15mm Gruntz 2016 Battle Report 2: UNSC vs Helghast

Leaked news reports were calling it "The Massacre on 2335 Coronae IV".  Rumors were spreading, and a new uprising would occur each day.  Colonel Carthen was tasked with silencing these false truths, a crime punishable by death.  Still, Carthen was worried as the rebels had access to tanks and other vehicles via illegal arms trading.  He had many under cover spies and drones attempting to find out who was behind this influx, but so far nothing.

"Sir, a message for you" the young sergeant handing him a data slate.  Carthen had the intel he needed.  One of his spies had infiltrated an illicit trade agreement and learned of the next area to obtain new hardware.  Carthen mobilized his small strike force.  High Command was kind enough to send him more Spider Droids and Horizon's sister tank, Immortal.

FUBAR.

Enemy forces have been identified as the Helghast, a very mysterious, but high tech nuisance to the UNSC.  Rumors are that the Helghast were once human, but through gene splicing and copious amounts of experimental drugs, they are anything but human now.  His forces must have been spotted, as a rather large force of Helghast was bearing down upon them.  The humming of a Helo's engine could be heard.  This fight would definitely be interesting...

Matt and I played another game of Gruntz at our local hobby store.  We played a 400 point battle, with him bringing a much beefier and respectable force this time.  I brought my UNSC again.  I tweaked my forces a little since our last battle.  I love how you can tweak your guys in Gruntz to be exactly what you want.  We play pretty much by the book, except that we double all shooting ranges.

Here are our unit lists:

Matt's Helghast.  They have a Helicopter...

The layout.  We chose to deploy in opposite corners.

UNSC forces makea  dash for the town.  Horizon and Immortal take up firing positions.

Immortal taking up position to ruin any tanks day that strolls down that road.

Large plasma shot from a Jaktar V class MBT blows a giant hole in one of my APCs knocking out its CIWS.  Immortal shoots back and scores a solid hit.

UNSC forces have secured the town, but the Helghast move on forward.

UNSC infantry take some serious heat.  The Helo proves to be a pain as it has an active camo unit making it hard to hit.

Horizon and Immortal continue to score hits on the opposing tanks, but they keep rumbling forward.

UNSC Infantry squad thought they killed a few Helghast... but they got back up and wiped out the UNSC in the building. What are we fighting?!

Finally a Jaktar V MBT goes up in a ball of fire.  

A Jaktar V limps away and begins to auto repair.

The end of the battle.  Lots of damaged vehicles.

Was a very fun and close battle.  Not entirely sure who won as we don't really care, we just want to have fun.  I had lost nearly half of my infantry.  Matt's infantry had taken a beating, but kept rolling 5s and 6s to get them to stand back up on his auto heal perk.  I lost a spider droid and had a few badly banged up tanks.  Matt lost 1 tank, a second 1 point away from dying and a 3rd with a large chunk taken out of it.

I need to find some air cover to take out that blasted Helicopter.  Was very hard to hit with its Active Camo device.

15mm Gruntz 2016 Battle Report 1: UNSC vs Rag Tag Militia

Upon learning of an illegal arms trade and subsequent uprising the United Nebular Space Council dispatched a peace keeping force to the desert planet of 2335 Coronae IV.  Unknown to the UNSC strike force was the exact composition of the local militia.  Colonel Carthen, commander of the UNSC forces in the Coronae sector only had one mechanized platoon and the Paladin class tank "Horizon" to quell this uprising.  The troops he commanded were elite light infantry, with some serious hardware and numerous battles to their name.  Forward reconnaissance located the Militia scum 1 click north of their current landing site.  The terrain was not very favorable, this planet was pretty barren with very little vegetation, but orders were orders.  The uprising must be silenced.

3 Squads move forward in their Phalanx APCs.  Squads A and B have an attached heavy laser.  Squad A secures the right flank, while Squad B with a Spider Droid secures the center.  C Squad is told to hold the left flank.

Troopers await the upcoming battle inside their APCs

C Squad moves up behind a hill.  Horizon takes a shot at an enemy Hover Tank scoring a direct hit.  Looks like the targeting equipment was crippled. B Squad drops off their Heavy Laser team in some vegetation.

A rather large Militia force with a variety of equipment.  Hover tanks, wheeled, and tracked along with various mecha.

Horizon fires a second salvo brewing up the Hover Tank.

A and B Squad move out into cover and start firing missiles and heavy laser fire into the Militia vehicles.  C squad ventures too far.  Frakkin new replacements trying to prove themselves.

Horizon targets a light Mecha and destroys it in one shot

C Squad takes horrendous casualties while A and B squads continue pouring on the fire.  

The Militia tries to push forward.

