What's "Brains" in Russian? - Konflikt 47 AAR

Apparently, it's мозги.

Sam put on a game of Konflikt 47 at this month's meeting of the South Jersey Wargamers Association.

The mission was a prison break. The US force, consisting of veteran Rangers and airborne infantry with mech support, needed to liberate a number of Russian POWs from a German prison camp.

The Germans needed to hold the Americans off until reinforcements could arrive.

As the Germans waited in ambush, the Americans moved up the board, their airborne infantry and mechs leapfrogging over the terrain to each the open field.

Both sides exchanged fire as the Americans reached the final bit of cover before the camp. A squad of Firefly jump infantry ducked behind a sandbag emplacement after its previous occupants had been chased off, as the mechs behind them poured fire into the German positions.

While it seemed as though the Germans were reeling from the attack, the sudden arrival of their mechanized reinforcements halted the American's momentum. Another squad of jump troopers were wiped out by a massive squad of assault rifle-armed German infantry, who were in turned shredded by the American Rangers. A pair of Spinnes flitted onto the table, opening fire with their flak guns and flamethrower. And the American's M4A9-T Sherman was forced back to avoid a squad of panzerfaust wielding grenadiers.

The biggest surpise came when an advance squad of Fireflies landed in the prison, hoping to secure the POWs. The rest of the American force then watched in horror as the POWs, having been turned into zombies, poured out of the camp buildings and tore the airborne infantry to pieces. 

Demoralized, the Americans called for a retreat, as the Germans attempted to herd the horde of undead back into their pens.

Sam put on a great game, and had even gone as fair to create a few custom squads to represent the Rangers, who conisted of miniatures from Dust and fit in fairly well with the rest of the K47 aesthetic. 

Ghosts in the Ruins - Test of Honour AAR

Last week's game of Test of Honour was against Bill and Lady Yoshikira. 

The table was set up as the burnt down ruins of a town after a battle.

Both sides needed to search the ruins for supplies and wounded comrades. When discovered, those points would then become objectives that needed to be held to the end of the game.

There was a catch, however. If a unit failed a search, then the ghosts of the slain villagers (or a crafty ninja using smoke and mirrors) would rise up and scare away the unit if it failed a Test of Nerves.

Both sides managed to call up the unquiet spirits. While my samurai managed to regain his nerves and chase away the supernatural interloper, Lady Yoshikira and her warband decided to press on for the objectives further into the ruins.

Both sides advanced into the ruins, with Bill's ninjas taking up the flanks.

Lord Jiro managed to slip around the side and slay a lurking ninja, while Lady Yoshikira and commoners from both sides clashed in the middle of the village.

I managed to clear the flanks with my two samurai, chopping down Bill's commoners left and right. Bill, however, wasn't going to let me off the hook so easily, and Lady Yoshikira quickly carved up two of the three ashigaru in a group. 

Lady Yoshikira then went on to skewer my musketman and engage my second spear ashigaru group. While Lord Jiro returned from dispatching a ninja archer, my other samurai engaged the spear ashigaru unit holding the center objective.

Commoners on both sides were busy attempting to avoid the flashing blades of their enemies.

The game ended on turn six, with my warband in control of two objectives, just beating out Bill and his single objective.

The Far Ost - Konflikt 47 AAR

Most of the time, I choose what games I want to get into. It's a list that's mostly tempered by time and money - with limited amounts of both, I can't play every ruleset or buy and paint every miniature I'd like to. 

Sometimes, however, opportunities fall into my lap. Like, for example, Konflikt 47. While I had spoken about 28mm WWII earlier this month, I hadn't expected K47 to be the game of choice. Bill, the owner of Half Day Studio made the decision somewhat easy. In return for receiving a free starter set of my choice, I'm to run demos and help push the game in the community. 

Since Bill already owned a small American force, I decided to pick up the Germans. After few weekday nights assembling models, Bill and I played a 500 point game. 

As we were playing on a Test of Honour board, we decided that the battle was taking place somewhere in Burma, with the Americans facing off against Kampfgruppe Fernost.

Bill's American consisted of a captain with a bodyguard, two 5-man infantry squads, 5-man heavy infantry squad, and a Coyote light walker.

My Germans had a 2nd lieutenant, two 9-man infantry squads, a 7-corpse Totenkorps squad, and a Spinne light walker.

The mission required both sides to create a first wave, and then bring the rest of their units on as reinforcements. Bill decided to keep his heavy infantry in reserve, while I kept an infantry squad behind. Both sides spent the the first turn running forward, hoping to get into an advantageous position.

Both Bill and my reserve squads came on to shore up our flanks. My Spinne managed to pin an American infantry squad without doing any damaged, then ducked out of the way with a recce move when it started to receive return fire.

The Coyote mangled my Totenkorps squad with successive rounds of combat, as the zombies had no hope of getting through the walker's armor. However, the delay meant that my Spinne could advance and fire its light anti-tank gun at the American walker. A glancing blow managed to ignite the remains of a dried-out corpse that had gotten stuck in the Coyote's gear, and the flames caused the crew to panic and abandon their vehicle.

Meanwhile, the German squad at the wall was laying down a withering hail of fire at the Americans, who were forced to advance in the open.

