Warfare got Bombarded, Orbitally

First things first....Orbital Bombardment: the Miniatures Game Dropfleet Commander. Wow.
All the new reveals are great. The painted Shaltari are a work of art (kudos to Hotdrop Studios for the paint job). The renders just did not do them justice - can't wait to see the PHR. I don't think that will be until right near the end of the campaign though.

There is only one problem with the Kickstarter campaign (Ok, there are a few more problems, but overall it's been marvelous) - the comments section........ have you been there? Seriously where have some of these people been dug up from? As a favourite middle ages insult, they are mostly earslings. (To find out what an earsling is, you will need to read some of Bernard Cornwells Saxon stories - you won't regret it)

Anyway onto the most important part of this post. WARFARE 2015

Team OB sent their most valiant and bravest warriors to the depths of Readingum (Reading - to stick with the middle ages theme). 4 of us descended on our mighty steeds of Megane and Micra.
We had to be there early to book in all our bring and buy goods. I had 30 items to be rid of (mostly GW stuff).
We got to the huge gaming hall (over 500 gamers!!) and I found out that my first opponent was.......Joe.

I knew that I'd probably have to play Joe and Ed during the weekend, but seriously, first game! and just look at that face.

First up was Targets of Opportunity.

I knew it would be a tough game, and it was. I got my home objective early, and at no point did I think I'd lose, especially as I stopped Joe getting his home objective (building demolition can be a tad frightening for the Resistance). Joe did manage to be the occupier in 2 of the Central buildings and he chem grenaded the shit out of the third one which had my Hazard suits in. I still had 1 search before I got smoked, failed it and bugged out.
I managed to destroy the troops that entered the left hand central building but Joe found the objective in the centre, passed it to Free-riders who zoomed it away.
I lost a squad of Hazard Suits to Chem tokens as I tried to win the game, but the highlight was Joe placing Free-Riders in a gassed building and with 7 chem tokens remaining he killed the entire squad. He didn't even get to search with them. So the game ended in a hard fought draw. If I could have just pipped him to the win I would have had kill point bonus too.

Game 2 was against Greg Joynson and his PHR
Mission was Ground Control

Medusa, Hades, Nemesis, Helios, Valkyries - it's all there (and nicely painted too) but Greg only had 5 battle-groups.
I think PHR still have a problem with this mission. They just don't have the squads that can re-position themselves easily in the last turn to grab quarters.
I knew what I was doing - I had a plan, and I was trying to systematically remove the threats that came close, or were a little stranded.
The only infantry I brought on were my Hazard Suits who occupied two large towers which could oversee the PHR side.

I sent most of my aircraft up the right flank to deal with the Hades and the 2 Helios in support. Most of the rest of my units went up the left flank. I underestimated the Janus. I forget just how useful they can be with their E7 AA shot. They took down a couple of my Falcons.
The Hades used its Poseidon to re-deploy so it could get a shot on my Ferrum. Fortunately the Ferrum was hull down behind a toppled building and Greg failed to hit at all!
The drones and Phoenix finished the Hades and Helios off.
The Hazard suits spent a turn ruining the day of the Valkyries by destroying one of the Angelos they were riding in. 1 base did make it into a building with them, so I reinforced it with some Legionnaires to ensure my Hazard team kept shooting. The Medusa was slowly picked away with a combination of Rapier wide pattern fire and some machine guns, Greg's infantry suffered at the hands of falling masonry (I think he brought them on too early). by turn 5 I had reduced Greg down to 4 battle-groups which meant I could out-activate him on turn 6. This saw me hold and own all 4 quarters but only because I managed to finally kill a Phobos in Greg's starting quarter with 2 Falcons (they survived the reaction-fire) I had spent 2 turns previously firing at it with my Hazard Suits but to no avail.
So I won 8-0 and had a massive kill point bonus which gave me a 20-0 victory

I'm not hiding from the Nemesis.........Honest

A large hole between the buildings where a Hades used to be

Game 3 versus TechBoy 2000
Secure the Flanks

Ed was at the top of the rankings after game 2, and 5 ahead of me.
We got to play on a lovely looking table, full of 4Ground buildings. The only downside being that there wasn't a single building above 6" in height. This meant that all my aircraft had nowhere to hide.

As usual with Secure the Flanks, my main objective was to get my home objective, stop Ed getting his and occupy the centre building to prevent searches etc, then to own one focal point and contest the other.
The game started well. I stopped Ed finding his objective and whisked mine away. I managed to get into the central building first too. I took a bit of a pounding whilst in there, but as you will see that would be to my benefit. Ed threw in all his troops (all baring Medusas) to deal with the obtuse Hazard Suits daring standing in their way.
I managed to hold up the PHR infantry for 3 turns, and because I was the occupier I got to dictate when the fighting happened. In turn 5 with only a couple of Hazard Suits left I chose to activate the CQB first, as I knew I would lose the combat and it would give me the rest of the turn to demolish the building.

