10-12 Eirmont - Plain Sailing?

 By comparison with the first night, the following days were quiet. The sailors and Broneslav made their way to the green dragon's cave and carried away all the remaining treasure. The sailors marvelled at the stinking corpse of the dragon and then at the huge pile of silver that they would be carrying back. They kept a wary eye out for more giant lizards, but the trek back to the ship went quietly and the worst they had to suffer was biting insects and a few jump scares caused by smaller lizards scuttling through the undergrowth.

Once back at the ship, Broneslav distributed most of the treasure among his crew according to Captain Decentius' ideas of what share each sailor should have. It was the captain's prerogative to determine share in accordance with the ship's articles.

With everything tied down, the crew set to hauling up the sails, or rather letting them down from the yardarms, and the ship began the journey back to Specularum. It was a fine, warm day as the Stout Meg cut through the waves and Broneslav was just beginning to relax when a dragon-like head emerged from the waves. Five more similar heads followed and a bow wave built up as they all surged forwards towards the ship.

"Hydra!" called the man in the crow's nest.

The captain cursed.

Broneslav grabbed his bow and nocked two arrows.

Two of the hydra's heads slumped with arrows in the eye. By now the sailors were racing to grab their own weapons.

The youthful warrior chuckled to himself.

"That was lucky," he muttered and nocked another arrow.

Another head slumped into the water. Three remained and it attacked with all of them. The sailors ducked and dodged, but one was unlucky. He screamed an unearthly scream as it bit him in half.

Drawing his sword, Broneslav leapt into the fray. In the blink of an eye, his sword flashed out and three hydra heads fell on the deck. The rest of the creature's body sank, a spreading pool of blood on the water being the only sign that it had been there.

After a short remembrance of the fallen sailor, the Stout Meg sailed on her way.

New Antioch Lieutenant (Trench Crusade)

 I picked up the stls for the New Antioch warband from Trench Crusade the other day. It's my brother's fault because he bought into the Kickstarter and influenced me! The first figure I printed was the Lieutenant who leads them all. Then I got enthused and sat down and painted him in an evening. I tend to rate my painting as functional rather than good, but I am quite pleased with how he turned out.

He was printed on a Bambu Labs P1S FDM printer with a 0.4mm nozzle and the HOHansen settings. The figures are really designed for resin printers, but that is not practical for me, so FDM it must remain. As a result, there are some slight defects in the print, but they, and the layer lines, are really only visible close up. At tabletop distances these issues are not obvious, especially with the figure slathered in paint.

The rest of the warband will follow once I get the current terrain project finished and can try out my new 0.2mm nozzle. No hurry though. I have plenty of other things to be working on in the meantime.

So, with the preamble out of the way, let me introduce you to Lieutenant Ross Duncan of the 9th Blairgowrie Fusiliers. 

4-9 Eirmont - Mosquitoes and Baboons and Tyrannosaurs, oh my!

 Rested and bathed, Broneslav felt good being on board his ship, The Stout Meg, and letting others take the burden for a while. That first night, they stopped at the village of Burowao. The locals were friendly and knew what to expect because of the contact with Tanaroa. It took four more days of sailing to reach the point where Broneslav wanted to make land briefly. He knew it would take two days to reach the dragon's cave from here and two more to return so he packed accordingly.

The explored part of the Isle of Dread

"Captain, I need half a dozen stout men, who can help me carry away the treasure I know is here. Will you detail them or find volunteers?"

The captain found six volunteers and Broneslav made sure they were outfitted appropriately. The ship's boat landed them and they made their way into the interior. The sailors grumbled about having to walk instead of sail, but still marvelled at the colourful wildlife around them. That night they camped in a clearing in the jungle.

Their preparations for camp were disrupted by a loud crashing in the undergrowth as something huge approached. The sailors drew their cutlasses and Broneslav drew his broadsword as they backed to the far side of the clearing. Moments later a monstrous lizard crashed into the clearing and gave an earsplitting, fearsome roar. This was too much for one of the sailors, who dropped his cutlass and ran off into the jungle.

The monstrous lizard charged. Broneslav charged too. He guessed that this way the beast would focus on him and not on the unarmoured sailors. His sword glittered in the air and blood flew as he sliced a nasty gash in its side. It bit at him, its teeth leaving bloody gashes. He then ducked under the beast's gaping mouth as its teeth tore more holes in his flesh and cut another massive gash in the lizard's throat. The next exchange saw both parties cutting smaller tears in each other's flesh, but the Tyrannosaurus Rex was weakening faster than Broneslav. The young hero leapt into the air, planting a foot on its nose to steady himself, as the dinosaur reached down to bite at him once more. His sword pierced its eye and penetrated its tiny brain. Moments later the lizard crashed to the earth with a noise like thunder. It thrashed a while and then lay still.

