Upcoming releases: and this is only the beginning!

Well, Rackham has updated their release schedule through July and there are lots of really cool things on the horizon. I was going to post about each of them individually but since there are so many, I decided to put up one month at a time. So without further ado, on with the show!

The first should be coming out at the end of February, the Kaptars attachment box with the sniper rifle. Like the Karmans are not nasty enough, now they will have snipers as well! Argh...

Next up are the March releases. The UNA will get some love this month with the release of three new/updated units for their army.

The Fire Toad with winter paint scheme may seem like it is just re-releasing an old idea, but in fact it comes with a nice little bonus. This Fire Toad actually has all of the weapons and stat cards for all of the variant of the Toad. You want a Lancelot? No problem! Feel more like a Iron Rain this mission? You got it! This is a long overdue improvement in my opinion, though I wish they would do the same thing with the Golgoth...

Next up are the Shock Troopers. I must admit that I don't know much about them, but from what I recall they are basically a type of assault troop. Equipped with grav packs that let the jump over terrain, they can quick close with an enemy to engage them in close combat!

Next up is the Shock TacArms which I actually know even less about. : ) From the looks of the mini, it seems like they are equipped with a flamer in one hand and some kind of close combat weapon in the other. And is that a grav pack on its back? Eesh. That does not look like it would be fun to face off against...

Next the Karmans get some monkey love (had to be said...) with the addition of the K-warriors. Equipped with the massive K-suit and two equally massive mortars on their back, this unit will let the Karmans start raining death on their opponents with indirect fire. Stand by to be knocked down...

The last release planned for March is the Kaptar attachment box with ZZ-cannons. Can you say big gun that makes big holes in anything it hits? I knew you could...

And is this all? Not by any means. Well, actually yes, this is all that is being released in March but hold onto your hats cause there is more on the way!

Unit review: Therian assault goliaths

Meet the new bad boys of physical comedy... .larry, .moe, and .curly!


Seriously though, the assault goliaths are the latest addition to the Therian army and one that I just had to buy as soon as I saw them. They just look too cool in my opinion! Then again looks are not everything (even in a miniatures game), so the real question is how do they play? I recently had a chance to find out firsthand.

The game that we played featured the Therians against an alliance of Karmans and the Red Blok. With the way that the units moved onto the board my Goliaths wound up being paired off against the strider-heavy RB faction, in particular a Sierp and Urod. Once they were able to move into a position that they could draw line-of-sight, they opened up on the Sierp but honestly they were not very effective. It's armor was too high for the sonic cannon to be effective and though the nucleus gun was able to inflict some damage, it was not enough to really make much of a difference before all of the goliaths were destroyed by a barrage of fire from Urod.

A dismal first performance for them but I think that it is largely a case of not really being on par with what they had to face. With a strider heavy force such as this, I would have been better off fielding a unit of bane goliaths. The dual nucleus guns that they are armed with would have had a much greater chance of being effective which could have helped swing the battle in my favor.

Still, the question remains: are the assault goliaths worth it? Personally I still think that they are in the right situation. With their mixed armament, they have a versatility that the banes simply don't have against a force with a more balanced mix. For example, when used against units with lighter armor such as infantry the assault goliaths can potentially eliminate 12 targets compared to the 6 that a bane goliath unit will eliminate, enough to seriously cripple even the largest RB squads. It is just against striders that they seem to have some difficulty, though since the last battle did include the near-indestrucible Urod it is perhaps still too early to say.

Overall I would say that the assault goliaths are a nice addition to any army but if you are going to be facing a large number of AFV, you might want to put the points into bane goliaths instead.

Battle report 17022008: the Mighty Therians vs the Red/Monkey Alliance

/send_hello.overseer.***
Hello, overseers! Welcome to the EMI grid!
/end_hello.over

/sending_report.17022008
/Force_composition.Therian
/Assault golem unit
/Storm golem unit
/Grim golem unit
/leader: Alpha Atis
/Assault goliath unit
/Wraith golgoth: Nimit-Urash
/company leader: Sigma Urash

/Force_composition.Red.Blok/Karman.combined.arms
/Red Blok
/Hetman: Urod
/company leader: Odin 0-1 and Manon 0-2
/Dragonov Kommandos
/Sierp
/Karman
/Anakonga unit
/Kaptar unit
/Easy trike armored fighting vehicle

/synopsis_report.17022008
/Both factions began the conflict by moving their units onto the field of battle. Cover was plentiful so most units were able to quickly move into defensive positions.

