Unity's finest and more troops

The protagonists for the intended mini campaign is finished!

Meet two of the most accomplished teams of Unity's Operator program, teams Red and Full Metal:

Hand picked from various branches of Unity's vast military assets, Red and Full Metal operate independantly from the regular chain of command. They take their orders from a senior Unity agent known to them only as Boss. These are the people that handle some of the most highly volatile situations in human space. 

First we have the Red team:

Mentally and physically trained and conditioned for their assignments, they only go by squad assigned numbers, Red 1 through 5. One leads the team in the field.

Red 4 carry a support weapon, configurable to fire various munitions as the situation requires.

Red 5 is the one with the big gun. The launcher is attached to the backpack and braced against his shoulder plates for stability. No armoured target is safe when Five is around.

Red 2 & 3 doesn't have any unique equipment, but don't let that fool you. They are both exellent marksmen and all-around soldiers.

 And then there's the Full Metal team:

Similarly trained and conditioned to Red team, Full Metal is a Power Armoured strike team. Clad in nigh-inpenetrable armour and with heavy weapons thanks to the suits strenght-enhancing properties, the operators of Full Metal is the hammer of overwhelming force to Red's scalpel-like precision.

Full Metal 4 is trained to use the chaingun. Normally used on VTOLs and other vehicles, the armour's powerful motors allow Four to wield it like a standard machine gun.  

 Against targets too hard for the chaingun, Five carries a launcher capable of firing explosive and armour piercing shot.

With tension ratcheting up between the SADU and NTC, there are some reinforcements for both sides:

Another team for the SADU, 6 man strong with the standard missile launcher and plasma gun.

The NTC reinforcements have loaded up on extra heavy weapons, two missile launchers accompany the latest team.

I also started painting a test piece for the NTC's first non-mecha vehicles. This first one would be one of their Assault-class grav tanks:

With these pieces, the mini campaign is well on it's way to the first game and the next clash between NTC and SADU is just around the corner as well. A few more bit's for the NTC outpost is all that's left before the next chapter can play out.

Til next time!

Counter attack in the badlands

After the initial success in striking at the SADU experimental field trials, the NTC combat team falls back to meet up with their escorts.

It's a long trip through the badlands to get back to their own outpost in these parts, and somehow the commander doesn't think the SADU will give up so easily..

                                            About an hour later, still in the badlands:

The NTC commander's suspicions are confirmed when his scanners pick up mech signatures across from his unit.

The commander and his team, along with the two extra escorts.

The SADU interception team of Turtle-class mechs, led by another experimental unit, EX-02. The anti-mech infantry rides along in the Antlion walker. 

Racing up to the pipeline, a Turtle fires a rocket, and misses..

..But so does the return fire from two of the NTC Warriors.

As the other members of the unit joins the first by the pipes, SADU unit EX-02 strikes a crippling blow to a warrior as the targeting computers are damaged!

Striding into range, the Demon command mech fires of a salvo of missiles at EX-02. The explosions rips off chunks of the mech's armor and cripples it's legs. A lucky hit!

The Demons luck is short-lived however, as missiles from a Turtle hits him and cripples his legs!

Seeing the chance to destroy another of the SADU's experimental units, the warrior unit equipped with a missile pod moves into position to strike. Auto-rifle fire and missiles impact the already damaged unit, taking it out of action. 

Another set of rockets hit the Demon, damaging targeting systems and bringing it even closer to defeat.

Having found a rocky outcrop safe from the infantry's anti-mech weaponry, one of the NTC escorts open fire on the Antlion. After a lenghty firefight between the two, the Antlion goes up in flames. 

The infantry finally realizes that they wont lure the mech into a fight in the open, so they reposition and attack the escort in cover. A missile hits the mech, but the damage is only superficial..

The state of the battle by the start of the 4th turn.

Syncronizing their attack, the missile pod Warrior and the escort armed with a bazooka manages to first cripple, then kill, another enemy mech. 

Limping forward on damaged legs, the Demon fires a missile at the only mech in sight. Lady luck smiles on the NTC commander again, as the explosion damages the legs of his target.

With a busted targeting comp, the Warrior closes on the last undamaged mech, intending to use the powered fist to beat him down. The first blow connects with a screech of tortured metal, but luckily no critical systems damage. Giving as good as he gets, the Turtle punches back, bending a couple of armour plates!

Taking a calculated risk, a missile is fired at the infantry in the corner of the pipeline. Striking true, both CO and missile launcher of the anti-mech infantry are lost in the huge fireball. The Turtle is hit too, blowing off a few critical armour plates, leaving in vulnerable to future attack! 

