Robot week - day 3 V15-46B Recon/Patrol Walker Drone

These walking gun-drones are one of several types of robot used by my NAC Marines.

The drones come equipped with a light autocannon suitable for anti-personnel work and also engaging softskin and light armoured vehicles. Their four widely spaced legs give good cross-country performance and, combined with the low-slung body, provide a fire platform that is second-to-none. The legs enable it to self-level regardless of the terrain over which it travels, and for ambush work it can lower itself to the ground to provide a very small target. As with the wheeled drones used by my OUDF forces, these walkers provide general purpose fire-support to infantry squads as well as recon/sentry/ambush duty.  Their method of locomotion makes them especially well suited to providing integral fire support to infantry squads.

My Tommorrow's War stats:

"Dumb 'Bot"
Tech Level 2
Troop Quality D8

Light Autocannon: TL2, AP:4 / AT:2 (L)
Note that walker chassis will give greater mobility than wheeled/tracked (comparable to infantry).

Robot week - day 2 V15-84A Spider Drones

 

The Gordon’s Gamble colonial security forces are generally more than capable of dealing with any civil disturbances they might encounter. Unfortunately there is always the possibility of something out of the ordinary happening, so it’s good to have strong back up when you need it. The Spider Drones are kept locked in their bunker until needed, and the decision to use them is not taken lightly. Although the security forces have the ability to activate the Spider Drones, this would not be done without release authority being granted by the Colonial Governor.

Their 6 legs enable them to move at high speed over very rough terrain, and their sinister appearance is often enough to quell unrest without the need for shots to be fired.
 

If the worst does happen, their twin-cannon rapid-fire railgun armament is more than capable of suppressing angry armed mobs or destroying light vehicles. Their most likely use is to engage the offworld bandits or pirates who sometimes strike isolated colony worlds like Gordon’s Gamble. Anything larger than the Spider Drones can handle will need full military action, and at that point it ceases to be something for the security forces to worry about.

My Tomorrow's War stats:

"Dumb 'Bots"
Tech Level 2
Troop Quality D8

Gauss machine guns - TL2, GWS, AP:3/AT:1 (L) (As a TL2 Gauss support weapon, stats include firepower bonus for gauss weapon system.  Will also ignore 1 die of target cover or armour).

Note that as a paired wepon system, the additional gun mount will add a further die to firepower.

Robot Week - day 1 V15-69A wheeled drones with autocannon

At the weekend I was going through the Tomorrow's War rules for robots.  I've never got around to doing much with robots, but I have quite a few ready for action now.  They're mainly GZG, unsurprising given the huge range of robots they have available.

We'll start with V15-69A - wheeled drones with autocannon.

These will be operating with my OUDF forces.  I've taken a mainly wheeled theme with them - they use DLD Kamodo IFVs and have a wheeled scout car.  Giving them the wheeled drones seemed in keeping with this.  The drones received a coat of Humbrol matt 75 bronze-green with a matt 86 olive green drybrush.  Camo stripes are Matt 33 black with a drybrush of matt 67 tank grey.  Wheels and autocannon are also black.  Sensors on the gun mount are GW red gore and Vallejo gloss black (not sure if it's really meant to be gloss as non of my other Vallejo paints are).  The final touch was a light dusting of Humbrol 93 desert yellow.  Most of my robots have been mounted on 1p pieces which I've found to be just the right size.

These small drones can provide useful fire support when required.  The light autocannon they carry can be used to maul unwary enemy infantry, and it can also present a threat to lightly armoured and softskin vehicles.  The wheeled chassis may not be as manoeuverable as a tracked, walker or grav unit, but ease of maintenance is a big factor in its favour.  Most troops have some idea of how a wheeled vehicle works and can have a go at fixing problems in the field.  The software systems are also a good deal less complicated; the programs required to control a grav or walking chassis are substantially larger than those needed for a wheeled system.  Gun-mount stability is also a consideration; tracked and walker units are just as stable, but a grav mount can be more susceptible to "platform rock" from autocannon recoil.  Weight is also a important, the wheeled drone system being one of the lightest weapons carriers in common use.  Lower ground pressure means the cross-country performance is not too different from a larger tracked unit, and when every kilogram of mass on an assault lander has to be carefully accounted for, any chance to squeeze in extra ammunition or troops is important.

These drones are deployed in a variety of ways, sometimes acting as an additional squad member to provide fire support, but also being used as remote sentry systems or ambush units.  Their low height, similar to that of a crouching human, makes them easy to conceal in this latter role.

My Tommorrow's War stats:

"Dumb 'Bot"
Tech Level 2
Troop Quality D8

Light Autocannon: TL2, AP:4 / AT:2 (L)

Special Forces team

One of my most recent orders was placed during the sale at "The Scene".  I acquired a small patrol boat, a special forces team, a couple of packs of battle robots, some zombie hunters/survivalists, and some agents from the authorities.  I also tried a few of the miscellaneous items, some hatches to add to my buildings and a couple of packs each of ammo boxes and missile cases.


I was impressed by the speed with which the order arrived, despite a warning on the web site that it might take some time because of the backlog.  The models are very nice, plenty of detail and full of character.  I've got a backlog of other GZG, Rebel, CMG and 15mm.co.uk models to paint, but I couldn't resist making a start on a few of the new arrivals.

The US Special Forces are coming along nicely, here are the first 4 nearly finished (SF04, SF01, SF07, SF02, plus SF05 didn't quite make it into the photograph).