/Once the enemy units were sighted, Alpha Atis activated her teleport routine and moved into melee with the Anakonga unit. Three of the Karmans were quickly dispatched for their treachery against the consensus, but in her exuberance for combat Atis put her unit and herself into an untenable position. The remaining Anakongas were able to quickly neutralize her unit and her own frame was quickly disabled as well.

/The Hetman unit designated Urod quickly moved into position and fired on the assault goliaths but to no avail. The Sierp unit proved to be much more troublesome as it began firing mortar rounds at the advancing Assault golem unit

/The Easy trike unit fired against Nimit-Urash, causing minor damage. Nimit responded by attacking the Sierp inflicting minor damage which was subsequently repaired by the clone twins designated Odin and Manon.

/As our units continued their advance the Sierp proved to be an ongoing problem. This unit has armor strong enough to resist most standard infantry weapons and the fire launched from the mortars proved to be more troublesome than anticipated. In addition, the unit designated Urod also proved to be much more difficult to damage than had been anticipated due to the mechanical abilities of the clone twins piloting this strider unit.

/Ultimately the combined arms of the two factions proved to be too much and the remaining units disengaged.
/end_synopsis_report.17022008

/analysis_report.17022008…
/DONE

/Recommendations_report.17022008
/A larger number of strider type units must be fielded to counter Red Blok striders and possibly more type 3 infantry units. All fire should be concentrated on these units to eliminate them as quickly as possible. Any remaining opposition infantry units should be easily eliminated by our own supporting infantry units.

/Better use of the combat routines is necessary. Until the battle was already joined the overseer seemed uncertain of how to use best use these costing him valuable time and forfeiting a stronger position on the battlefield.
/end_recommendations_report.17022008

/send_goodbye
Have a nice day and thank you for your information!
/end_message

Now if only I had brought the camera...

Ah well, this gives you some kind of an idea how the battle went from my perspective. Overall, the three of us had a good time and I managed to learn a few things about the Therians that I had not really had to face.

1) The routines are the key to victory. Ignore them and risk defeat! I spent the first turn or two just trying to get my head wrapped around the game again and in doing so I overlooked by combat routines. Big mistake let me tell you! The Dash routine in particular would have been perfect on the first turn to get myself into much better position, and I have also decided that I need to get a handful of type 1 striders. I might not like the Hekat that much, but I think that being able to create a couple of those would have help me tip the game back into my favor.

2) The faction is crucial. Choose wisely! I ran a list that just used the basic Therian platoon structure. Big mistake in this case. If anything I really think that Cyphers would have been the way to go as it would have given Urash a lot more versatility. Mounted in Nimit, he is limited to using strider routines which are not very useful when there is only one strider and four infantry units. If he had access to all of the routines, he would have been much more of an asset on the battlefield.

3) Striders, striders, striders! Do not ignore the striders! I have put off buying any of the type 1 striders since I wanted to wait until the Succubus is released, but really I am convinced now that I need to have some just so that I can create them during the game. I know that there was a lot of debate about the Creation routine that I will need to go through to make sure that I play it right but I really think that it would be worth it. A Hekat or two running around today probably could have taken out the Red Blok Sierp which would have made life much easier. Plus it would have made Steve and John really think more about picking their targets with more and more striders simply appearing on the board. Needless to say Hekats have moved way up on my list now; in fact I will probably pick up one or two of those next.

Even with all of my blunders with both my own force and just trying to remember all of the rules, I really enjoyed myself and I am looking forward to playing some more larger games in the not-too-distant future.

And next time, I will remember to bring the camera.

Terrain Project: More on recreating the poster map

A few weeks ago I started working on a 3D version of the poster map from Operation: Damocles, specifically the outdoor portion. It has been a while but I finally was able to get some more work done on it over the past few days.

The first step was give the whole board a nice base coat of black paint. I used some FolkArt acrylic paint that I had picked up from Wal Mart to do this. An 8 oz. bottle is only a couple of dollars making it nice and inexpensive. I did two coats of this to try to get a nice even coat on the board and I was hoping it would also help to seal the board as I was thinking about using spray primer on the hatches. "Hoping" being the key word there.

I taken the board out into the garage and sprayed it in several spots when I noticed that it had started to bubble. I was convinced that I was screwed at this point but luckily it actually did not damage the surface too bad. In fact, I actually like the way that it turned out as it provided a nice texture to the surface as you can kind of see below if you look closely at the surface around the hatch.

