5 Parsecs - The Veil

In turns 6 and 7 the battle against deadly rivals The Ossian Veil hots up.

Turn 7

Unhappy with the Hermes crew's constant interference in their plans the Ossian Veil send an assassin strike team to destroy the ship. At the time of the attack 2 crew are in the med bay and 2 are away trading for supplies so this leaves just 3 crew to defend the Hermes.

The assassins are highly trained killers so Capt Gideon, Ivarr and trusty bot PDP take positions inside the space port while they await Skor and Seras return from their trading run. The assassins advance quickly and have the space sport surrounded by the time the stragglers arrive.  

Gideon and Ivarr cover one door

Assassins ready to breach the spaceport

The assassins break-in and vicious short-range firefight breaks out in which both Sera and Skor are casualties, on with a shot desert scout sniper working for the assassins. 

Assassins storm in 

The crew are able to drive them off and save the ship. Its newly installed med bays get to work and quickly patch-up the wounded ready for the next adventure. 

Desert Scout finds a good spot

Turn 8 

The crew receive a tip-off from their patrons the Pale Accord that the Ossian Veil are recruiting fighters from gangs of street punks who hone their skills in a derelict part Travoris Station. The Accord's motives are not always clear but they pay well so the crew moves out to sweep through the punks territory.

The punks show decent tactical acumen under their Ossian Veil trainer and split their forces to flan kthe Hermes crew. Luckily they are bad shots and not well armed.  

Flanking group moves into position

A gun battle rages along a main street in the abandoned area, with the crews better training and weapons proving decisive as they drive them off and complete their sweep the area. 

A hot zone

  

Battle of the 5 villages - A Lasalle battle

 As a bit of a climax to our current round of LaSalle games we did a large battle featuring 4 cavalry and 5 infantry brigades a side. The setup was simple - there are 5 villages and the winner would be the one to hold the most at the end of the game. 

Austrians advance on the eastern village

Austrian horse  

The Allies looked to contest all the objectives fairly evenly with most of their cavalry in the centre. The French screened the western village with Hussars and focused the infantry in the centre on a drive towards the central village and then on towards the one on the Allied base edge.    

The Austrians quickly took the western village but were unable to advance further for fear of the French horse. The Russians too the eastern village and the French attack their became bogged down. The French were though able to take the central village to make it 2-3.   

Stalled French attack vs the eastern village

Russian heavies attack

As the French tried to attack towards the French baseline the Russians deployed their heavy cavalry to slow the attack and relieve pressure on the eastern village. This was pretty successful in preventing much French activity around the eastern village.  

 

French attack in the centre

French and Russian heavies clash

The French launched several attacks towards Allied baseline but found themselves faced by Prussian reinforcements and further units of Allied cavalry. This prevented the attack from taking the village.     

The game ended with the French pretty strong in the centre but the Allies holding 3 villages to 2. Perhaps the decision not to contest the western village was an error as the troops saved were unable to make the hoped for central break through  

Battle of Eckmuhl, 1809

 Last weekend I made my (roughly) annual visit to Chris G for one of his Napoleonic mega-games. The game was Eckmuhl fought between the Austrians and the French / German allies. In the original battle the Austrians undertook a fighting withdrawal in the face of a determined French attack with the cavalry covering the infatry retreat.

Long shot from the Austrian left

Long shot from my position on the French right

As usual the terrain was to a high standard, as were the 1000's of 18mm on display. Mostly from the collections of Chris and Paul B.  

The game itself was fought over 3 days with day 1 involving lots of setup for the French. The rules are a modified version of  Keith Flint's Honours of War 18th century set.   

In our refight the river proved more of an obstacle than historically and the Austrians deployed well forward, preferring to reinforce this position rather than withdrawing.    

By the end of the game the French had outflanked the Austrian position and threatened the supply lines. Their Bavarian allies had made progress up the table but not as much as historically. On my flank I had to switch my axis of attack due to well placed grand batteries and deal with several fortified villages.       

My high water mark attacking a village about half way up the table

  

5 Parsecs - The Frozen Wastes

The Hermes crews adventures on the frozen moon of Travoris continue with two more missions. 

Mission 5 -  The Rivals

With the number of rivals building-up the Captain took the decision to try and take-out the latest set of rivals, the isolationists of the Travoris Peoples Front. Having previously visited the compound in search of the Ossian Veil Assassins, it was decided to attack the site again. 

Isolationists colony. 

TPF leader waits in ambush

The crew pushed forward while the Isolationists held back in the side streets and tried to outflank the advancing team. As with the last battle they had the services of a Merc to bolster their forces.  

Once in position the Isolationists opened-up and a fierce gun battle ensued. The better trained Hermes crew got the better of the locals but at the cost of  two crew wounded.  Harlan's wounds proved serious and he would be out of action for two turns.    

TPF's hired gun adopts a sniping position

The crew cleared the site but the leader escaped to fight on. Despite the win the Isolationists were not eliminated as Rivals, so will need to be revisited.   

Mission 6 - Foiled!

For this campaign I'm using the  Story Mode option which means that at regular intervals a series of overarching narrative scenarios are inserted. Mission 6 was one of those - the crew were asked to meet a potential Corporate Patron at a discrete station.   

The ambush site

It was an ambush with some Hired Guns waiting for thew crew to arrive.  

Hired Guns

This led to a short-range shoot-out between the crew and hired guns. The outcome was very much in the crews favour with the Hired Guns eliminated within 3 turns with some stuns but no wounds to the Hermes crew.    

Hired Guns leader advances

The crew were then able to search the site for clues, but none were found. So the identify of the figure behind the ambush remained unknown.     

Trusty droid PDP-11 searches the site