Iron Forest Club Day 22/02/15 - Ow comes them umies are green!?

After a the club being closed last week (Son's birthday), have been chomping at the bit to get my game on - sunday did not come round quick enough. Sadly Johnno was away in the Netherlands and Jason was tied up too which meant club had to be opened late due to me catching minimal sleep from the night shift prior.

But Sunday did come and late Iron Forest Games did open. Luckily we all had pre arranged what we was all doing and got stuck in straight away.

Me and Phil sat down to a game of 40k, for the clubs Armageddon Campaign - I was playing Ork led by Orkimedes and Phil was playing Imperial Guard (Not Astra Cappalatte) Ork Hunters led by Colonel Peritnax.

We was playing standard Maelstrom of war - but on a 4ftx4ft so objectives 5 and 6 was removed. I had deployed first - My plan was to soften up the squishy humans before my combat units got stuck in as Phil's Ork Hunters had ALOT of flamers and I didn't fancy my chances  charging these units when they were at full strength!

Phil went first and but I managed to come out the first turn pretty much unscathed, thinking luck was with me I moved my looted wagon and fired its killkannon at the unit occupying the ruin on the right hand side of his deployment zone, I scoured a direct hit but lucky cover saves on saw inflict minimal casualties.

Mean while my Killa Kans, Orkimedes and Mega Nobz retinue and Cyborks moved ahead, hoping to claim objectives 4 and 1. By the end of my turn I luckily scored 2 VPs for holding objective 4, a early lead for me :).

Phil returned fire - reducing my Trukk to swiss cheese, not a major loss but was hoping it was of thinned down its opposing unit a bit and shake some fire off my Cyborks and Orkimedes. More fire came my way, my looted wagon lost 2 hull points and one of my killa kans loss a hull point - not terrible but could spell disaster in turns to come.

My Dakajet soured down from reserve, managing to immobilise the Chimera - was hoping at least knocking it down 2 hull points! Meanwhile my Cyborks and Orkimedes climbed to the top floor of the ruin, ready to charge the Ork Hunters on the next rooftop on the next turn. While my Killa Kans moved forward but failed there charge on the unit on the right hand ruins.

And now this is where it all went wrong. Phil called in his Vendetta with Veterans oboard. Joint cross fire from a infantry unit and the ork hunters whittled the Cyborks down to one single ork while more Orkimedes was reduced to molten slag by the Vendetta strafing the rooftops with its 3 twin linked lascannon! Meanwhile some good shooting from the two infantry units in the ruins on his deployment zone destroyed 2 of the 3 Kans! DISASTER!!!

I managed to keep some face, with my Dakajet putting in some casualties on the Ork Hunters, My looted wagon pretty much vaporising a conscript platoon and killa kan wiping out a infantry team but Phil had his counter attack already planned...

His vendetta zeroed in on my Looted Wagon which with only 1 hull point remaining didnt stand a chance against that amount of lascannon fire! My remaining Cybork got into combat with the Ork Hunters, killing his sergeant but the rest of the unit sure enough brought him down.

And my favourite moment of the battle. His Veterans disembarked from the Vendetta and poised ready to throw demolition charges into my Boyz that occupied the ruins in my deployment zone. Luckily for me they scattered back onto the Veterans - inflicting major casualties - what a stroke of luck!!!

The last turn of the game was rather a disapointing (but by no means any less fun) affair for the Orks... me. My remaining Killa Kan finally got brought down while me Dakajet was strafed out the sky by some pretty amazing shooting from the Ork Hunters. The game ended at turn 5. which the Score 7-4 to Phil - a bloody good game!

Meanwhile on the next board, Brad and Tony where well stuck into a game of Bolt Action. Brad was using US Army vs Tony's Russians in a very lethal "training exercise".

While as usual I didnt follow it closely enough to make a report, I did manage to take a few snaps here and there!

I was told the pic below captured there favourite moment of the game, when Brad's US infantry overrun Tony's HMG team - and with a bit of house ruling, turned the gun back onto the Russians!

Lastly I had a game of Infinity with Faction Ray - a very fast and very brutal game...

The game used alot of the new scenery (yet unpainted) which I will show in more in depth in a later post. The Scenario was to capture Nodes by hacking them. We both was playing Pan Oceania and was a 200pt game.

The game lasted three turns. The main action of the game was a duel between Ray's Tag and my sniper. After a furious exchange of fire and some excellent fixing from Ray's Engineer to keep it in the scrum, my sniper managed to come out trumps and brought it down! Meanwhile Ray sneakily pushed his fusilier forward and managed to successfully hack a terminal!

While I dropped down a Sikh commando, killing two and putting Ray's forces into retreat - the game ended 1-0 to Ray.

Even though I lost both games they were damn enjoyable - I managed to dish it out enough to be satisfied with my performance but I do think its time for the Orks to get some reinforcements...

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)

Iron Forest Club Days 01/02/2015 - Banzai!!!!!!

