Imperial Guard vs Fluffies

 20 years ago my youngest son expressed an interest in 40k. As he was my fourth child I knew hobbies could last a lifetime or until lunch time. I did not want to spend a lot of money so bought him some WW2 Russians in winter uniform and a French Char B tank and passed them off as 40k Imperial Guard.

As expected his interest lasted until just after we completed painting them and then it was back to wrestling action figures and WWE on the Wi system.

But 20 years later his efforts come in handy and his force will brave the Fluffy xenos.

Scenario:  The Imperial Guard platoon and its supporting tank need to cross the snowy wastes of the Fluffy home world to reach the rescue shelter while being pursued by endless hordes of fluffies. Once there they need to call down a shuttle to rescue them. This will take 1-20 turns to arrive.

Rules used are the FFOL Galactic Heroes.

Fluffies move 10" per turn and can only fight in close combat and roll a D8. They have one wound each. Every turn one to four groups of three Fluffies will appear on the edges of the board. There are six entry locations on the edges of the board and each group will be randomly allocated to one of these. To wound the tank they must roll a 7 or 8 on a D8.

The Imperial Guard soldiers move 10" and don't fire, 5" and fire once, or don't move and fire twice, they roll a D8 for Firing and a D6 for Close Combat. They have one wound each and are armed with either a Laser Rifle (one shot Short Range 12" Long Range 24") or a Heavy Blaster ( three shots, -1 to hit, +1 to wound, SR 18", LR 36")

The Tank moves 5" and has six wounds. The Hull Flamer uses a template and auto hits anything under it. The Turret has a heavy blaster Heavy Blaster ( three shots, -1 to hit, +1 to wound, SR 18", LR 36") When the tank is destroyed it will explode and any Fluffies in contact with it will be destroyed.

The Rescue Shelter has doors and windows. These can be engaged in close combat by the fluffies and roll a D6. The Door has 6 wounds and the three windows have 4 wounds each. The door can be engaged by two fluffies and each window by one fluffy. When the door or window is destroyed the fluffies can enter the rescue shelter and attack any imperial guardsmen hiding within. The Imperial guards can fire out of the rescue shelter.

Start of the game. The Imperial Guard have formed a square with the tank in the lead. The rescue Shelter is on the right. Top and bottom are Fluffy hordes.

End of turn 2. The fluffies advance towards the guard as they rush towards the rescue shelter.

The Imperial guard square collapses under the fluffy attack. While some fluffies have been killed (red markers) and some incinerated (black flaming markers) the rest have contacted the guard and killed many of them. Three guardsmen are racing towards the shelter.

 

End of turn 5. The guard have reached the rescue shelter but many of their comrades have fallen to the fluffy hordes. 

End of turn 6. They have successfully requested evacuation but it will be 9 turns before the shuttle arrives. The shuttle will move along the line of clear cups one per move. Two more guardsmen are nearly at the shelter, the tank is surrounded by fluffies. Will any more guardsmen make it? 

End of turn 7. The last guardsman outside the shelter falls. Inside the shelter the guardsmen keep up a furious fire against the approaching hordes as the shuttle takes its time arriving. The tank moves and incinerates fluffies but more arrive all the time.

End of turn 8. More fluffies are killed but more arrive. So far the guard are keeping the fluffies from attacking the shelter. The tank continues its fight but will its sacrifice help.

End of turn 10. The tank explodes incinerating all fluffies next to it. Will its sacrifice save the remaining guardsmen? The fluffy horde have reached the shelter and are attacking the door and windows.

End of turn 13. The door and windows of the shelter still hold but just barely. More fluffies arrive to replace any killed and the shuttle gets every closer.

End of turn 14. The shuttle is nearly there but the door has finally been broken. Next turn the fluffies will enter the shelter. Two windows have two wounds and the third has one. If they hold another turn the guard will escape.

End of turn 15. The shuttle reaches the shelter and drops its rear door. But fluffies have broken in and killed two of the remaining guardsmen. Two of the windows are close to breaking.

Turn 16. The five remaining guard race for the shuttle door and make good their escape leaving the crew of the tank and 13 of their comrades on the field of battle. They have killed 65 of the hideous fluffy xenos but their endless hordes can't be stopped.

Wrap up.

Well that was reasonably exciting. I was not sure if the fluffies would be able to get anywhere close to the guards and then  after a few turns I thought the guard had no hope. But finally a bit of a Hollywood ending with  five guardsmen escaping by the skin of their teeth.

Having the door and windows fight the close combat worked well and is something I will use again.