Broneslav washed his wounds and bandaged them. He was used to this, but the sailors' jaws had dropped at the speed of the violence. Then he turned to the sailors, whose number had been strengthened by a sheepish looking man. The returning sailor picked up his cutlass again as Broneslav spoke.

"We'd better move our camp, lads. This beast will attract scavengers and we won't get a good night's sleep otherwise. Grab yourself a souvenir if you want. No one will believe you when you tell them about this beastie if you don't."

The sailors looked big-eyed at Broneslav. It was one thing to be told by him that he had slain a dragon and not really believe it, but a whole other thing to see him actually kill a huge monster like this. They grabbed some of the Tyrannosaur's teeth to keep as souvenirs and carve scrimshaw from. Then they moved camp.

New Terrain and 3d Printing

 As my loyal reader will have noticed from the last couple of battle reports, I have added 3D terrain to my Battletech/Alpha Strike games. I bought a Bambu Labs P1S FDM printer earlier this year and have gone wild! Well, maybe not wild, but I have had a lot of fun learning how to print terrain and figures. There have been several elements to this that I outline below. Mainly it is about terrain, but the realisation that I can produce reasonable miniatures and vehicles with an FDM printer has been eye-opening and makes me wish I had the money and space to set up a print farm! It is probably a good thing that I do not.

1. Hills and vegetation

I bought the hills sets for the Battletech mapsheets from Thunderhead Studio, and the vegetation pack. These are for pimping the mapsheets. Adding them to the mapsheets makes you realise just how close the terrain can be on some of them. These files all need painting, although I tried to minimise that by using sandstone filament to print the hills. You can judge for yourself how well it worked out from the photos below that appeared in an earlier battle report.

The hills will come in handy for a variety of scales and periods. I have a vague idea of using them for a Five Leagues from the Borderlands: Deep Below campaign as cavern walls, for example.

2. Cityscape

I also bought the Concordia City stl pack. This is a pack of pre-painted files to print. So, when I print them out, I do not need to do any further work with them, if I use suitable colour filaments. I have been working on building up a large cityscape with these. Part of that appeared in the last post about the Galtor 3025 campaign. However, that was not the full extent of what I have produced so far, and I felt like setting up as much of it as I can, so here are some photos of an approximately 3-mapsheet set-up.

Two overview shots of the full set-up on my 150cm x 90cm (5' x 3') dining table:

Some detail shots:

Map-scale Broadsword dropship in the foreground

How did that 3d-printed 15mm SdKfz 222 get into this shot?

3. Other stuff

In addition to the terrain, which was the main reason for getting the printer, I have been messing around with printing figures and vehicles with varying levels of success. My initial experiments have made me think that FDM figures are not terrible. Any flaws can be covered by a thick layer of paint and they look virtually indistinguishable from metal minis at tabletop distances. This will hopefully let me fill gaps in my armies easily and without incurring customs charges.

My first experiments were 15mm figures which I printed using a 0.4mm nozzle and standard settings on the printer. I have since bought a 0.2mm nozzle which should help with detail when I get it set up, as should tailoring the settings better, now that I am starting to get to grips with them.

Fat Dragon Games 28mm fighter with sword rescaled to match my 15mm collection

He came out surprisingly well. The shield was a bit thin, but a healthy dollop of paint has concealed the issues. The figure is optimised for support-free FDM printing.

Brite Minis 28mm kobold with pickaxe

This is a freebie from Brite Minis, again scaled to 15mm, that is optimised for FDM printing. I plan to print enough to make a unit of engineers for my Oathmark orc army once I get the smaller nozzle dialled in.

3D Breed 15mm viking with metal shield from the bits box

I also tried the free samples from 3D Breed to see what I could get out of those, because they offer vikings and Normans. I think that these really require the smaller nozzle, but it is also one of the earliest prints I made, and I have learnt much since then. Also, this range is not optimised for FDM, so it requires more care to get the figures right.

Dice-Heads Zoontalis 28mm penguin ranger

I've been working on printing some Zoontalis guilds and think I have cracked the code, which is nice. There were a lot of failures in the early prints but I now have penguins, platypuses, cats, allosauruses, and stegosauruses ready to be painted and deployed.

