Badlands Skirmish

Hi!

After my angry review of the other day, I managed to get a quick game of a Song of Blasters using my Epic scaled Ultramarines versus some Eldar.

I've also been working on getting some new scenery put together in the form of some rock columns to add a bit of height to my setup.

 Early Deployment

The Imperials had a more mobile force consisting of several tactical squads mounted in Rhinos and a Landspeeder to give a bit of mobile punch to the patrol and the Imperial forces quickly took control of the settlement in the centre of the board and pushed forward towards the Eldar positions.

Some poor activation rolls saw the Eldar flank refusing to move off the hill which left the Warlock and his Guardians somewhat exposed with just a Falcon grav tank to support them. The Landspeeder had hurtled up the flank and hit the tank with a heavy plasma gun but only succeeded in damaging it and in return the Falcons Brightlance sent the skimmer crashing to the ground in flames.

At this point it became clear that the Eldar had the edge in ranged firepower with the Falcon, Dark Reapers and Warlock able to hit the Marines before their shorter range Bolters could be brought to bare and if it hadn't been for the use of their transports as a shield, the Ultramarines would have been in for a rough day.

The Dark Reapers on the flank blow up a squad of Marines 

Fortunately for the Marines, their transports sacrifice saw them able to get close enough to the Eldar to let rip with their bolters and the lithe Guardians were shredded in a storm of explosive shells.

At this point, the Eldar were forced to retreat having lost most of their infantry but the Ultramarines vehicles were all wrecked apart from the command Rhino.

 The Imperial Rhino's cook off following Brightlance strikes and Warlock Powers

I'm rather enjoying playing very small games in 6mm scale and think I may have some more skirmishes to play but do need to look at my rules a bit further to make things run a bit more smoothly and do need to add some more balancing units to my forces as my Ultramarines need some long range firepower while my Eldar need more swift moving units too!

At present, an average game lasts about 20-30 minutes which should allow me to run a decent mini campaign over the course of an evening but the more multi wound vehicles and units I add, the longer it takes to play.

In the meantime, I'm also starting work on my Orks and have managed to finish two stands of Goff boyz to test out how they look and if a more verdant base works with them. While I like the Orks, I'm not sure about the bases and think I need to add some green static grass or patches of vegetation like I did with my aris bases to make them pop.

Ork Boyz

I think I need to rummage my Epic boxes to see what I have and what I can add to my forces as it would be great to see some fully fleshed out little patrols duking it out over the coming months!

In the meantime, All the best!