"STOP PRESS: New Ukrainian army hold the Slammers" Topic

My mate Mike is moving soon so I said I'd lay on a Slammers game for him before he left town. It also gave me a chance to try out some new 4Ground buildings (in – granted – the ‘wrong' scale, being 10mm but…).

The Scenario

Despite the title, this is not based on current events but – in the province of West Dulwich – two detachments of the elite New Ukrainian army succeeded in stopping a similar force of Slammers blowers.

The New Ukrainians used only three heavy Molot MBTs with two Xaoc medium tanks as their main defensive strong arm. In addition they fielded two Buran Anti Air/Anti Missile systems and three Sokol APCs with six infantry teams.
They set up in the centre of Dulwich Village and were determined to disallow the Slammers access to the presidential palace (where President Phillipe Poertway and his staff were holed up).

To do this they set up in the best positions they could manage at short notice, holding at the mono-rail line and using buildings – including the substantial mono-rail terminus as cover.

The infantry quickly deployed from their APCs into buildings when the Slammers appeared, moving between floors to gain advantageous positions from which to open fire.
The Slammers came from the south: two detachments, each with three blower tanks each – M2A4's including one M2A4F command tank.

If you want to read more, please go to the battle report. link Let's just say that it was a poor day for Alois…

Thanks Mike Popay: a worthy opponent with the New Ukrainians.

John Treadaway

Looks like the New Ukrainians can give the Old Ukrainians some lessons!

And now there is blood in the water….

That's a lot of money left on the table by the Slammers. Hopefully, they will get a chance to come back with recovery assets and retrieve some of those blowers. But I guess that would have to be against a different player…

Rob

A great looking game Mr. Treadaway. And I will need to check out those 4Ground buildings.

Thanks,

Pat

Thanks all

@ Patrick – they are a liiiitle bit small for 1/100th but then so are my Kato N guage stuff in that shot as well.

I may do some additional doors added (GZG, Antenociti) if I think they warrant it but they are very nice kit.

Just glad I didn't have to put them together!

@ Katzbalger the New Ukrainians used are rather late in the timeline and they were fighting 'middle period' blowers (though used until quite late). That's the reason the Slammers get up armoured blowers…

But – what it made it – was a fairer fight, points wise. The Slammers were still had the higher points but were on the offensive.

And I didn't play very well….

John T

Looks great John as always, well done Sir!

One thing I forgot to say in the report: all vehicles are Ainsty blowers ainstycastings.co.uk or New Ukrainians from the Critical Mass range link

You can get decals for both from Ainsty.

John T

Great game… I'm working on my Molot NU tanks.. I'm using Khurasan miniatures, once they are reay I can start playtesting thinking of Millennium Con.. It's been a long path but I'm almost there…

So when doing smaller engagements I see you recommend rolling the same number of D6 for command points.. Have you tried rolling a pair of D4 ? I'm trying to replicate the command points economy you get in the large game …

Thanks for posting the report !!

Francisco

Francisco

If using smaller forces run a half size Troop led by a sergeant rather than a detachment led by a Lietenent (see supplement 4). PDF link

That adjusts leadership commensurate with smaller units.

John T

I have downloaded that ( I downloaded all the supplements :) ) but you still roll 2 d 6 , hence I was wondering why had that not been adjusted to 2 d 4 for example, thinking that you might have tried that but not like it due to reason X.

cheers
Francisco

Great looking fun game John :)
Btw I have bovington in July and will contact soon as I get a new PC!

@ Francisco

In the system, the 2D6 is a universal for any and all command levels and it seems to work well – a Sergeant only gets 4LPs at Elite, 2 at Veteran, 1 at trained and none at all at untrained so the less well experienced forces really suffer variations on what they can achieve in a turn as so much of it is based on the 2D6 roll.

What tends to happen – especially with the Chaos Mounts rule (every TU lost loses you one extra LP) is that units with poor leadership are often reduced to static, simply reactive forces (until they break and run, of course…): they can't move, infantry when suppressed struggle to regain confidence (and so fight at a further reduced ability – and from a static position) which is of course, what the rules are trying to model.

Sure, if you are an Elite Colonel you will get 12 LPs plus 2D6 – and might even get the odd elite skill. And – if they drive around in a command car shouting "I'm the Colonel!" they'll get 2LPs more (Rule Leading from the front)*. And units will dance and sing to your tune and be happy to advance like you have your toe up their backside and so forth!

But Sergeants tend to have less…

By all means switch to a less generous die system for smaller units – try it and see if it works for you. All I would say is that the game was designed as an 'all d6' game so extra dice types for just one thing can be fiddly (try 2d6-1 ? – just a suggestion) but I find that having more LPs just means players do less sitting on their haunches and leads to more offensive play (if you see what I mean!)

In the end, have fun!

@ Comstar – I don't know if I'll make it to Bovington this year but I will try.

John T

* and make yourself a universal target…

ok, exactly… that is what I wanted to understand, the design concept :)

I'm very reluctant to house rule so I'll go with the D6 unless after some games we find the command points not being a constraint at the troop level !

thanks
Francisco