A Squad brings down what appears to be an American build IFV and the dismounted infantry.  B squad lights up another light mecha.

Spider Droid moved forward to destroy most of an enemy infantry unit.  A squad has been wiped out.  Frakkin Noobs.  Horizon decides to Brew up another Hover Tank while taking minimal return fire.  The Militia vehicles acquired in the illegal arms trade seem to be of poor quality.  Spider Droid moved too far forward and took a large amount of damage from the back destroying it.

Had a great game with my friend Matt.  We played 300 points a side.  He is still trying to build a cohesive force out of his very large collection of 15mm figures.  I have been tweaking this force for a while and I think I am close to a nice balance.  His troops were very under armed and under trained.  I told him to make his guys at least skill/shoot 4 if he wants to represent trained soldiers as 3 skill/shoot can't hit much in this game.  He also took way too light of guns on his vehicles.  He had a very hard time doing much damage to my troops.  

I had a missile launcher in each squad along with 2 heavy laser teams.  I was able to do heaps of damage to his vehicles and mop up his infantry with small arms fire.  My force was all skill/shoot 5 to represent a battle hardened unit of veterans.  They also all had the Hard Vetz special rule to match their backstory.  

This is my force that I want to finish up painting and have at least 600 points to mess around with.  I would like to continue creating and fleshing out their back story.  Kind of an oppressive futuristic U.N. style force.

AAR: Gruntz 15mm Sci Fi

This weekend was a great one for miniature gaming.  Saturday I managed to get in a demo game of Force on Force which I will post an AAR of later this week.  Sunday I played a multiplayer game of Gruntz.

This is a game I have been following for a very long time.  I have collected a decent amount of 15mm Sci Fi miniatures over the years, but it has for the most part just been sitting and collecting dust.  Lately quite a few of my friends have been interested in 15mm Sci Fi so we started building our forces and designing our armies.  This is pretty much the 3rd time I have played the game and it was a blast.  We did make one change to the rules and that was to double all weapon ranges.  We felt like the current ranges were way too short for our tastes.  It made the game a much more enjoyable experience.

We paired up Aaron with Brian, and Kurt with me.  The forces looked like this:

Aaron (beige/sand): Caliphate Infiltration Battalion

Brian (Blue): Khanate Strike Force

Kurt (Yellow-Green): Principate Rangers

Nick (Bare Metal): UNSC Light Attack Force

Objectives: Destroy the opposition!

Aaron brought some terrain for us to fight over.  A few Gamecraft Miniatures buildings, a building from the HALO toy range and some esoteric crystals.

The first few turns were mainly just each force moving into position to get the best firing lanes and terrain.  Kurt and I were much more aggressive in our advance by double moving our APCs forward to attempt to take the buildings.

You can just see the barrel of the main gun on one of my Paladin tanks at the bottom middle of this next picture.  I had them keeping back and off to the flank to make use of their tremendous range.

There was some minor damage done here and there to the APCs.  My Paladin tanks were taking chunks out of Brian's Blue APCs and had him quite worried.  Forced him to start disembarking pretty early.

Aaron's sneaky sniper team was quite an annoyance.

Kurt and I disembark the bulk of our forces and take advantage of as much cover as possible.  I move my spider drones in a way that they can take advantage of Brian's infantry if they move out into the open.

At this point Brian had lost most of his vehicles.  My Paladins were racking up kills and big hits on his vehicles.  Kurt and Aaron were off blowing each other up.

My two MVPs the Paladin High Mobility Tank.  

Brian gets some Air support and takes out one of my APCs.  An acceptable casualty as it had already delivered it's cargo.

In the very far background you can see Aaron has deployed a unit in Kurt's rear and is causing massive casualties.  My spider droids had pretty much wiped out an infantry unit of Brian's and all of his vehicles were smoldering wrecks.

A nice giant bottleneck for the infantry.  Aaron had dealt a decent amount of casualties and Brian had killed an APC and 2 weapon teams of mine.

We called it shortly after this.  It was getting late in the day.  Brian's forces were looking small and Kurt had lost all his Vehicles and a good chunk of infantry.  Aaron had a few casualties, but was looking to be in a good position.  I had lost all my APCs and one of my Paladins was suffering from a critical hit to it's optics.  My infantry was firmly holding the buildings content on letting the enemy come to them.  

Aaron probably has some great pictures from his perspective and I am looking forward to that.  It was a fun game and we learned a lot.  Rules are pretty great and simple.  Now I need to get some paint on this force.  I'm thinking a Cobra Commander looking group :)

15mm Crusty Marshborn WIP

I have sort of dropped my Cold War project for the time being and have delved deeply into 15mm Science Fiction.  This is a force that I got from Ground Zero Games.  They are a chitinous alien race that reminds me of the aliens from District 9.  I have 2 more larger walkers that aren't built yet and I am working on finding some sort of transport vehicle.