I was glad to be able to get to use the figures made such a long time ago but now they are back in their box and will have to wait another 20 years. 😂

What's next? I have been painting and building some terrain.

Space Rangers in Danger

 Part of Project Fluffy. The Space Rangers need to get across the snow fields to the rescue shelter and call down a shuttle to escape. All that stands between them and safety is an endless horde of Fluffies who want to eat them.

Rules used are the FFOL Galactic Heroes.

Fluffies move 10" per turn and can only fight in close combat and roll a D8. Each turn one to four groups of three Fluffies will appear on the edges of the board. There a six entry locations on the edges of the board and each group will be randomly allocated to one of these.

Space Rangers can fire twice, or move once 4" and fire once, or move twice (8") and roll a D10. The rangers need to get to the shelter, enter and call down the shuttle. The shuttle will take one to four turns to arrive.

Below- Start of the game - on the left is the space ranger squad led by their sergeant with a flamer. The other five rangers all have assault guns. The Fluffies on the board are hidden by hills.

End of turn 1. Fluffies are moving from both sides as the rangers head for the shelter. Two more lots of Fluffies have come on the table.

End of turn 2.  The Sergeant sends two men to the shelter to call down the shuttle while the other rangers deal with the approaching Fluffies. All the Fluffies have moved towards the rangers. Four additional groups of Fluffies have appeared on the board with three of these groups appearing in one entry location, bottom left.

End of Turn 3. Fluffies that have been incinerated are replaced by burning markers. This shot are shown by the red hit markers. Dead Fluffies are added back to their reinforcement pool.

While the Sergeant and his partner have dealt with the Fluffies near them, the rear two rangers are struggling to inflict any wounds on the Fluffies. The front two rangers have been stopped in their race to the shelter but have killed one Fluffy. However a horde of Fluffies is approaching from the bottom left.

End of turn 4. The rangers at the rear are still struggling to do any damage. In the center they have finished off the Fluffies and at the front only one Fluffy remains. However three more sets of Fluffies are headed their way from the top.

End of turn 5. The rear rangers finally kill two Fluffies but they will soon be replaced.

In the center the Sergeant moves to incinerate a the advancing horde of Fluffies and sends his squad members towards the rescue shelter.

At the front two rangers hold the Fluffies while a third races towards the rescue shelter to call for help.

End of turn 6.  The Sergeant's sacrifice has paid off and one of the rear rangers has broken free. The other unfortunately also falls prey to the Fluffies. 

In the center the Fluffies are being killed in great numbers but more and more replace them.

One ranger has reached the rescue shelter and will soon be able to call for the evacuation shuttle. 

End of turn 7. At the rear the Fluffies feast on the fallen rangers. In the center the Fluffies still come and the rangers have battled through them. Will they make it to the shelter?

At the front the ranger has made it into the rescue shelter and has called for evacuation. Will any other rangers join him?

End of turn 8. The shuttle is 2 turns out from the shelter, but a horde of Fluffies is headed there as well. Two of the Rangers are free from the Fluffies and maybe able to make it to the shelter.

End of turn 9. The shuttle is only one turn away as the rangers battle with Fluffies to make it safely into the shelter. One of the rangers has gone down to the rampaging Fluffy horde who feast upon him

End of turn 10. The Shuttle arrives and the three remaining rangers enter it gratefully as Buzz provides covering fire. 

I had no idea how this would turn out so a good result as far as I am concerned. The Fluffy hordes kept coming and coming. While the Rangers killed 30+ Fluffies they were not deterred. No doubt the Rangers will not return here.

But good news. The Imperial Guard will and another report is on it way.

Lots of fun to play. I skipped using the cards to determine playing order and the rangers went first each turn. With the number of Fluffies in play it made more sense.

 

 

Project Fluffy

 A new quick project.

In the comments of my last post Stew (of a Terrible Loss of  Lead and Wealth) suggested that I make a few more Fluffies and run a game using FFOL Galactic Heroes against my Space Rangers. This was a great idea as Fluffies are easy to make and it would be a silly but fun game to play.

So, in my quickest project ever I have already made a great start and in less than two weeks

Another 30 Fluffies have been made.

In the scenario I planned I realised I would need a small Rescue Shelter and I decided that this could also perform double duty as a box for the new Fluffy horde. I have completed the Rescue Shelter for the game using a clear take away container that I usually use to store my figures in.

I got out all the figures I would need for the scenario. Fluffies, Space Rangers, Buzz Lightyear who will come to save the Space Rangers in his shuttle and the completed Rescue Shelter.