Battletech map-scale dropships waiting to be painted and sent to the front

Battletech Leopard dropship found on Thingiverse

A Union-class dropship dwarfs the humble Leopard. Thunderhead Studio buildings in the background.

26 Sviftmont to 3 Eirmont - Return to Tanaroa

 The final part of the journey back to Tanaroa went without incident and it was with relief that Broneslav got there. The only difficulty was persuading the gate guards that he really was still alive! Better yet, the Stout Meg was already docked and loading with trade goods and provisions. She had returned just a couple of days ago, so he would not have to wait long to return to Karameikos.

The boy's first job was to bathe and get his clothes washed. He knew he needed it from the winces and careful expressions of the villagers as they tried not to give offence.

With that done, he spoke to Captain Decentius about how the trading had gone. The captain reported that all had gone well and that there had been a premium on the first goods they had returned with that meant that Broneslav was really quite wealthy now. Broneslav thanked the captain and the crew for their hard work.

Then he told the tale of his own explorations. Several of the sailors scoffed at his tales of dragons and giant lizards until the young hero rolled out the hides of the dragons that he had carried back. Then their eyes got big and their mouths stayed shut. It occurred to them that this 16-year old youth, who could barely grow a beard, was actually quite dangerous.

"Captain, shall we be able to depart tomorrow?"

"Aye, milord, we're finished loading goods and supplies and can cast off on the tide tomorrow."

"Good. I would like us to sail around the west side of the island and put in towards the northern end. There is unfinished business there and a bonus for those that help me with it."

The captain looked dubious but assented.

September 3025: In the Bear's Den (Battletech: Alpha Strike)

1st-2nd September 3025, Real Star League Depot

"We're taking the fight to the Kuritans, Lemmings. We'll be all in on this one but it will be tough. The 7th Sword of Light has holed up in a Star League Depot. It's fortified and we'll have to attack on a narrow front, so it will be a slogging match. Bravo and Gamma lances will go in the front door. Your job will be to pin the enemy so they cannot blow the base. Keep them distracted. The locals have informed us of a back entrance to the place. I shall take Alpha lance through that. We've been allocated a dropship to put us behind them but it will still take time. If we can take the Kuritans in a pincer movement, there is a good chance we can recover lostech and get out of this intact. The plan has been transmitted to your datapads. We ride at dawn!"

The Scenario

This is the "In the Bear's Den" scenario from Historical Turning Points: Galtor. The Lemmings deploy as a full company. The defenders are a single lance from Kismet Battalion, 7th Sword of Light. Their goal is to hold out long enough for them to blow the Star League depot up and deny it to the FedRats.

The Kuritans deploy within the depot. Two hexes at the centre of the depot are defined as the critical location. If the Kuritans control those hexes on or after turn 8, they blow the depot, themselves, and anyone in there with them sky high. If the Lemmings have undisputed control of those hexes by occupying one or both of them for two turns with a mech, they can disarm the explosives.

Two lances of Lemmings enter on turn 1 at one end of the battlefield. The other lance enters on turn 4 from the centre of the Kuritans home edge.

If the Kuritans blow the depot up and/or destroy the Lemmings, they win. The Lemmings win if they defeat the Kuritans and capture the depot intact.

Forced Withdrawal is not in effect for this scenario.

The Battlefield

The approach to the depot is a light urban area with surrounding parks and greenbelt land. At the centre of it is the local museum and council offices. This is the first game All the structures and ground tiles in this scenario are 3d printed in colour from the Concordia City set by Eclipse Protocol. The vegetation is from Thunderhead Studio, and I had to paint that. Some of the ground tiles are flocked with a mix of Javis and Woodland Scenics scatter. I felt that the basic terrain was too "clean" and there should be areas of greenery in cities too.

Two lances of Lemmings enter from the right. The Kuritan defenders occupy the fort on the left.

The depot is defined by the walls at one end of the battlefield, although it is actually a three-level, hardened fort. However, the interior needs to be playable, so I am not attempting to model it in full detail. It is only accessible through the gate opening and the secret tunnel.

