Vive la Llaelese resistance!

     Ashlin D'lyse was on her morning Khadoran hunt when she came upon Vladimir Tzepesci and Sorscha having a romantic interlude amongst the ruins of the Monasterie Saint Francoise.  Not missing a beat she called on her nearby battle group to eliminate the hated Khadorans.  She deployed her ragtag forces and prepared for the coming battle.

     The sounds of steam engines and soldiers awoke someone else at the ruins.  Unbeknown to the combatants, chief baddy nechrotech Montenebra was slumming in the shattered remains of the monastery after a night of dark harvest. Seeing that the resistance would be crushed, and wanting to increase her spoils, she sent her emissary to Ashlin's camp for a temporary truce.  Together they would crush the Khadoran invaders.

The game:
     Khadoran setup was pretty straight forward, one huge line of steel from one end of the battlefield to the other.  Resistance setup looked meager in comparison, the small rag tag force of rebels on the left with their Cryxian "allies" to their right.

The Khadoran line of DEATH!

The rebels look somewhat underwhelming in comparison.

1st turn saw everyone moving up field as fast as possible, no casualties where to be had as nobody was in range.

2nd turn is when the casualties started piling up.  The rebel's mule found that the assault commandos had recklessly moved into ruins on their right.  She let off one prodigious steam lobbed shell and killed 4 of their rank, 2 more were killed by the arcane gun mages.

     After this the battle memories become blurry and disjointed.  Combat fatigue has set in.  Here's a summary of the battle as best as I can remember.  On the rebel's right, the Winterguard were decimated by gunfire, the Kodiak and the Devastator were slammed a few times by the mule and the gun mages. By battle's end only Vladimir and a few Kossite's were left. 

     On the right flank the Cryxians made short work of the man-o-wars without loosing too much in return.  The dragoon charged but didn't manage to kill much.  Kankerworm engaged the Sprigian and they seemed to stay together for most of the battle, until Kankerwork finally bit it.  Montebra stayed back most of the battle, casting her trixy spells and directing her jacks for greater efficiency.  Eventually Sorscha got surrounded by the Stalker and the Harrower.  She killed the Stalker and managed to run away from the Harrower, only to be killed badly wounded by a Slayer.

     Seeing the battle was lost, the few remaining Khadorans collected Sorscha's unconscious body and fled the field.  With that Ashlynn sent her fastest to the nearest city to find a priest as to deny the Cryxians their undead bounty.  She also had her warjacks collect the disabled Khadoran jacks, perhaps they can be repaired and used against their former masters.

     Montenebra set about the task of collecting the dead before a priest could be found and scurried away back into the ruins to continue her vile experiments.

Vive la resistance!

Following are photos of the game as it progressed.

 

And here's some miscellaneous shots:

Sorcha and her pooch "Pickles'

Sorscha in a pickle.  She didn't die though, that happened the turn after this, death came to her through another jack though.

Widow maker lining up a shot.

One of Colin's beautifully painted warjcacks.  I think this is the one that ended Sorcsha's day.

Ashlynn's lovely Vanguard.

Bill's lovely demo corp, staring at their doom.

Sorscha's impressively red battle group before they got eaten, and look there's Pickles.

Frankograd Burns!

Frankograd is on fire, it burns, it burns my precious!

Lead elements of the fascist pigs have reached the city of Frankograd.  Will our patriotic reinforcements have time to arrive before the fascist main force desecrates our worker's paradise?

Here's some more photos of our desecrated beautiful city.  Oh the humanity....

1st Battle "Fundo de San Francisco"

A fictional battle between Royalists and a detachment from the Army of the Andes.  Rules used were based on a set I got from John Fletcher's plus many modifications I have come up with.  The units were assigned points by me based on their type, bonuses and number of companies.  The officers are costed very high because in this rules, when they activate, they can order every unit in their command range to perform an action with their modifiers added.

Forces:
Royalists (982):

• General Jose Ordonez (276 pts)
• Coronel Antonio Martinez (120 pts)
• 2nd Burgos Battalion (250 pts)
• Arequipa Battalion (136 pts)
• Infante Don Carlos Battalion (136 pts)
• Artillery Battery (2 guns) (64 pts)

Patriots (912):

• General Jose de San Martin (256 pts)
• Teniente Coronel RamonFreire (134 pts)
• 11th Argentine Regiment(146 pts)
• 1st Chilean Infantry (88 pts)
• 2nd Chilean Infantry (88 pts)
• 3rd Chilean Infantry (88 pts)
• Artillery Battery (4 guns) (112 pts)

Deployment:
Two small hills flank the battlefield.  El fundo de San Francisco sits adjacent to the eastern hill.

• The Royalists set up ,from east to west, 2nd Burgos Battalion behind the farm, Artillery battery, then Don Carlos Battalion and Arequipa Battalion. 
• The patriots set up the 3rd Chilean Battalion in Column behind the farm.  2nd Chilean, 1st Chilean, and 11th Argentine Battalion followed by the Artillery Battery on the west, behind the western hill.

Setup after 2nd turn

 Battle:
The battle started with all infantry moving forwards and the artillery taking long range shots at a battalion here or there.  Not many casualties.

Some Fire from the royalists, not many casualties

Most Royalist fire was concentrated onto the 2nd Chilean Battalion.  The patriots concentrated on taking out the Infante Don Carlos Battalion.  After a protracted long range engagement the patriots sent the1st Chilean Battalion forwards to engage Infante Don Carlos Battalion in melee.

Infante don Carlos Battalion is routed

The Chileans managed to rout the Infante don Carlos Battalion with few losses of their own.  Unfortunately the Royalist fire had taken its toll on the 2nd Chilean Battalion and it too is routed.

Unfortunately for the patriots, that was the highlight of the battle.  1st Chillean Battalion failed to do an about face (about 3 times) and was flank charged by the Arequipa Regiment, sending it fleeing towards the western hill.

The 2nd Burgos Battalion came up field and gave its flank to the 3rd Chilean Battalion to gain possiton for a charge vs the 11th Argentine.  Fortunately for them, the 3rd Chilean was disrupted and its charge was panicky and disordered, taking more casualties than dealing.  The 3rd Chilean Battalion was routed and had to flee to the south east of the farm.

3rd Chilean Battalion is routed after a flank charge into 2nd Burgos (Sheesh)

 The 2nd Burgos Battalion performed a perfect charge vs the 11th Argentine and routed them.  With that we called the game since all the patriots had left were the two running Chilean battalions, which could have been rallied, but were so far from each other that they would have been killed piecemeal and the artillery battery.

The royalists have held the field, Patriot battalions flee in disorder in all directions.

We had a fun game, it took about 3 hours to play, mostly because we were unsure of the rules,and some of them were made up or modified on the fly.  The more expensive battalions performed better than their cheaper counterparts (as expected).  The 2nd Burgos Battalion kicked arse, being the most expensive unit on the field.