I have even set up the table for the game. Going old school with a white table cloth for the snowy planet, various objects under it for hills and ridges, Fluffy starting positions and entry points, and the Space Ranger Squad with the long trip to the Rescue Shelter where they will call down Buzz and the Shuttle to take them away from these hideous xeno's.  

So a fantastic result in less than two weeks I have created a new army plus the terrain to play a game with. Lets see if I can complete the game in the next two weeks.

Using the takeaway containers for a building is something I had done before. Here is a photo of some I created for my nephew when he was interested in 40k. Cheap and very easy to make with just a bit of spray paint and some suitable posters printed out.

My nephew started a Necron army so I built him some Necron themed buildings as well.

Not Much

 Just a pointless post showing two things that I have done in the last twelve months.

First up is Fluffy. The world cheapest homemade monster and something I am inordinately proud of.

Fluffy is constructed with the following:

- a cotton wool ball
- a small coin
- red & black paint
- two squiggly eyes (that I purchased about 20 years ago because one day they would be needed.)

Glue the cotton wool ball to the small coin. Once the glue has set paint on the month in black and add red if desired, and stick on the eyes. You now have a silly monster for 40k or any other system.

Fluffy on the left has just eaten while Fluffy on the right is still hungry

Dopey looking Fluffy on the right.

Mummy and baby Fluffy. Baby Fluffy can be used for 10 or 15mm games or can join in the 28mm games too.  To make a baby Fluffy just tear the cotton wool ball in half.

Action shot of Fluffy and a Space Ranger

Action shot of Buzz Lightyear firing double gangster style to cleanse the galaxy of these hideous xeno creatures. No mercy Buzz!!

I have also bought a few more of the contrast paints. To give me a better idea of how they look/work I decided to copy what Games Workshop displays in their stores. I got some surplus 10mm figures, undercoated them in white and then painted each figure in one of the colours. This would also help me see how the contrast paint would work in 10mm

The ones at the front are Army Painter Metallic Speed Paints. All the others are GW Contrast paints.
I cleverly remembered to keep a record of what colour each one was. Especially for the GW ones as the name is often meaningless.

So not much of a post but just enough to say I am still doing stuff and keep the blog ticking over.

Thanks for reading.

Disaster on the Zoological Explorer Ship Crikey

 The ZES Crikey* was on a interstellar collection mission when it was struck by a ion storm off the shoulder of Orion. Scrambling the computers, the doors of the containment cells holding various specimens began to open randomly.

The crew of the Crikey, three engineers and three security staff, needed to regain control of the computers. 

First the engineers had to discover the problem using the computers in the main control room at the front of the ship. Rolling three standard task actions, a 5+ on a D10. 

Then once that was completed they would need to venture to the engineering control room at the back of the ship and roll two standard task actions. This would then stop the doors of the containment cells randomly opening.

The crew also had the assistance of six robots who were patrolling the corridors. These robots had varying capabilities with the red robots being the most heavily armed.

The faster the engineering crew rebooted the computers the less of the specimens would escape and cause havoc in the corridors.

Luckily some of the containment cells were empty and opening those doors would not cause an issue. Likewise, opening a door on a containment cell that had already released its occupant would also not be a problem.

Some of the specimens were sentients. The Predators and the Egyptians. These would attempt to open their fellows' cell and take over the ship.

The other specimens would attack whatever was in front of them and move randomly. Running from anything that was meaner than them.

The Ship

The layout of the ship. To the left the main control room, with four crew in the control room and two crew in the sleeping quarters. Six robots patrol the corridors. The engineering control room is on the right.
All the various creatures are locked in their cells.

* Crikey is a nod to Steve Irwin's favourite phrase.

Rules

Fist Full of Lead Galactic Heroes

Figures - Pendraken except for Magister Militum (bears), Fluffy is made by me, Spiders & Ladybirds from Aliexpress.

Space ship layout is from Wargames Vault and I have added my computer consoles for some 3D depth.

Counters.

I recently purchased a box of beads with letters and numbers for a very reasonable price. I thought these would be useful for randomising various actions in games. I placed one letter in each of the occupied cells and the corresponding letter into a cup. I also added the numbers 1 to 10 to the cup to represent the empty cells, I would draw one letter from the cup each turn and the corresponding cell would open and the specimen would activate. The letter would then be returned to the cup. This would mean as the game went on the number of beasts released would decrease as the cells would open again even though empty. I thought that this would give the crew a better chance.

The Report

Normally I would show a photo for the end of each turn. But as the game went through 30 turns I will only show ones that were important to avoid boring the internet.