The Opposing Forces

Full Throttle Lemmings ( points):

1. Alpha (Command) Lance:

   1. Commander Jennie Raytor - Battlemaster BLR-1G (Named Pilot)
   2. Barbara Dwyer - Awesome AWS-8Q
   3. Ivor Biggun - Archer ARC-2R
   4. Ophelia Paine - Catapult CPLT-C1

2. Bravo (Striker) Lance:

1. Paige Turner - Thunderbolt TDR-5SE (Named Pilot)
2. Mike Hunt - Wolverine WVR-6R (Named Pilot)
3. Theresa Green - Griffin GRF-1S
4. Theresa Crowd - Shadow Hawk SHD-2D

3. Gamma (Recon) Lance:

1. Dirk Savage - Phoenix Hawk PXH-1 (Named Pilot)
2. Paul Bearer - Locust LCT-1V
3. Joseph King - Commando COM-2D
4. Kerry Oki - Wasp WSP-1A

Elements of Kismet Battalion, 7th Sword of Light:

1. Banshee BNC-3E
2. Stalker STK-3F
3. Grand Dragon DRG-1G
4. Panther PNT-9R

The Battle

The Lemmings advanced through the urban area, using buildings as cover as much as possible. Gamma lance had orders to close as fast as they could with the enemy and distract them, giving Bravo lance  time to catch up and Alpha lance chance to sneak in the back entrance.

No time to tarry!

"Come on, Lemmings," Paige called over comms, "Full throttle and damn the LRMs."

Bravo and Gamma lances obliged as they all sprinted towards the town centre, using the buildings as cover for their approach. Meanwhile, the Kuritans manoeuvred within the fort, looking for a line of sight to the approaching mechs. They were going to be hard to winkle out.

Enemy sighted!

The scouts of Gamma lance were the first to sight the hostiles.

"Bravo leader, hostiles in the entrance to the depot," Paul called from the cockpit of his locus, "Painting them for you now."

As he said this, he fired his lasers at the hostile Stalker. Enemy fire splashed around him and around Dirk in the Phoenix Hawk behind him, but all it did was blast glass out of the surrounding buildings. His own fire turned armour on the Stalker to slag and Paige's missiles blasted some more armour off the Kuritan mech.

Hold them off!

As the Lemmings swarmed the entrance to the depot, the enemy commander in the Banshee chose discretion over valour, while the pilot of the Grand Dragon could not resist moving out to engage the oncoming Lemmings and the Stalker withdrew to guard the engineers setting up the explosives.

Dirk cursed as his Phoenix Hawk took a hit and blasted armour from the offending Panther. The other Lemmings focused on the Grand Dragon. It did not take long for its armour to be melted from its frame and one of its arms to be blown off.

Shit! They're behind us!

"FOR THE DRAGON!" the Grand Dragon's pilot roared their defiance, as they withdrew to guard the engineers. Someone else could take a turn in the breach. Unfortunately for the plucky mechwarrior, Jennie and the rest of Alpha lance emerged from the hidden entrance to the depot at this point.

The Kuritan leader manoeuvred to put their back to the wall, while the Stalker pilot held the main entrance. Bravo and Gamma lances moved up on the entrance and blasted the Stalker until its structure showed and most of its weapons had been.

Barb moved her Awesome up behind the Grand Dragon. A withering burst of fire reduced the Kuritan mech to a pile of twisted parts. Jennie grinned as her own Battlemaster trashed the Panther.

The end of things

The Kuritans were on the back foot now. They would need luck to survive. Unfortunately, that was in short supply for them. As Lemming mechs charged towards the entrance of the depot, shots from outside laid waste to the Stalker. Only the enemy commander remained, and they did not last long. Fire from every Lemming with line of sight to the Banshee reduced it to a wreck in the space of a mad minute.

The Kuritan engineers surrendered as soon as they saw they were surrounded by hostile mechs, and the Lemmings were able to disarm the explosives the engineers had been rigging.

"Congratulations, Lemmings," Jennie broadcast to them, "You all did well. I have a case of Timbiqui Dark that we can crack tonight."

Afterthoughts

With little cover for the Lemmings, and allowing partial cover for all targets within the depot that were shot at from outside it, I really thought that Bravo and Gamma lances would lose a mech or two. However, for the first time in this campaign, the Kuritans missed almost all of their shots. In fact, they hit a grand total of four times, scoring 4 damage and no through-armour critical hits either, which made a nice change. At the same time, the Lemmings hit a lot more than they normally do, although they still got way more "No critical hit" results than probability suggests should be the case. All in all, this has been a satisfying conclusion to the campaign and I look forward to the next one, once I decide where and when it will be.

I've been winging it in in terms of awards in this campaign, based on the idea that the Lemmings should make a small profit if they win a scenario. Perhaps the rewards should have been more generous, because the Lemmings did not earn enough to buy any new mechs, despite winning all the time. It would have been nice to add something extra to the stable after a successful campaign.