Mass combat to find the last objective

It took all turn - everything I had, and I even had to use Archangels to finish it off. Now that is what I call desperation. It worked though, and the building went down - collapsing on top of the PHR infantry.
While all this was going on I was taking apart what I could of the PHR. I removed both Medusas; again using Rapiers, machine guns and even Katanas (when they weren't dropping buildings on badly placed Helios). By the end I managed to stick to my plan, I owned one Focal Point and contested the other plus I extracted an objective giving me a 5-3 win on victory points plus I had a decent kill point bonus so ended 14-6 to me

Game 4 against Tom "6's" Robinson's Resistance
Mission was Military Complex

Tom has taken a slightly different route with his Feral Resistance. there were only 4 squads of infantry (3 squads of Resistance Fighters and 1 squad of 3 Free-Riders). Tom also used 2 squads of Hannibal's in Lifthawks. He also had a Hellhog and kept the AA missiles.
It started so well for me but I think I peaked in turn 2 and it went downhill from there. In turn 1 I managed to destroy the 3 bases of Free-Riders in the back building before they even got a search.
In turn 2 Tom entered 2 of the centre buildings with his Res Fighters. I found my objective and skedaddled off with it. I then spent the entirety of the rest of the game trying to stop Tom finding and extracting the remaining objectives.
Tom had a Leviathan containing 6 Gun Wagons and 6 Fire Wagons. My Hazard Suits duly removed this threat, taking 3 fire wagons and 1 gun wagon in the wreckage. I moved into the last remaining free objective building and was burnt out of it by flame wagons. I couldn't believe it. 3 Flame Wagons just removed 6, yes 6 dp from the Hazard Suits.
Tom found both objectives and I could not do anything about it. I did manage to stop him being able to extract them though. Lifthawks and Jacksons all got taken out.
I was trying to position myself to get rid of the Resistance fighters but both squads of my Legionnaires got blown up in the air by the Hellhog. Tom's Thunderstorm managed to do 38 damage points to 2 buildings over 3 turns. Not even Hazard Suits can stand up to this. In the end it finished as a draw; 2 victory points each. I did kill more than I lost but without the win it meant little.
A very enjoyable game and Tom was a great opponent.

While all this was going on Joe was also going through a tough draw against Ed


Game 5 against Russell Joynson (brother of Greg who I played on game 2) and his Scourge
Mission was Recon +++++++ who knows how many pluses?!?!?!

As we started this game Joe was on top with 57 points with me on 54 in second then Tom and Ed tied on 51 and Russell on 48. Some organising needed to be done so that no-one played anyone they have played before. This meant I played Russell as I had played everyone else in the top 5.

The variant of Recon was that a 6 was a Focal Point (as many as were rolled) and no intel and a roll of a 1 was still sabotaged but you receive a VP for it.

We had 9 buildings to fight over, frantically searching for intel. Russell's 1st search was a 6, resulting in a focal point. Russell also managed to blow one up.
Over the first 2 turns I pretty much stopped his troop movement. A mixture of Drones and Archangels removed Intruder after Intruder. This was key to the game as I was continuing to search for intel. I found a Focal Point directly opposite Russell's one, and Russell found one in the centre too which he held until the last turn with Destroyers. There is NO CHANCE that I am engaging  in CQB with Destroyers.

After the early death of transports, I was reining in the rest of the Scourge. There was a 24" no-go zone around where the Annihilator that only aircraft would venture, but this didn't affect me too much as all my ground assets were on the other side of the board. I carried on searching for Intel and found 5 pieces and a Focal Point including a bomb.

Russell committed his Oppressor and Screamer to the Focal point he found, but the building only had 6 dp left. So I used the Katanas to finish it off, denying him vital victory points.

I managed to get 3 damage on the Oppressor but just couldn't take the last 2 dp's even when I threw 2 Falcons and my Phoenix at it on turn 6!

The game finished 9-5 to me, as I held 2 Focal points and found 5 intel plus I had a 2 point kill point bonus so I finished with a 17-3 win. This left me on 71 tournament points.

Joe's game had not finished yet, but it was not going well for Joe. There was a lot of swearing at dice going on!
As the dust settled on table 1, Joe was victorious but his army was in pieces. Joe got an early advantage through intel searching (as he should with 9 squads capable of searching!!!) and Tom never managed to claw it back, although he killed 1259 points of Joes Resistance.
Joe won 13-7 meaning he finished with 70 tournament points. Very close indeed

It looks like I get to finish the tournament year as I started it, with a win. I took home a lovely glass etched trophy for my cabinet, a KR bag and 3 blisters of my choice (Reavers, Mortars and more Hazard Suits - Thanks Hawk)

I had an amazing time, coupled with the fact that when I cashed out of the Bring and Buy I walked away with £345 in my pocket. An awesome weekend.

Team OB will certainly be back next year. A huge thanks to Hawk and the Wargames Association of Reading for an excellent event