End of turn 1 - an Alien has escaped from his cell.

End of turn 2 - the Alien encountered a devil who had just escaped from his cell and killed him

End of turn 3 -The Alien encountered a red security robot who terminated him. This robot would be the MVP.
In the main control room the engineers have determined that a team needs to go to the rear engineering room and restart the computers to stop the doors randomly opening. 

End of turn 4 - A giant spider has escaped its cell while a team of an engineer and security staff start making their way from the main control room to the rear control room.

End of turn 7 - The spider has been killed by the red robot near the rear control room as has a large flying worm that escaped its cell (top middle). However a Squid has destroyed the robot guard after escaping its cell (middle middle)

End of turn 9 - The engineer and security guard are nearly at the rear control center. A unicorn has escaped but there are two robots between it and the engineer so there should be no problems from it. More worryingly is that the Squid has destroyed the robot guard and is headed towards the rear control room. 

End of turn 10 - The escaped unicorn has killed two robots. The squid is facing off against a flying worm. The engineer and security staff are only two turns from the rear engineering room. It looks like the ship will soon be under their control again.

End of turn 13 - Just as the engineer was about to get to the rear computer room and save the day the unicorn raced around the corner and skewered him. The security guard fired and missed and ran out of ammo! Worse the flying worm is moving towards them as well.
In the top right set of cells an SciFi Egyptian has escaped and is trying to open his friends door. He has to roll a hard task, 8+ on a D10.

End of turn 14 - Another engineer is on his way from the front control room and this time escorted by two security guards.
At the rear control room a red robot has come to the rescue of the security guard allowing him to reload.
But the SciFi Egyptians have both escaped and are on their way to the main control room.

End of turn 16 - A bear escapes and attacks the Egyptians but is cut down despite causing some shock. In the bottom corridor the engineer is escorted by the security guards. The red robot has dealt with both the flying worm and unicorn.

End of turn 17 - the Egyptians rally off the shock. The new engineer makes his way towards the rear control room. A giant spider has escaped and engages a robot.

End of turn 19 - The spider has killed the robot and gone towards the main control room. The Egyptians are following, not having sighted it yet. No other specimens have escaped. The engineer is nearly at the rear control room. This time the security guards are taking no chances and secure a perimeter around him.

End of turn 22 - The Egyptians have broken into the main control room (a hard task 8+ on a D10) The engineer in the rear control room is frantically working on the computer - (failing a regular task 5+ on a D10) A Giant Lady bug has escaped and is headed towards the security guards after being attacked by the Giant Spider.

End  of turn 23 - The engineer in the main control room guns down one of the Egyptians and the other charges towards him. The Lady Bug runs from the security guards fire. The Engineer in the rear control room successfully regains control of the computer and no more specimens will be released.
The red robot moves towards the main control room to assist the engineer there.

End of turn 26 - In a rage from seeing his friend shot the remaining Egyptian kills the engineer in the main control room. He will start randomly smashing buttons in an attempt to take over the ship. Once he has completed 6 tasks the ship will explode. One task is completed by each regular task (5+ on a D10) completed or two tasks for each hard task (8+ on a D10) completed. 
The security guards and red robot race towards the main control room.
Three specimens are loose on the ship. A bear, a Giant Spider and a Giant Lady Bug

End of turn 27 - The Egyptian makes a hard task roll and the counter is reduced to 3.
The security guards stop to shoot and kill the giant spider and the red robot stops to shoot the bear. Is this wise considering the danger to the ship?

End of turn 29 - The bear has killed the red robot. The security guards shoot at the giant lady bug but only cause one shock. The Egyptian has completed another regular task and the counter is down to two.
Will the security guards be able to make their way to the control room past the bear and giant lady bug before the counter reaches zero? 

End of turn 30 - The bear kills the giant lady bug but to no avail. The Egyptian smashes the final task and the counter reaches zero destroying the ship and all in her.

Oh well. An interesting little game where I had to make up a few rules on the fly. At first it looked like the ship would be saved quite easily until the random movement of the unicorn had it killing the first engineer sent to the rear control room.

The second engineer sent to the rear control room did not need two guards but it seemed a sensible decision at the time considering the number of specimens it had to pass by and how the first one was killed.

When the Egyptians got to the main control room I made up the rule about the end of the ship. I thought it would take longer than it did, but that is Hollywood magic for you. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So it was a fun game where I got to use my a few of my minions painted 2 years ago, various monsters and creatures, all of which I had not used before. I also got to make a new world's cheapest mini monster - Fluffy. I will detail Fluffy in another post.