Where I have used scenarios from HTP: Galtor, those are designed for Classic Battletech, so I have had to adjust them for Alpha Strike. I am happy with how that went. The key thing has been keeping the campaign narrative right. That said, it would be nice to codify things for future games, so I shall have to see what Hotspots: Draconis Reach has to say on the matter, if anything.

Planning and printing the terrain for this has been fun and I like the look of what I have printed. I like even more that the Concordia City terrain is pre-coloured so there is no need to do anything more with it unless you really want to. I have enough to do a basic two-mapsheet board now so I am not restricted to the mapsheets for the hex-based games. I shall be printing more as I go along to use with Battletech and other sci-fi or stompy robot games.

On the hex front, I found this game easier to administer than some of the earlier games in the campaign.  Using hexes has its advantages, not least the reduced space required and the convenience of using the mapsheets. However, I think I shall return to the standard non-hex Alpha Strike for the next campaign, because measuring ranges is quicker than counting hexes for me.

23-25 Sviftmont - A Blackish Day

 The days of trudging through the hills wore on and proximity to the swamps meant biting insects still found the young hero, which left him fed up. He realised that he was nearing where he had met the Rakshasa and had a relatively relaxing night in the hills, but to see if they were there would be a detour now, so he carried on. As he did so, he ruminated on how the heroic tales he had grown up with never mentioned biting insects, dirt or the smells. Speaking of smells, it had been a long time since Broneslav had bathed properly. He must be particularly ripe now, he mused. Then he thought of the hot baths back in Specularum and became a little homesick.

It was in this frame of mind on the third day since encountering the last lot of rock baboons that he stumbled over the crest of a hill and slap bang into a large black dragon. Well, not quite slap bang into it, but it was only thirty yards away, a distance that could be covered in seconds. His jaw dropped. Fortunately for Broneslav, the dragon's jaw dropped. Not in the bitey, swallowing young Broneslavs kind of way, but more in the total surprise kind of way.

"Um, hello," Broneslav said wittily. He knew that black dragons were creatures of Chaos, but it seemed that it might be wise to try to avoid a fight here. "So, you look like a very fine dragon and I don't really want to disturb you, so would it be alright if I just carry on along my way."

The dragon replied in Common, "Hello to you, puny human. I think I would like to keep you. I have not seen such as you all clad in shining metal before."

A slight desire to obey the dragon washed over the young hero, but the Charm spell had no effect. He shook it off, realising that the dragon was going to play with him and/or eat him rather than let him go without a fight.

Leaping forward, he drew his sword and swung hard. Acidic blood spouted as his sword carved a gash in the monster's side. It burned his face where it landed, and then he was dodging for all he was worth as the dragon spat a torrent of acid over him. He was lucky and avoided the worst of it, coming out of the dodge roll right under the dragon's neck. His next blow took its head off! And then he was dodging again to avoid the spouting acidic blood spraying from its neck.

Broneslav was lucky. The dragon had barely touched him, and his blows had landed hard and fast on it. He was also lucky that it was a relatively young and inexperienced dragon. He skinned it as he had the other dragon and went off to find a safe place to sleep. He was struggling under his burden now despite his great strength, and he knew that it would make travelling slower. On the other hand, he was close to his destination, so he should be ok.

Incautious howling woke the young man that night. He quickly prepared himself and was ready only just in time as a small pack of wolves the size of small horses charged into his camp. He cut the first down with a single stroke of his sword and wounded the second into his camp. Dodging or blocking the blows of the rest, he suddenly felt a pain in his shoulder as a dire wolf he had not seen attacked him from behind. The wolves were wary now. They darted in to strike as Broneslav sought to circle around and prevent them getting him from behind again. He leapt forward and struck one of them a glancing blow. They took turns in darting in and nipping at him, but none of their bites landed.

Snake-fast Broneslav lashed out. Once... twice... and a third time. Two wolves died and a third was wounded. Three remained and undaunted at that. Snapping and snarling at him, he dodged and blocked and struck out once more. Both sides were careful now and their blows failed to land because of that. Suddenly, the heroic adventurer saw an opportunity. He was like lightning as his sword wove a pattern of death that cut two more wolves down. This was too much for the last wolf which fled yapping in fear.

Broneslav only had minor cuts after this encounter, but he decided to shoulder his burden and move his camp for the rest of the night. It was the wisest course in case more wolves came sniffing around.