Sci Fi interlude

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 pieces. To these are added, air support, a mechanised infantry platoon (three sections) and a heavy Batavia class mech.  

The heavy infantry (and shadow scouts), artillery and helicopter are all Dark Realm miniatures. The APCs are from Onslaught while the infantry piling out of them are from Defeat in Detail. The mech is from Heavy Gear Blitz.

The battle group has a total 'presence' of 30, double what I would be expected to deploy in most games, but sufficient to provide me with a myriad of options to meet most scenarios with an even chance of success. He's hard to make out in the picture, but I even painted and based a downed pilot for the Banshee Strike Helicopter. In Horizon Wars, if aircraft get taken out, the player who captures/rescues the pilot gets extra victory points...

I haven't had many chances to play through the rules yet, but what I had played, I have enjoyed very much as a refreshing interlude between my more usual arrow and pike shenanigans. I'm looking forward to the next big clash which will likely be against those wily Neo-Soviets.

The Ajax is a bit of a centerpiece for the battlegroup and I'm quite pleased with how he turned out. As the rest of the force is colour-schemed white with blue and yellow details, I went with a strait blue and yellow scheme for the mech. It makes him stand out (as if being almost 10 times bigger than everything else didn't already do that), yet he still feel like part of the team. I haven't yet statted him up for Samurai Robot Battle Royale, but I will do so in due course. Based purely on bulk compared to I.R.N. Mech, I'd estimate he will come in around 400-450 points.

End transmission.