats and can have a picture as well.  You can play without the cards, of course, it is a mini game not a card game, but the cards make it a lot easier.  There has not been a good way to make unit cards.  Some people create them in PhotoShop.  Some use Xcel, some use PDF forms, word templates, etc.  All fiddly and not very user friendly.

Looking sharp, but very fiddly to build.

15mm Sci/Fi Manufacturer Links

My links have gotten a little bit out of control.  In order to remedy that I'm creating link posts that will go under a page tab at the top of the blog.  Click on the page tab for links, click on the genre you are interested in and there they will be.  Boom!  Bob's your uncle.  Nice, clean and organized.

This week will be the 15mm Sci/Fi Manufacturers.  I've actually been keeping these on another page, but this will be a lot easier.

(edit)  Barks gave me a list of several others I hadn't heard of.  I was not able to find Armies Army but the rest are below.  I have Oddzial Osmy under fighting 15's.  There is also a US distributor and if I can find them again I'll add that link.  Thanks Barks.

(edit 2)  I added Black Cat Bases with their new releases (28 August 2012)

Sci-Fi Monday - Caliphate drop ship

The Caliphate of Martel, much like the Federation, uses mostly imperial designs.  Their standard small drop ship, carrying a squad, is the Sabre design, called the Scimitar in Caliphate service.  The Scimitar is the most common assault dropship model for Caliphate light infantry formations.

The Scimitar.  This is about the size of a current Blackhawk.

Sci/Fi Monday - Terrain

My foray into 15mm is very recent, this year in fact.  As such I had no terrain for this scale.  Everything was scaled for 28mm.  When it comes to hills and trees, this is not a huge problem.  Man made structures, on the other hand, have to be the right scale.

I have been, slowly, adding to my 15mm terrain.  On the fourth of July GameCraft Miniatures had a 20% off sale and I jumped on the chance to add some 15mm buildings to my table.

On August 1st my order arrived and the fun began.

The possibilities are endless.

Sci/Fi Monday - Federation Marine Corps

The Federation Marine Corps is one of the elite forces of the Federation of Neu Normandie.  Formed out of elements of the Imperial Marine Corps, immediately following the declaration of the Federation, there are two main missions for the FMC.

The first mission is that of ships guards.  There are Marine detachments on all vessels of cruiser size and above.  These ships guards serve in two roles.  They guard against mutiny by the sailors; rare now but not uncommon in the days immediately following the withdrawal of the imperial forces.  In this role the Marines are billeted between the crew and officers with two Marines in power armor always manning the one hatch that separates officer's country from the crew.

The second role of the ship's guards is to serve in boarding actions.  The Marine detachment will both defend against enemy boarding attempts and, much more to their tastes, board enemy ships, capturing them for the Federation.

The second major mission area for the FMC is to secure a planet head on an enemy planet.  The transition from space to terra firma is, by far, the most difficult of all military missions.  The FMC specializes in dropping to a planet and securing a planet hold which can support the landing of larger Army forces.

The nature of the mission demands that the FMC be equipped with grav vehicles.  While grav technology is mindbogglingly expensive, it is the only way to reliably accomplish the mission of seizing a planet head.  The FMC uses dropships for follow on forces, primarily logistics and mechs, but the main force will be dropped from low orbit in grav vehicles.

The FMC is task organized into mixed air/space/ground task forces of battalion strength.  There are Marine Divisions but they are administrative rather than operational organizations.  The divisions are force providers for the fleet and the strike elements.

The basic building block of the combat force is the Marine Planetary Assault Unit (MPAU).  The MPAU, (pronounced M-POW), is built around a rifle battalion.  To this is attached a command element, an aerospace element and a logistics element.  The MPAU is capable of capturing a heavily defended spaceport and holding it long enough for the Army's forces to arrive by drop ship.

The MPAUs serve aboard ship, located close to the action.  As such they are often the first force available when a crisis erupts.  This fact has resulted in an additional, unofficial, mission being added to the mission set of the FMC's MPAUs.  They are often called upon to land on a planet under attack and add some firepower and elite skill to the local defense forces.  While this is not an official mission the pragmatic nature of the Corps means that all MPAUs are trained to conduct training of indigenous forces.

The FMC is the go-to force in the most trying of circumstances.  When the Federation needs forces on a planet immediately they turn to the FMC and it's aggressive infantry to accomplish the mission, whatever it is.

Sci-Fi Monday - Star Drives

The Kang-Smith Jump Drive.

Extra solar system human space travel became feasible when the Kang-Smith jump drive was developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA in 2237.  The KS drive allowed ships to disappear in one location and reappear up to three light years distant, instantaneously.  Later improvements to the KS drive allowed jumps of up to seven light years.

The jump drive, as it is called, is powered by a battery system, the Twitch Battery, which discharges all of its energy in one giant release.  The battery is then recharged via the ship's fusion engines.  Initial battery/engine combinations took up to three days to recharge, limiting the speed of a ship to approximately six light years a week.  Later developments allowed two battery sets to be carried, and recharged in only two days, enabling  a jump per day, or two in rapid succession.  When combined with the longer jump distances, of seven light years, this improved the speed of a jump ship from six light years per week to 49 light years per week.

Sci/FI Monday

Now that I'm back at work I've been having a much harder time finding both time and desire for hobby.  Working two jobs just kicks my butt.  By the time I've gotten the boys to bed it's all I can do to read everyone else's blogs.

In an effort to kick things up a notch I'm going to devote Mondays to science fiction.  Every Monday I'll have a post about Sci/Fi.  I was going to start this last week but I had food poisoning and just wasn't up to it.  I was so sick that I was throwing up things I haven't even eaten yet.

The first few posts will lay out the background for my Sci/Fi setting.  I don't know about the rest of you but I need to have a context to put my games in.  Even if I'm not playing an actual campaign I can still place the battles into a campaign like context.

I've written the first post, and it's a doozy.  I won't blame you if you can't wade through the whole thing.  I'll be posting it up on Monday morning, if I can remember before I head off to work.  That will get it up in prime time for my UK followers and it will be waiting for the lunch crowd here in the States.