The patrol boat (B001) was very easy to clean up and put together, just an evening's work to paint.  I'm thinking that some of GZG's seated NAC marines might go nicely with this kit, and one of the standing gunners will fit behind the machine gun (though he might need a small box to stand on to reach the right height).  It's already taken part in one battle, but sadly the enemy never approached the river closely enough for me to use it!

My heavy battle androids (HAD001) are almost finished too, they're going to be special assault cyborg troops for one of my armies.  I have already got some Tomorrow's War stats worked out for them.

Tomorrow's War

Well, my pre-ordered copy of Tomorrow's War arrived from Amazon last weekend, and I played the first game on Sunday at the Old Buckenham Bone Crushers.

An exciting battle, 8 powered armour troopers (CMG Kaamados Vivipara and Agaamids) moving in to rescue 2 pilots from a crashed VTOL, GZG NAC Narines and DLD Kamodo IFVs trying to stop them.  Marines ended up getting slaughtered so we started bringing in reinforcements from the second turn.  I had seeded the area with hotspots as I suspected this might happen!

Weight of fire gradually wore down the powered armour, I'll try and write a more complete battle report and pop in a few photographs too.

So far I'm very impressed - the rules are better laid out than Force on Force, and I haven't found any typos yet either.  I've written a review on Amazon, which you can find here.

My overall grade for this set of rules : A

It would have been an A+ but for the rather major omission of a quick reference sheet which meant that I was spending a lot of time flicking back and forth through the book for much of the game.  As a result, reading bits of rules quickly and out of sequence meant that we got a few things wrong (for instance for each vehicle hit after the first we added +1 to the die roll rather than raising the die type one level) but by the next time we play I'll have had longer to digest the rules and I'll have printed out the QRS on AAG's web site.

SG15-HW2 – Generic heavy weapons crew in berets

Here we have a group of gun crew in action.  This pack of GZG figures stems from the time when Jon started issuing them in the current style, with 2 each of 4 different poses.  We have:

2 kneeling spotters with a pair of magnoculars ready to spot for enemy positions or observe the fall of shot

2 standing loaders with box of munitions

2 kneeling loaders with a different box of munitions

2 kneeling gunners in firing pose

 

 

The three kneeling poses are all slightly different, which is satisfying, especially as it would have been easy to use the same basic figure with only slight variations in arm position.  The figures are on the shorter side compared to more recent GZG releases such as the new NAC troops or colonists.  As the gun crew are likely to spend their time with heavy weapon mounts rather than mixed in with other figures, this probably doesn’t matter much, especially as most of them are kneeling down anyway.

The quality of the moulding is good apart from the face of the gunner in firing pose.  This had a rather pointy nose and slightly odd features, and was also hard to clean up because of the arm position.  Happily the arm position also means that it’s not easy to see the face when the gun crew are in action!  Overall, little flash and mould lines were small and easily removed.  The style of the figures is noticeably different from more recent GZG releases, especially on the faces and hands, but when painted and viewed from normal gaming distances the blend together well with the rest of the army.

All the gun crew are wearing sturdy boots, basic uniform/fatigues (no map pockets on the legs or shoulder pockets) and berets.  I’ve chosen to paint mine as wearing some sort of pull-over tank-top thing, possibly a lightweight body armour waistcoat, but you could easily leave it the same colour as the rest of the uniform and it would look fine; the way it’s been sculpted leaves either option open to you.

 

I’ve painted them to match my OUDF troops who are currently sadly lacking in firepower compared to their NAC rivals.  GW Goblin Green uniform and Humbrol Leather brown boots and I’ve given them sand-coloured berets; I was going to go for green the same as the uniforms but decided that I’d rather give them something a little different.  I considered a different colour such as blue or red, but decided that the sand was more in keeping with the natural green & brown of their clothing.

Overall grade for these figures: B

These figures are great as gun crew but just as useful as technical staff; the one with magnoculars could easily be used as part of a command unit instead of a gun crew and those with boxes/crates could work well as vehicle crew unloading equipment.  I can just see the kneeling gunner as a mechanic with his hand hidden inside the engine hatch of a vehicle.

OUDF variations number 2 – SG15-O4

Another variant of the basic OUDF troops, this time Papau New Guinea/native Australian.  Again, the only change is that they have different heads from the basic OUDF troopers.  All are bare-headed but the facial features and hair styles vary from figure to figure.

Basic paint scheme is the same as listed for SG15-O1 and SG15-O2.  For the flesh tones I’ve used Vallejo Beastly brown and washed some with Vallejo sepia ink, but others with Vallejo black ink.  These various combinations give a little variety, although it doesn’t seem to show as well in the photographs as it does when you’re actually handling the figures.

Hair is black, and some have been given a drybrush of GW vermin fur to try and get the dark gingery hair colour that I’ve seen in some outback photographs.

At Jon Tuffley’s suggestion I’ve given a few of them white face-paint.  Living in rural Norfolk, I don’t tend to come across Australian Aboriginees, so this is based purely on internet research.  Apologies if I’ve used any particular designs out of context!

Overall grade for these figures: B+

I've given this batch the same grade as the other head-swap OUDF troops, as all the same advntages/disadvantages apply.  The basic poses are fine, detail is great, and they'll easily mix with the other OUDF troops or form a distinct unit of their own as desired.

A final close-up showing the detail on the squad leader.