Outworld Alliance Police Action

Bested by the Federated Suns, the Dogs of War mercenary company fled into the hills as their enemies departed the planet. Almost as soon as they were gone, the Outworld Alliance authorities showed up. Taking one look at the wreckage strewn about the landscape, they designated the pings on their sensors as hostile and marched into the hills after the Dogs.

Landing heavy forces along with a command HQ, the Alliance had, as usual, plenty of air support. 

The dogs of war moved to meet them, fielding heavier mechs, along with a Rommel tank and one of their fighters.

The Alliance took an aggressive stance in the air, flying circles around their adversaries, but unable to do much more than harass them with light fire. When they got a bit closer, they'd release their bombs.

Fritz still doesn't have his damned fighter on a stand, but there it is, apparently skimming the ground dangerously.

When the enemy had reached the center of the area, the three bombers let loose their payload...

A solid hit, but the return fire was nasty...

...Sending the Alliance's transit crashing to the valley floor.

Still, the enemy was weakened by the attack, and the Alliance felt bold enough to advance.

The enemy was more cautious...

As the ground forces maneuvered for advantage, a high stakes dogfight lit up the sky, with the Alliance's two light fighters always seeming to wind up in the enemy's kill slot, but a single large laser made it difficult to finish the job.

But when the heavy fighter was chased into the path of the Alliance's ground forces, it was knocked out of control, crashing into the mountainside. Unfortunately not before severely damaging the heavy tank. With its motive system damaged, it became not much more than a heavily armored bunker.

Unopposed in the air, the Alliance still felt confident of victory.

The ground forces waited for the enemy to advance.

And slowly, through the smoke, they were sited cresting the hill, avoiding the immobilized vehicles and making for the mobile HQ!

The Alliance's lone mech was the only force that could pivot to meet them.

Things were starting to look grim...

And indeed, the ended quicker than anticipated as a lucky headshot killed the mech's brave pilot!

With that, the HQ sounded the retreat.

The air force fought hard to slow the enemy down, but it could only do so much.

Faced with an approaching battlemech, the command staff bailed out and dissolved into the forest, leaving behind valuable information on their forces' deployment throughout the sector.

The Dogs of War, noticing that the force sent to attack them had left only a skeletal garrison on their home world, saw a rare opportunity. If they could manage a landing on that planet, they could seize the supplies stored at the  local militia base, which according to the captured intelligence would be enough for them to repair their badly damaged force. It was risky, but that is the nature of war.

To be continued...

Painted Sandworm for the Dune Boardgame

Played a game of the classic Dune Boardgame the other day (it's amazing, check it out), and a friend of mine brought an unpainted "Bone" line miniature to represent the great sandworm.  It was a pretty model so I offered to paint it for him.

In the process, I discovered that the usual automotive primer shouldn't be used on Bone minis.  Seriously, it just never fully dries.  Worried that I ruined it, I bought another model, but as it turns out once you paint over the primer it's fine.  The second isn't primed at all, and the paint went on without a problem.

So, check it out!  They came out pretty good, with some very slight color variations between the two.  The main work was done with the airbrush, followed by some drybrushing and details.

Some "action" shots:

The Fest - 2016

The Fest... a gathering of nerds, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, a chance to fit in more games in 18 hours than most people play in a year.  This is the 24th iteration of this private, friends-only event, and it was excellent.

First up: X-Wing.  Got in two solid games (capitol ships just for show) of x-wing, playing Imperials.

Brian's extensive collection is shown below.  He had a program which created three semi-random 100point lists that we could chose between.  Saved a LOT of time.

Game 1:

Game 2:

The final shot for game 2:  All four of my fighters crammed into the enemy's blindspot. Very one-sided battle!

Also played "Passcode" which I would say "pass" on, but then we moved on to "Secret Hitler".  Our host, Brian, was in on the kickstarter and had a beautifully produced special edition of the game (sorry, no pics).  It was LOTs of fun, highly recommended, but it is basically Avalon with better production value and Nazis.

Then, probably my favorite game of the evening, "Captain Sonar".  Two teams, each representing a submarine, hunting each other in real time (not turn based!), with each player taking on either the Captain, 1st Mate, Engineering and Sonar positions.  It's all about team work and communication and was crazy fun, and relatively quick playing.  Well, two of the games we played of it lasted 15-20 mins, but one epic game lasted about 40 somehow. If you have opportunities to game with 6-8 players, I very highly recommend this game.

Hats are of course optional (that's my opposing Captain and host, Brian).