Once the primer had dried and I was able to determine that the damage was not serious, I started to finish up the board. First I used a heavy dry brush of Apple Barrel Pewter Grey acrylic paint all over the board. Once I had finished the whole board with this, I went over it again with a lighter dry brushing of Apple Barrel Country Grey acrylic paint. By doing this right after finishing the dry brushing with the Pewter Grey I was able to get the two shades to blend together slightly, creating a nice concrete like appearance.

The various markings in the surface were actually etched in before I put on the black base coat, while the yellow "traffic lines" were painted on as a final step using Apple Barrel yellow acrylic paint (notice a trend here folks?). It is not easy to see from a distance (Grrr...need more pictures!!!) but the yellow paint that I used was not very thick which created a nice worn look even though it was freshly painted. In fact, it took two coats to give it enough of a presense on the board to really look right.

There are still some more things that I am thinking about doing to the board (sealing it with some arcylic sealer to try and make the surface a little more durable for example) but I am really happy with how it turned out. It is close enough to the Damocles map that it can easily replace it in official scenarios and it provides a much more visually interesting piece that a simple paper map.

Time To Meet The Neighbors: A new segment for Sin City AT-43

AT-43 now consists of four races, each with four different factions within each. This gives you lots of different options, even if you are just focusing on one of the races. There are the rules for a generic military force for the race plus three more specialized factions that each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Even so, some of us are never satisfied (or perhaps we simply have too many miniatures laying around that we want to use...) so I have decided to show some home grown races. I could just create a new faction for one of the existing races, but I like the idea of branching out and trying new things.

I personally own several different sci-fi armies, ranging from the Tyranids of 40k to the Arachnids of SST, but for this I decided to do a totally new line of minis. I just recently found them on the web and I really like how they look; a mix of humanoid alien with a WW I feel to them. The basic line consists of various minis representing the light infantry for this race, but I can think of some vehicles that would look great with them.

I just received a small order of them (a massive six mins!!!) and I have not had a chance to even get them assembled let alone painted. I will be working on that soon though, and once I have some progress made I will get some pictures posted.

On The Cheap: Leadership markers

I know that Rackham has their own set of markers that they made for AT-43 but in the spirit of doing things on the cheap (and because I haven't seen them for sale here in town...), I decided to try looking at some alternatives. The official markers are black disks with pictures of blue radios on them (which is the symbol for leadership in the game), so I decided to do something similar. My markers are also blue and round but the radios are nowhere to be found.

Look familiar? Anyone who played Magic: The Gathering (and who didn't?) no doubt recognizes the round glass stones that were commonly used in that game as well as many other CCGs. I happened to find a number of them in amongst some old minis and decided that they would be perfect! They are small, easy to carry and best of all cheap. If you find that you actually don't have any of these laying around, try hitting your local craft store. They are commonly used in floral arraignments and you can get a more than you would realistically need for a game at a very reasonable price.

On The Cheap: Inexpensive mini carrying cases

A question that I have seen kicked around on the official forum is how to carry your AT-43 minis. The answers have run the gamut from a big cardboard box to special carrying cases ordered from an overseas company but I found a solution that works quite well for me.

I picked up two of these cases from Michael's, a franchise of craft stores here in the States. The cases were only a couple of dollars each and they seem to work perfectly. Now I must admit that I have not actually used them to transport the minis yet (what with the holiday break in gaming for me) but they seem to be perfect as you can see below.

As you can see, all of the regular sized minis fit in perfectly. They have a little wiggle-room in there but if you are really worried about breakage it would be easy enough to put some kind of padding in the compartments to keep them from moving around.

I also have a unit of Therian Assault Goliaths which needed a home, but they are a too tall to fit in a regular compartment. If you look at the upper right side of the organizer you can see that it is actually a double sized compartment, which made it perfect for an Assault Goliath. One of them. The good news is that the plastic that the boxes is made from can be cut with a utility knife, so I simply cut out the dividers on the compartments next to the original one and now Larry, Moe, and Curly are all safe and sound in their own little cubby holes.

The larger minis (such as the Fire Toads and Golgoths) are not quite so simple; aka I haven't found a good container for them yet. Then again, right now I only have the one Golgoth so it is easy enough for me to simply have it ride shotgun with me to the store; aka I haven't actually been looking for a good container for them yet. Once I find something though, I'll be sure to pass on the good word.