Red Band Additions

I previously posted about my 20mm wasteland raiders, the Red Band, and here's an update. My warband had five painted vehicles and 15 minis. Here's an addition:

Profile view of Crusher, the latest addition to the Red Band's motor pool.

Front view of Crusher with five new additions to the Red Band.

Lots of red mohawks in the new additions.

Reverse view.

Front view of Crusher. An intimidating prospect.

We've already played another game of Desert Raiders with these folks in play. Will post soon, it was perhaps the most fun wargame I've ever played. More to follow.

Desert Raiders!

Out at the end of the 'verse on the planet Sanctuary, things are tough. The local mining for rare metals is highly lucrative, but the rule of law is weak and gangs roam the desert making a living extorting money and terrorizing the small settlement towns.

Small settlement towns like Hyllestad, the site of a joint Norwegian-Canadian mining conglomerate's company town. Hyllestad has a wall around it and a 10-man UN Legion security detachment, complete with one Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) for extra firepower. The current residents of Hyllestad include a few local gunslingers who do private security work to keep convoys and payrolls secure from the local gangs, and the townsfolk keep plenty of weapons on hand.

It may not be enough. Today the Red Band, a gang of outland raiders in vehicles armored up with scrap metal plates, is paying Hyllestad a visit. Before they show up, let's take a walk around town.

Overhead view of Hyllestad. The UN security compound is at the left end of the shot. Hab domes at the top rear, and landing pad at top right. Old adobe buildings in the center. Shipping containers and modular shacks make up the rest of the structures.

Looking through the front gate, one of the UN Legionnaires pulls security in front of the old adobe buildings from the first settlers' time.

Workers unload crates from a shuttle at the landing pad.

Put the crates over there, guys.

Legionnaires at the gate of the security compound.

The generator inside the inner compound.

The UGV sits inside the UN security compound. If a Legionnaire can get to the UGV and spend a turn activating it, he can control it remotely and drive it out to the fight.

Ornithopter in the security compound.

View of the security compound with the facility headquarters. Generator in the background.

Reverse angle shot.

Legionnaires on patrol in the old town.

The local doc meeting a patient at the front of the hab dome that houses the small clinic. "Sir, your tests came back. I have bad news..."

The Red Band assembles outside the walls before their charge toward Hyllestad. Vehicles from left to right: Gun Buggy, Bloody Mary, Kneecapper, Mothership, and War Wagon.

Nelly, leader of the Red Band raiding party, out front with her heavy pistol. Minis are from Elhiem's Dark Future post-apocalyptic range, as are many of the vehicle add-ons.

The Red Band blows a hole in the wall, and comes bursting through!

Red Band vehicles in the background lay down a hail of fire that knocks out two of the guards.

A flurry of small arms fire immobilizes Kneecapper, a Red Band vehicle equipped with a dual machine gun turret and wheel blades.

The rules provide random movement for the townsfolk, but if the random movement takes them to two designated armories, they are then under the control of the player controlling the town forces.

More townsfolk man the rooftops. In retrospect, I made the generation of more forces too easy for the good people of Hyllestad.

The Mother Ship, the Red Band's large troop carrier, has its main gun knocked out by small arms fire.

The bodies stack up at the gate of the security compound.

More townsfolk take to the rooftops.

Small arms fire has reduced both the War Wagon and Mothership to 1/2 speed.

The some of the crew in Kneecapper dismount. One hopped-up spearman rushes toward the security compound gate (out of frame) while his buddy, Zeke, puts down some covering fire from behind the cover of the vehicle.

And Zeke gets shot down!

Small arms fire destroys the Mothership!

The Mothership crew dismounts and runs for the safety of a building. One of them doesn't make it.

One of the Red Band spear guys makes a suicidal run into one of the armory buildings in an attempt to stab one of the local heroes rallying the Hyllestad populace. Hero at bottom right of the picture.

In a series of amazing dice rolls, spear guy avoided a hail of gunfire and successfully knocked the hero out of the fight! Next turn's hail of gunfire would get him, though.

The Mothership crew makes a run for the hole they blew in the wall with one hostage in tow, when townsfolk gunfire cuts down two of their number, including their leader, Nelly.

Too late to matter, one of the Legionnaires gets the UGV into action and it rolls out of the gate of the UN security compound. All that's left is a bunch of smoking vehicles and bloody bodies.

With that, we called it a game. Everyone had a great time, and we will definitely replay the scenario.

I've spent a while assembling and painting the forces and terrain to make this game work, and I'm glad I finally came together. 

We played with my homebrew rules, Heavies, Heroes, and Hordes. A few amendments to the rules going forward:

- I need a first aid chart for Minis to give buddy aid to each other.

- The vehicles need a standalone maneuverability stat instead of a modifier. It would be simpler.

- The townsfolk generated into fighters too easily. They should have to spend at least a turn in the armory buildings getting a weapon, and only turn into a fighter on a successful roll. They also did all the heavy lifting for the town's defenders after seven or eight of the ten UN Legionnaires were out of the fight.