Not much too look at right now.  I do like how the bases came out on the guys in the middle.  I am thinking of a green and grey theme for the guns, mechs and armor suits.  I am thinking brown washes and a khaki high light will work pretty well for the chitin.

I played a game of Gruntz with these guys on Sunday.  My friend took a bunch of pics so hopefully I can get those from him and post up an AAR.

15mm Sci Fi Clearhorizon Miniatures Review

For those of you who are interested in 15mm Science Fiction miniature gaming, there is a relatively new company called Clearhorizon Miniatures run by Mr Harold from the Dropship Horizon Blog. Currently the miniature line is very small, but he has plans to expand it and has put out some amazing products so far. I also have to say that Harold's customer service is very good and he ships his product as soon as possible. That being said, he does seem to 3rd party his casting and molding so there can be some delay if he is low or out of stock of a product. He does however let you know about these delays instead of leaving you wondering like certain miniature companies out there.

Onto the products!


15mm "Hell Divers" Infantry:

These seem to be designed as a special forces unit that specializes in rapid insertion missions.  I feel like they have a ton of character with very nice sharp detail.  They are definitely on the more slender side of 15mm miniatures, but match up height wise with the larger 15mm companies out there.  This does make them seem rather small at times from a distance.  They have an optional backpack that gives them that added character you don't get with most 15mm minis out there. Currently you can buy an Alpha squad and a Bravo squad, which essentially is a 12 man regular armed unit, or a 6 man special weapons squad.  

For those who care, I will be using these in Gruntz as an Elite unit that consists of 6 gruntz, 1 SAW and 1 AT attachment to make a squad of 8.  Each of my platoons will be 3 squads, with one squad swapping out the AT weapon with a sniper.

Would definitely like to see more command options. 

15mm Drop Pods:

I think it is safe to say that there really is nothing like this kit out there in the 15mm market right now. I have to admit that at first I was skeptical as to how interesting this kit would be.  I think my first picture shows how beautiful this model really is and how much flavor it actually has for essentially a box that falls out of the sky.  The model itself is cast very well with very few air bubbles and nothing major.  There are definitely some fiddly parts to the model and the smaller pieces do need some cleaning and trimming to actually fit properly, but well worth it in the end.  You can also glue the outer doors shut if you want.

I do feel like this model requires a base as it is rather fragile without one which could be a downside.  No open doors internal doors is also something to note, however I do think that it would be very difficult to cast one with that feature without redesigning the entire model. Overall I enjoy this model a lot, I don't think pictures can really do this model complete justice.

Note: This model brings out my inner child as I constantly make imitation thruster noises as I crash my model through the atmosphere and land it on the table deploying its cargo.  Just ask my friends...

15mm VTOL Attack Craft:

Harold currently has 2 different VTOL attack craft, the Raven and the Sparrowhawk.  I won't go into extreme detail on the differences of each one, but will kind of lump up my thoughts about both into one review.

The casts are pretty clean for resin with little to no air bubbles just like the Drop Ships. There is of course some clean up to do and some mold lines will need to be filed, but nothing too extreme. One thing that I really appreciated was that when I did find a noticeable air bubble, it was actually filled with a modelling putty of some sort and filed down to match the model. I think this is very important to note as not only does it show that Harold inspects his miniatures for defects before shipping them, he corrects those defects that would possibly make a customer disappointed in the purchase. The smaller pieces could have been cast or molded differently to make them easier to clean, but I think they are good enough to where most people won't complain.

Both of these VTOLs are pretty sizable. Not sure if you can tell by my cutting board, but the Raven is roughly 5 inches long and the SparrowHawk about 3.5 inches. They have some pretty solid detail and they dry fit pretty well.

I am pretty happy. I usually hate resin models due to the casting flaws, but these are really nice. I would like to see some sort of flight stand that could be bought with these models. I am not very savvy when it comes to making my own flight stand, but this is really nit picking at this point and would definitely be a logistical burden on Harold's part to provide them.


Packaging:

This might not be important to the majority of customers out there, but something has to be said about packaging. I would honestly say that Harold packages his model in a more professional manner than just about any other 15mm Company out there. Usually you get a little baggy with a permanent marker tag denoting what item code the model inside is. The full color tags on the bags are really well done and definitely make it easy to identify what you have ordered. As I said, most customers won't care about this little touch, but I do think it shows just how passionate Harold is about his miniatures. You will also find a few business cards and some nice full color print outs of rules for the miniatures if you plan to play the game Gruntz which I would highly recommend (but that is for another post).


Hope you enjoyed my review. This is a company I would definitely recommend.