Irregular Wars Wargaming

After our small game of Horizon Wars last week , my wee lad (9yo) developed a hankering to build a force of his own. I had a few airborne infantry figures and a mobile artillery piece left over from building my Elysium Trading Corporation strike force - enough for a 7P platoon of his new maritime insurgency - Lobsters' Revenge. He painted them up himself with only minimal assistance from me; I am super proud of him. I asked to hear their backstory and was genuinely surprised to find out the answer. Apparently the industrialised warmachine of the  European Empire  has impacted on marine life and decreased fish stocks. People from the coastal areas have risen up in armed rebellion. If you know what you're looking at, that is a pretty convincing lobster claw painted on the artillery piece.

The young master surprised me this evening asking for an introductory game of Horizon Wars . Happy to oblige, I selected two simple enough 9P forces from my collection and we set up a small 2' square table of buildings and ruins. I ran the European Empire running a P6 super mech and three squads of dragoon mobile infantry. He controlled a P3 mech, a P2 mech and two mobile artillery pieces from the Elysium Trading Company.  He grasped the concepts of the game really quickly. And then I crushed him. Mercilessly. About time too. Good game. 😁

There may  have been a work meeting yesterday which resulted in me fiddling so much with a clicky pen that it broke. On the up side, I realised that there was a really easy way to create something approaching 6mm barbed wire. Nothing too sophisticated, but it'll work as 'dug in' markers for my Horizon Wars infantry squads.

Elysium Trading Corporation TM is proud to unveil the latest step in economic security. The Firefly Infiltrator combines powerful - jump jet augmented - legs, with the agility of much smaller walkers to create this state of the art P2 frame. When you have a trade alliance to negotiate, or a hostile takeover that turns heated, you need a walker that can get in where the big boys can't. You need the Firefly Infiltrator. Scale photo comparing a standard airborne infantry section, light artillery, the P2 Firefly Infiltrator, and the P3 IRN Mech.

The Elysium Trading Corp.TM got their first outing last night in a three-way Horizon Wars clash. We played 12 force points each, four turns, attempting to secure the wreckage of the fallen super heavy mech in the center of the table. Opposed to my ETC Pegasus Force was Brett's battle group built around a P5 super heavy tank with combined arms support, and a third force under JB consisting of four P3 planes. JB lost a plane early in his first turn and thereafter, learned how to use them properly... By the start of turn four Brett and I had drummed each other silly, with my ETC marginally getting the better of it. The super heavy tank was finished off by a sneaky shot from IRN Mech through the wreckage of the objective. I raced my airborne section to the objective and they dug in around the legs. Then at the end of the final turn, the planes came back. When we went to recover their bodies, all we found of the poor bastards from the airborne section were their boots... So ...

Although my existing European Empire battle group for Horizon Wars contains more elements that I can realistically use in a single game, I wanted to play around with other force types and compositions. With that aim in mind I have created the Elysium Trading Corporation's military division, the Pegasus Force. The infantry are Onslaught neo-shinobi, the artillery are... I can't quite remember. The mech is my old favourite, IRN Mech ! As with all my Horizon Wars stuff, these will also work for Mighty Monsters/Samurai Robots Battle Royale.

We played a massive 30 presence game of Horizon Wars this week. Technically it was one 30P vs two allied 15P forces. I need to stress that, because my 30P of European Empire troops lost. Barely. I blame the extra free CHQ unit they had. No other reason. None at all. :) It was a really fun, three turn game actually, very closely fought. We had three objective markers with blind victory points, one worth I, one worth II and one worth IV points. My heavy infantry battle group was very aggressive and held all three objective for much of the game. They took a real mauling for their trouble too. Some late enemy parra-drops managed to size control of one objective at literally the last minute, and it turned out to be the one worth IV points. So... defeat from the jaws of victory once more!

Last week I was able to break out my European Empire Horizon Wars battle group for another run. This time against the insidious separatist movement emerging in Germany. Considering Germany was one of the leaders in the creation of the EE, the vile betrayal of the armed insurrection is met with bewilderment and determined repression in equal measure by Imperial forces. The game was played out in a burnt out quarter on the outskirts of Merkelburg, once a jewel  of the Empire. Here, between abandoned tower blocks, ruins and signs of nature's return, the two forces, each of 15 presence, met to contest Imperial control. The Imperial battle group consisted of a heavy infantry CHQ, supported by two heavy infantry sections and some armoured artillery. Off table reserves comprised three sections of mobile infantry, a recon section and a P3 Atlas Mech. The German separatists started with a P1 mech, a section of heavy infantry and a heavy cavalry unit in play, with a two further P1...

Recent mania in my gaming circle for the new Osprey 'hard' sci-fi rules set, Horizon Wars , by Robey Jenkins got me enthused enough to paint up a few odd 6mm bits and pieces I had floating around to supplement my Samurai Robot Battle Royale  European Empire Imperial Response Group . I like having miniatures which can be used in multiple gaming systems and Horizon Wars is about the right operational scale for me, using little more than a handful of units in most games. As such, my existing  SRBR  human stuff actually converted directly over into a full sized force, large enough for all but the largest games. Then I added more... Seen here in the burned-out outskirts of Merkelburg, a complete European Empire battlegroup is ready for action. The battle group is formed around a heavy infantry company (CHQ and two platoons each of three sections) with support units in the form of a light fire support walker, two sections of recon Shadow Scouts and two Goliath artillery...