So another weeks rolls by and no sooner than I can say "wow, that went.." it is Sunday - club day :)! After catching a quick bit of sleep from the previous nights fun shift at the local Super M (Discovered that Canvey Island consumes a ridiculous amount of ready to eat jelly :S please share theories) I made my way to Iron Forest Games.

John and Jason had opened the club for me earlier and had already squeezed in a couple of games of Mordhiem for Jason's campaign. The first game was Jason's Mercs vs Tony's Dwarves and I heard Tony got a bit of a kickin! Loosing three dwarves permanently in the process - ouch! The second game was Phil's Sisters of Sigmar vs John's Norsemen - I heard that Phil didn't fair much better than Tony either! Next week is the final games of the campaign and I believe Sir Rodric is due a game with Jason... wooden spoon anyone?

After I got myself sorted I accepted a game against a new visitor to IFG - Leigh who is one of the founding members of Blood and Iron - a Essex bolt action gaming group.  Naturally he invited me to a game of Bolt Action - my US army vs his Imperial Japanese. So after a quick ooogling of his figures, we set up and begun the game.

NOTE: Me and Leigh are both raising new armies so please excuse the unpainted nature of the figures - they will be painted soon :)

Deployment

Before the game begun Leigh versed me in the rules of the Japanese and their powerful banzai charge. Upon this knowledge I made the wise assumption that I couldn't afford to get assaulted and decided as a plan (Like those work :P) to approach the enemy until in long range and than making a fighting withdraw, concentrating fire on exposed units in the plan of pinning them down.

US Sniper team taking position on the far left flank.

I placed my Sniper Team hidden within a ruined cottage on the far left flank with the Sherman at the bottom of the hill.

Next along is a seven man team of veteran infantry, with one BAR and SMG. They deployed near the wheat field - hoping to make the most of the cover asap. Centre deployment of the battlefield was the HQ team - hiding behind boccage - ready to instil discipline where needed.

Than finally on the right flank was another seven man infantry team - same composition and a bazooka team.

Opposing me - from left to right (from my perspective) was a veteran Japanese infantry team, position behind a hill. Next along was his "tank bombers" not sure of the proper term and his mounted HQ who positioned themselves in the safety of the Mediterranean village.

In the ploughed field adjacent was another infantry team and a light mortar team - a pain in the arse for my sniper team! And lastly a type3 Chi-Nu was within the ruined hamlet on the far right flank.

As planned I pushed a steady advance, all my units take position in the cover they could find. My sherman pounded the infantry team as it moved from safety from behind the hill, causing little damage but pinning none the less.

On the right flank, the japanese mortar began to rain down on the unit in the wheat field but luckily not quite finding its mark. Meanwhile my bazooka team and infantry team moved into position within the ruined farmstead.

note the figs behind the tank are "dead pile"

The bazooka team opened fire on the Chi-Nu but only managing to drop a couple of pin markers.

Back on the left flank - the combined fire of the infantry and sherman made serious damage on the enemy infantry team. The Chi-Nu managed to land a couple of rounds on the sherman but no more than pinning in effect.

And from here is where it went wrong for me. The enemy infantry team who started in the ploughed field moved steadily up the centre of the board. My infantry team on the far right tried to pin them down but there fire had disappointing effect. This allowed the enemy to take perfect position behind the centre hill to BANZAI!!!!

Into the infantry team in the wheat field and my HQ - effortlessly wiping both out....

At the same time a lucky shot from the Japanese mortar landed bang on my sniper team... SPLAT!!!

Seeing everything going pete tong, I used my sherman to hurtle MMG fire into the Banzai unit but not enough as they managed to charge from the wheat field into my bazooka team, slaughtering them. 

The infantry team on the far right, sensing their peril and starting to get seriously suppressed from combined fire from the mortar team and the Chi-Nu, withdrew from the barn and unleashed crossfire with the Sherman tank into the unit that assaulted the bazooka team - wiping them out.

With only the mortar team, and Chi-Nu remaining the infantry hunkered down in the safety of a ruined cottage while the Sherman moved in to finish them off - only managing to wipe out the mortar team and rout the Chi-Nu. It was a great game - the sudden turn of misfortune for me only made the game even more tense and exciting and the close victory felt very satisfactory for me and Leigh.

At the same time to me and Leigh game, Tony and Alex was having a go at Infinity 3rd Edtion - I dont know the details of the game other than it was Tony's Nomads vs Alex's Yu-Jing. But did manage to get a few snaps of the game :)

After a quick break, we broke into a another game of Bolt Action, this time a multilayer team match with me, Tony and John sharing a US force vs Jason and Leigh who had a mixed German, Japanese axis force. I wont go into this game in depth other than it was an absolute massacre for the US - with only John's excellent use of the Sherman managing to retain any form of moral victory for our team :P

Lastly while this was going down, Phil and Alex had a game of 30k. Phil's Catachan Imperial Guard vs Alex's Sons of Horus. I didn't follow this game closely enough to report on other than they had a ton of fun and when the dust settled, it ended in a draw.

It was such a great day at the club, glad to see old friends and great to see the club being fully utilised. With all the tables being used and a vast variety of games being played down over the course of the day - nice to see we have come along way from May 2013 :)

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)