For that matter, I'm a novice desert raider commander, and my tactics going forward will definitely change. The vehicles were garage-built uparmored vehicles that just had metal plates welded on, so they weren't bulletproof, just "bullet resistant." I had envisioned driving them around and staying mobile, but they were shot up too easily. Red Band fighters will have to dismount earlier to get more guns into the fight.

Hope you enjoyed reading as much as we did playing!

Multi-Use 20mm Sci-Fi Infantry: My United Nations Legionnaires

As I'm continuing to build out the planet Sanctuary, the setting for my space opera, I'm painting up minis and vehicles for different factions. Part of this is my Tomorrow's War campaign following a platoon of United Nations Legionnaires. (Game 1 and Game 2 links)

The minis used for this are K-Kraft 20mm Androis Army. I really like them because they look different from my other minis, which are mostly Elhiem, and because they are generic enough to look like Starship Troopers (movie version) or the ODST troopers in Halo.

The UN Legion platoon is divided into four Lances of five men each. Each Lance is supposed to be supported by a an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) that brings extra firepower to the fight. 

Alpha Lance supported by a UGV.

Bravo Lance in urban operations.

Charlie Lance on the move.

Delta Lance disembarking from a small shuttle.

Hope to have some more games posted featuring these guys soon.

The Red Band: Desert Raiders 20mm Sci-Fi

In building out the world on the planet Sanctuary, my sci-fi setting, I've added a faction called the Red Band, a group of raiders, mercenaries, and local muscle that would look at home in any Mad Max, Gaslands, or other post-apocalyptic desert environment.

All of the Minis are from Elhiem's Dark Future range, except for the Gun Buggy crew, which are from Stan Johansen's 20mm Road Warrior range. The vehicles are done up with a mixture of the two lines' gun and armor add-ons for Matchbox cars.

I put something red on each Mini - a scarf, dye in their hair, tattoos, or article of clothing - to make sure that they look like they're on the same team.

Here's the leader of the gang, Nelly, in all her glory and at the head of her assembled crew.

Here's the whole gang (as currently constituted, there's more on the way) racing through a hole they just blasted in a settlement's wall.

Here's the War Wagon, which has a "hanger-on" who is removable. I painted one standing figure with the same red tattoos on his scalp and torso to represent the same guy once he has jumped off and charged into battle.

This is the Gun Buggy. No armor, but it carries a heavy machine gun and is plenty maneuverable on all kinds of terrain.

This is Kneecapper, which has a special attack against personnel that can be cut down by its tire blades. The double machine gun turret on top can lay down a wall of lead.

This is Bloody Mary, a 2-person gun car. Like Kneecapper she has a front-mounted gun that can only be fired when she is stationary, but is useful for breaching the walls of desert settlements. Both Bloody Mary and Kneecapper have turreted machine guns as well.

This is the Mothership, a battle transport that serves as the Red Band's primary means at spiriting away hostages seized from outland settlements. She's got a turreted machine gun and can carry a number of troops.

Here's the Red Band assembled and ready for battle.

Tomorrow's War Campaign Game 2: Security Detail Counter-Ambush

Here's the second in a series of Tomorrow's War campaign games set on the planet Sanctuary. Restive Uighurs, relocated to the newly formed Sanctuary Prefecture by the Chinese government so that they can cause fewer problems on Earth. The geographic separation encouraged political separatist factions, and an insurgency broke out. The United Nations Legion (a standing peacekeeping force) has Legionnaires deployed to Sanctuary to referee the conflict.

Following a successful Quick Reaction Force (QRF) mobilization to save the driver of a hovercraft hit by an IED, our Legionnaires are conducting a presence patrol to keep things quiet around the district governor's compound. The compound is located in the neighborhood right outside the UN Forward Operating Base (FOB).

Legionnaires pulling security from a rooftop.

Only two of the four Lances in the Legionnaire platoon were on this foot patrol, the other two stayed back at the FOB.

The patrol marches out to the governor's compound.

The Legionnaires get to the compound and are greeted by the governor's security detail, armed guards at the entrance to the compound.

The Legionnaires sweep through the compound, but the governor's diplomatic protection detail is already there keeping things secure.

Then a lone local man walks around the corner and heads for the governor's compound.

Once inside, he asks to speak to the governor. They make small talk, and the man passes a note. The note indicates that the walls have ears, and that an insurgent attack on the governor's compound is imminent.

One Lance of Legionnaires rapidly moves out and mounts the roof of the building next to the governor's compound. They are greeted by a 3-man insurgent cell that wins initiative, fires but hits nobody. The Legionnaires pulled a Fog of War card, 'Mad Minute,' that lets them unleash on the insurgents.

Predictably, the insurgents fare poorly.

The other insurgent cell decides that today is not a good day to die and books it out the back of the compound where they were supposed to stage their part of the attack.

The Alpha Lance Legionnaires who went to the roof go on Overwatch and sits ready to repulse any other insurgent attacks.

The governor's diplomatic security officers take up internal security positions to defend the compound.

Bravo Lance enters and clears the compound that the insurgents used to launch the attack.

At this point we called the game. It was supposed to be a lot closer, but insurgent rolls were abysmal.

The Legionnaires didn't roll up any additional benefits in the post-game phase, so they'll go into the next game as they are.