Another one-two punch from the Warriors finish off the crippled Turtle in the open.

Planting the final powered punch, the cockpit of the Turtle bends inward at an unhealthy angle, and the mech topples over. 

Having realized that the fight was about to be lost, the infantry fell back to one of the domes for cover, and to report back to their superiors.

The battle was won, but at a cost. With both command mech and one Warrior critically damaged and another lightly injured, the striketeam won't be able to keep up the pace. With some of the enemy getting away, there's a good chance that the outpost is in danger of attack from enemy forces.
In their current state, they wouldn't be much help anyway. The commander just hopes that they will be back in time to effect repairs before that happens..


A tense battle to be sure, with only luck saving the NTC from any real losses! I've decided to give gruntz another shot before I decide which ruleset to keep using, but next time I'll have a few house rules in play, to try and fix some problems that came up during this game.

I hope you've enjoyed this AAR, next up will probably be the stars of my proposed CoTF mini-campaign and hopefully the last pieces of the military outpost.

Til next time! 

Even more micro armour terrain

Work on more parts for the base continues, so today I have a few more things to show you, including some pieces of a more natural sort.


First is some additional Quonsets:

With a few extra huts I think I have what I need for the small base envisioned.

This piece with a medic hut and the bases comms and/or command post have a few details to distinguish it from the regular barracks.
 

The mechanics hut could function both as maintenance bay and storage shed for tools and the like. The tarps should keep the worst of the elements out of the repairmans hair.. 



Inspired by the really cool domes in some of Sayiner micro toys recent photo ops, I decided to make some of my own:

The dome with the big door (on the left) I imagine would be industrial in nature, the entrance to a mine or similar underground complex. The other could be a number of things, habitation in the hostile climates of some worlds for example.  

Last but certainly not least, I realized some time ago that I have quite a few buildings and such for my desert/badlands board, but not so much in the ways of rocks and other natural features. The few scrubs and ruined walls I have is by far too little to stage good-looking fights in the less inhabited parts of the planets.

So I made these bigger rock formations. While they doesn't solve all my desert-featured woes, they are a step in the right direction, and easy to make to boot!

 A thin layer of oven-bake clay stretched over crushed-up tin foil, these pieces came out better than I hoped when they had some paint applied to them!

That's all for the moment, as I'm currently considering a mini-campaign in my version of the Fringe setting. To that purpose I have started painting up a couple of mini's for the main unit of the envisioned campaign. I also have a few ideas for a all-out, combined arms military campaign featuring some of the big players far from Unity's prying eyes.
Next time I also hope to share a recent AAR, with the NIJAs SADU and the NTC once again clashing!

Til next time!

More micro armour terrain

Having spent most of my time the last week or so watching everything VOTOMS once again, I started to feel in the mood to make some more battlefield set dressing for my mechs to fight over.

Starting out small, I made what i intend to be the first pieces of a military installation, not unlike the Assemble EX-10 on Kummen..

These first pieces were more or less just proof of concept models for me, making sure that the chosen pieces of layabout trash I had gathered could be fashioned into a few believeable pieces. 

Judge for yourself if that's the case ;)

A couple of fuel tanks. The design was inspired by both VOTOMS and a game called Just Cause 3 that I've been playing recently. I'm currently trying to figure out if there is a good and fairly uncomplicated way to make a set of stairs and a walkway over the tanks.  

Some simple guard towers/TAC towers cobbled together from some plastic shot glasses, soda bottle caps and a clear plastic dome of some sort. The door and frame was made with some air-drying clay.

The Quonset huts can easily serve any number of roles, from barracks and med huts to offices, storage and even command posts.These are the only piece I'm not that sure about, but that might be due to my inability to cut straight when fashioning the end pieces of each one more than anything else.

Made out of a paper roll core cut in half lenghtwise with card end pieces to make the back and front walls, they were at least easy to make. The concrete slabs are made from the same card as the back/front. I know they are kind of hard to see, but the small units on the back and side of the huts are supposed to be power/ventilation units, mostly there as I wanted to try and make some sort of detail.

I've seen many people make Quonset huts out of soda bottle caps cut in half, so I'm still not sure which design will win out in the end, maybe I'll even mix!

I have this idea heavily inspired by the great works of Michael from Angel Barracks, using keyboard keys to make wall-sections for this base project. It's still firmly in the ideas stage, but hopefully something will come of it. Only the future will tell ;)

That is all I have to share for today, hopefully I'll have something fun for you again soon, as I plan for the NTC and the NIJA to butt heads again!

Til next time!