Mercenaries clash, a Horizon Wars AAR

This engagement is from a few weeks ago, when I decided to try tinkering a bit with HW again, this time with less of a success than I hoped for. I had hoped using a firing solution somewhat like that of aircraft in HW but with the twist that you could only fire your full F if anybody in your army had a lock on the target in question. This turned out to be more reductive than I had hoped and didn't noticably add more movement, which was what I'd hoped for.
 But every failiure is an opportunity to learn and I have a few more ideas on house rules to try out before I'm done!

 The battlefield. A single mine stands in the badlands surrounded by rocky hills and boulders, the objective of both sides.

An unknown merc force, hired by some corporation or consortium to secure the resources the mine produces. 3 heavy walkers with autocannons and one with a set of plasma cannons make up their number.

Opposing them is a lance of Warg Industries mechs. Two assault mechs, one on either flank along with a long-range and direct fire support mech each in between them.

Coming under fire from the unknown force's plasma cannons, the warg missile-mech advances into the relative cover of a small hill. There it returns fire with a salvo of missiles, scoring several hits!

Walking into the incoming fire of the enemy, one of the tan mechs accept some damage..

..And in return manages to score a hit on the flank of the missile mech!

With the plasma mech critically damaged, one of his lance-mates decides to take up a covering position before him. It is a decision that costs him dearly, as both armor and arms start falling apart under the incoming fire.

Wethering the attacks, he soon finds a chance to counter with a few shots of his own, causing some damage to the close assault mech barreling towards him.

It's not long before the incoming fire becomes too much however, and the warmachine collapses!

Start of the 2nd turn. Two of the tan mechs are down, the CHQ plasma mech one of them. The Warg mechs are a bit worse for wear, but two of their machines are completely unharmed as well!

Getting close enough to do what it does best, the assault mech charges! It's powered claw rips and tears, but the enemy mech takes a toll on it, firing point blank and crashing into the Warg mech whenever able.

With both meleéing mechs locked in combat, the remaining mech manages to swing around behind the combatants and lay into the unprotected rear of the close assault mech. A group of lucky shots penetrate the armor and wreck the powerplant, sending the mech crashing into the ground!

The this is where that pilot's luck runs out. As he moves to take down the long-range mech with the missiles, he is charged in the flank by the second close assault mech. His rounds critically injures the target, but it stays on it's feet. He does not, as the Warg mech easily picks apart his already damaged mech.

With only a single (barely) functioning machine, the unknown mercs signal surrender and withdraws, leaving the Warg mercenaries in control of the mine and it's riches.

This fight ended up being kind of one-sided, but a combination of poor decisions and bad luck on one side with a lot of crits on the other made it somewhat inevitable. It was fun either way, even if my ideas didn't really work out.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realized you could just use the aircraft firing rules as written (but still no firing when using rapid move), but applied to mechs. I'll have to try that and see how it affectes the rest! 

I have another AAR in the works, using Starport Scum with a few tweaks and fixes that I'll share, hopefully rather soon. I still need to paint the buildings I showed last time and there are a few new mechs being sculpted.

Til next time!

New buildings on the workbench and another mech finished

I saw a few of the buildings from Blotz.co.uk a few weeks back and having a some extra cash to spend, I decided to order a couple.

I haven't had the time to paint them just yet, but here they are assembled:

I might have gotten a bit enthusiastic, with these 12 buildings I've just about doubled the number of large buildings available to me. I'm currently agonizing over what colors to paint them, maybe I'll break out the airbrush again..

While I was putting the above buildings together, I also started painting the last two of my ME mechs.

So far I only finished one of them, but here it is:

Callsign Warlord, a freelancing merc. Armed to the teeth, this mech has DEWs, autocannons,machineguns and a mix of rockets. Warlord has managed to make quite a name for himself on the fringes of human space, as a one man army. While he is not above working with others, he often takes solo contracts.

So that's todays little update, I have a few photos from some recent games that I managed to find the time for. I have (again) been playing around with using some alternative rules to play my mecha games, more on that soon.

Til next time!

 

The Dart Frog lance

The Dart Frog lance, what is that then?
Last time I shared some workbench photos of the mechs from Maelstorms Edge, so unsurprisingly they were the next thing in line to be painted.

Since it was to be a merc outfit and they often feel the need to stand out in a already crowded market of hired guns, crazy aliens and others willing to fight others battles for them, I decided that they should have a paintjob that stands out. In combat the active camo and other countermeasures will make the paint of the units less of an issue unless they want to make their presence known of course.

 So I decided to give them a highly contrasting color scheme, based loosely on the tropical and highly toxic dart frogs.

And that's why they are known as the Dart Frog lance:

The full lance of 4 mechs. Bought at an auction for surplus military hardware, the team spent a few months and not unconsiderable amount of credits to restore the mechs to working order.

The first of the lance, the same mech that I showed off last time, callsign Toxic. Equipped with an autocannon, double sets of swarm rockets and a pair of anti-armor missiles, it's ready for any number of different missions.

Yellowjacket is the callsign of the second unit. Modified to carry a machinegun/laser combo attached to the left arm, a DEW on his right and one each of swarm rockets and anti-armor missile on the shoulder hardpoints.

Bringing the long-range fire support is callsign Zeus. With a pair of autocannons and a mixed set of rockets this mech is perfect to keep enemies at arms length.

Finally there is Strawberry. Equipped for close assault with the combo of rockets, a pair of machinegun/laser mounts and a DEW, this ensures that anything in close proximity is in serious trouble. 


That's the first four mechs all done. I have some ideas for the remaining two but I'm unsure where they will end up.

I just got my order from Blotz.co.uk, so I will have a few new buildings to show off in a while.
I tried some house rules for Horizon Wars to make all-mech battles closer to my perfect idea of a ruleset, I hope to post my findings soon.

Til next time!