Legion introductory game

Played a starter match last weekend with a guy who was interested in Star Wars Legion. Since it was an introductory game we kept it pretty basic, with two armies of 500 points squaring off in a classic match of rebels against empire 

The rebs got first activation and the mandos jumped from behind a container nuking a bunch of stormtroopers with their backpack rockets

The empire answered by moving forwards into cover, and concentrated fire downed all of the deathwatch except Bo-Katan

Luke rushed to her aid dispatching a scout bike with his lightsaber

And the nimble mandalorian kept flying around blasting more stormtroopers with precise shots of her twin westar blasters

Vader charged then into the fray, choking an unfortunate rebel trooper

But the golden boy of the Rebellion was again there to save the day

And after trading some blows he brought down the dark lord of the sith

 

Condotta: a renaissance boardgame

 

Hi all, recently I made a boardgame based on renaissance Italy, a game that combines both war and politics in a multiplayer setting.

Condotta

Stratagem cards

Sword of the Imperium, custodes land raider

This proteus land raider has served with the Legio Custodes since the earliest days of the Imperium. First forged at the start of the great Crusade by the Mechanicum, the vehicle was given to the Emperor's guardians, who rode it into battle during mankind's expansion through the stars. The land raider would go on to serve in the siege of Terra, where it was destroyed by the traitors during their final assault on the Sanctum Imperialis. Rebuilt after the Heresy, the Sword has remained idle in Terra until now, when it once again takes to the stars to bring death to aliens and heretics

The new proteus land raider was released finally in plastic las fall, and since my custodes lacked some firepower I decided to pick up one and turn it into a venerable land raider

The kit is quite versatile, allowing you to build a traditional rogue trader proteus or a more modern version with an assault ramp

Of course being a custodes vehicle it needed more bling,  an assortment of shields an eagles taken from a squad of regular custodian guard 

Believe it or not it took me four days to assemble and paint this beast, but I'm sure you'll agree that the result was worth the time 

The small eagle heads found in the assault ramp come from the imperial knight, a machine that will soon appear on the blog

Equipped with four lascannons, two heavy bolters, a storm bolter and a hunter killer missile the Sword of the Imperium is a jack of all trades

Rattenkrieg

 

Our Stalingrad minicampaign goes on with a meeting engagement between nazis and soviets in an industrial sector of the ruined city

First into the field is Záitsev himself, who gets into ambush...

... and oneshots a german sniper with his trusty mosin nagant

The next soviets to show up are the veterans of the assault section armed with PPSh-41s

Followed by more german reinforcements

Both tanks appear also, but their shots are ineffective given the abundance of cover

Turn 2 begins with a duel between the T-34 and the panzer IV, who both manage to roll a 1 with the antitank gun

Despite this poor showing Záitsev manages to snipe the nazi officer from half the board

The bulk of the russian troops have appeared by now

And the gremans are incinerated by the tank mounted flamethrower

The nazis take cover behind the tank

Precipitating a massed charge of ruskis armed with molotov cocktails

After surviving an antitank shot the T-34 manages to blow p the enemy panzer

And a final charge of the russians seals the game. ¡For the Motherland!

Stalingrad assault

 

First game of our ww2 campaign is a classic assault on an area of ruins held by the red army

The ruskis are well entrenched and wait for the german onslaught

First into the field is a panzer IV followed by a sniper team

The german tank unleashes its fire against the russian infantry wasting tis activation, the T-34 takes this chance to move out of cover

And blow away the nazi tank with an AP shot

Following this success the veteran assault section moves into the nearest ruin

The flamethrower and machine gun of the T-34 makes short work of the incoming germans

That are then finished by the submachine guns of the assault squad

Retaliatory german fire decimates one of the soviet units

But then Zaitsev takes aim and kills the enemy oberleutnant with a single shot

The tank cleans house on the center

And the last fascists turn tail and flee

Panzer IV

After doing the T-34 it was time for a german tank, and none is more iconic than the panzer IV, a vehicle that served during all the war, from the invasion of Poland to the battle of Berlin. In 1941 the panzers met their match in the new generation of russian tanks, so for the campaign of 1942 most of them had been upgraded with a new turret bearing a heavy antitank gun. In addition extra protection was also developed in the shape of a ring of armour around the turret, and two side panels called schürzen. This tank represents one of those who fought in Stalingrad and later battles. 

Painting was certainly time consuming, over a basecoat of light brown I applied a drybrush of cream, followed by metal weathering and then two colours of camo, the last step was a wash of sepia ink.

Pretty much like the actual thing the warlord model is way over engineered, with tons of bits and bobs that you need to put together, and not even a peg under the turret to keep it in place while it turns. In the end I had to glue a piece of sprue underneath. The T-35 was far easier to assemble, with only two sprues and less fiddly details, proving once again that russian tanks are better

 Also, lacking any kind of inserted pegs the schürzen are quite fragile, so I expect them to break and fall at the first hit from the russian guns