The firefight continued with the American infantry suffering more casualties from the German squad behind cover. However, the American heavy infantry squad had finally reached the battle and opened up with their assault rifles at the German squad that hadn't managed to reach wall yet. The American captain and his assistant bravely decided to flank the Spinne and opened fire, adding a pin marker to the mech.

The advancing American heavy infantry's fire was too much for the damaged German squad, and they fled after taking another beating. The German officer, realizing his position was compromised, called for a retreat, and the Germans surrendered the wall to the Americans. However, the retreating German infantry managed to draw a bead on the American captain and opened fire, downing both men.

With the American heavy infantry the only effective squad left, they charged the Spinne light walker. However, the mech's recce ability allowed it to move out of the way, leaving the heavy infantry out in the open. The Spinne opened up with its anti-aircraft gun, downing a heavy infantryman.

Bill rolled to see if this would be the last turn, but cleared the target.

This last turn saw the American heavy infantry attempt to charge again, but the Spinne continued to scuttle away. While both of the panzerfausts in the German infantry squad missed, the weigh of fire from the German light weapons and the mech's anti-aircraft gun was enough to bring down another two of the power armored infantry.

Tallying up the victory points gave the Germans a solid victory.

Bill and I found the Konflikt 47 rules to be fun, providing a quick-playing game (despite our constant checking of rulebooks) that was fairly brutal. I'm looking forward to playing at a higher point level, especially because it'll allow me to bring more Rift-tech units, like the Panzer IV X, Fallschirmjager Falcons, and SS Shocktroopers.

Half Day Raid - SAGA AAR

Last year, Saga was one of my 6x6 challenge choices. As Kevyn and I battled through our warlords Floki and Louis, Tomahawks Studio revealed that a new version of the game was going to be released in 2018.

I'm planning to run a four player game next month with the South Jersey Wargamers Association, and as a refresh, I offered to run a demo game with Bill, who owns and operates Half Day Studio.

Bill decided to command the Vikings, and I decided to go with the Welsh. I built two identical four point warbands - a warlord with two points of hearthguard and warriors, in four units.

The scenario was Clash of Warlords, but Bill and I ended up deploying our warlords on opposite sides of the table. Our warrior and hearthguard units lined up, with Bill's warlord and dane-axe hearthguard lurking in the woods.

The table was a pretty simple setup - a village, its fields, and the forest beyond. The fields were uneven ground, and the woods were uneven ground and blocked line of sight.

Both sides advanced in the firs turn, the warlords leading their men forward.

Bill's men advanced again in the second turn. I used the Welsh's Taunt ability to draw a unit of warriors forward into the village, and then had my hearthguard advance, throwing their javelins. The attack struck true, and four of the enemy warriors fell.

Not to be outdone, Bill launched a unit of warriors into my hearthguard on the left. The fighting was bloody - I lost three hearthguard, and Bill lost four warriors - but the real pain came from the Vikings' Lords of Battle ability, which exhausted the remaining hearthgurd.

While the men in the village held their ground, the fields and forest were drench in the blood of fighting men. Bill managed to reduce one of my warrior units down to a single model, but I wiped out one of his hearthguard unit and damaged one of his warrior units in return. My warlord and a warrior unit used their javelins to fell three hearthguards as well. 

With the beginning the fifth turn, the battle seemed to be winding down, as the numbers on both sides had been drastically reduced. Bill struck down the last member of the warrior unit on the left, and a sudden advance from his men in the village caught my hearthguard by surprise - two were killed, and the men were sudden overcome with fatigue with Bill's use of the Lords of Battle ability again.

The last turn didn't seem much combat, with the Welsh warlord and his warriors running to catch the last of the Viking hearthguard with their javelins.

Bill and I counted our dead and found that the Welsh had won, 14-9. Bill appreciated the game and found it fun - it was just a shame that it was going to be superseded so soon.

I'm planning on picking up the new version of the game, and I'm looking forward to seeing the changes that Tomahawk Studios has talked about implemented in the game.

Chaos Dwarves vs. Skaven, League Game - Blood Bowl AAR

This game was against Anthony and his Skaven. 

Having won the toss off, Anthony elected to kick and set the ball deep into the Dwarves' half using his Kick Linerat.

However, the Sure Hands Hobgoblin was able to pass the ball to a Bull Centaur, who blasted past the rats for a touchdown.

The team set up and the Dwarves kicked, managing to get a Blitz.

Anthony managed to exploit my overaggressive play, but couldn't get far enough before his ball carrier was swamp and stalled. The Dwarves managed to regain possession of the ball as the half ended.

With the start of the second half, the Dwarves kicked off against a severely reduced Skaven team (which was already fielding a journeyman to cover for a couple missing players).

A failed dodge by a Linerat meant that the ball was exposed.

The Dwarves managed to take advantage of the turnover and overpowered the outnumbered Skaven as another touchdown was scored by a Bull Centaur.

With only a few turns left (and only a few players left), the Skaven received the ball.

Anthony attempted an ambitious play that might have netted him a touchdown had it worked. Unfortunately, the gambit failed, and the game ended with only three rats left on the field and a 2-0 victory for the Immortals.