If you suffer from arachnophobia ..................

 ........................ look away now! Lots and lots of spiders.

These are Wargames Atlantic's giant spiders with the sci fi add-ons of face visors, big guns and robotic legs (well, not all the legs). To give some idea of their size, they are based on 4cm circular MDF bases. I shall definitely be using these as Greater Xenomorphs for Xenos Rampant and they could also be used in lots of other settings.

In addition to the 12 giant spiders that are in the set, you also get 12 smaller spiders on the sprues. I've painted 10 of them to use as a Swarm in Xenos Rampant but they could obviously pop up anywhere.

I used some spare 3cm circular plastic bases which I didn't use when I made up 10 Space Marines recently. Waste not, want not, I say. These don't have any weapons, well apart from their teeth and poison stings.

I decided on a brown palette for all the spiders because I wanted them to look like an alien menace from a semi-arid environment. They were undercoated in Army Painter Leather Brown spray primer, drybrushed with Vallejo Orange Brown and then the little details were painted in. I gave the giant ones bronze weapons with green on the biological-looking parts, and I used red on the eyepieces of their face masks. The ones with visible eyes had them painted black, the same as on the smaller arachnids. Finally, they were given a wash of Winsor & Newton Peat Brown drawing ink.

All the tufts on the bases are from Gamer's Grass.

Two linked AARs for Alien Squad Leader

This post covers two games of ASQL at the club, fought between me and Richard. Originally, it was just one battle, but for reasons that will become apparent, we fought a second game a week later, using the same forces.

Here is some scene-setting narrative.

On the fringes of the regions of the galaxy occupied by Humans there lies a number of star systems inhabited by other, alien, civilisations, some of incredible age and others shrouded in secrecy and of an almost incomprehensible complexity. Of these civilisations, some shun all contact with Humanity but others have a long history of interaction, trade and conflict. One such civilisation is that of the Ry'Hlyn, a humanoid race of a quasi-arthropod nature and with an aggressive expansionist attitude. 

The Ry'Hlyn Empire is incredibly ancient and with links to Humanity that stretch back into the legendary shadowy prehistory of the long-lost and presumably destroyed Human home planet, Earth. The Elites of the Ry'Hlyn are devotees of a complex religion dedicated to ancient beings known in a number of legendary Human texts as the Outer Gods. No cult is more aggressive in its pursuit of all heresies than that of the trans-dimensional being known as Azathoth, once described thus in an ancient Human text; Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

The first AAR describes a pursuit of a group of once-Human members of a Cult that worships a serpentine daemon god by a force of Azathoth Cult devotees (Alien Imperials in the ASQL rules) from the Ry'Hlyn Empire. The Serpent Cultists, commanded by Richard, have been pursued to a temporary stronghold on the banks of a river. Here, among the trees of the jungles that cover this world, a small force of Serpentines have made a stand, intending to repulse the enemy and prevent them from breaking through and destroying an important Cult Shrine.

The Serpentines have a number of  armoured vehicles and tanks of a fearsome appearance but questionable reliability.

These vehicles dominate the centre of the battlefield and guard the approaches to the road bridge on the Ry'Hlyn right flank.

 
The Ry'Hlyn advance in the centre, supported by heavy battle droids.

On the right, Ry'Hlyn heavy weapons move to occupy a small hill overlooking the road bridge.

On their left, Ry'Hlyn infantry advance behind a screen of fearsome Trained Beasts, led by troops from a Primitive subject race.

Before long, the Beasts, bred in terrible laboratories on blighted dark worlds by Ry'Hlyn sorceror-scientists using arcane techniques cross a foot bridge to the west of the main river crossing

Here, we can see the Ry'Hlyn centre and right flank, taking up a strong firing position.

Before long, the Beasts and their Primitive commanders destroy most of the Serpentine forces on the hills to the west of the main Serpentine position.

More Serpentine troops emerge from their armoured vehicles to try and prevent the Primitives from exiting the field of battle and therefore effecting a breakthrough.

Heavy fire ftom the advanced energy weapons of the Ry'Hlyn droids and heavy weapons cause much damage to the Serpentine vehicles, eventually causing one tank to explode in a ball of lacerating fire.

As the Beasts begin to exit the field, exultant Ry'Hlyn infantry advance across the river to engage the remaining Serpentines. 

However, it is too late for the Serpentines to prevent the Ry'Hlyn army from getting the required number of troops off the table and the battle is lost.

The victorious Ry'Hlyn commanders offer up prayers and invocations to mighty Azathoth and imbue their troops with Holy Zeal. They urge their troops onwards to destroy the obscene pollution that is the Serpent Shrine.

So, that was Battle One. Because it was so one-sided, Richard and I agreed to a rematch the following Sunday.

This second battle had the Serpentines defending a small settlement with an objective representing a sacred shrine to the Serpent deity.

 
Shielding the advance of the Ry'Hlyn alien army was a small forested area.

The Ry'Hlyn advanced with the Beasts once more on the left and the main body of troops in the centre.

A small group, including heavy weapons occupied a copse on the right.

 
Here is the objective, the Serpent Shrine.

Before long, Ry'Hlyn forces had occupied the forested areas. The plan was to use the Beasts to destroy the Serpentine right flank and roll them up, with the heavy weapons of the droids taking out the accursed tanks.

Before long, the Beasts were approaching combat.

Amazingly accurate shooting by the Serpentine Cultists caused damaging hits on the Ry'Hlyn droids. This was going to be a problem.

Even worse, the heavy weapons team on the right was soon destroyed. This pretty much eradicated the threat from here.

Although the Beasts had managed to kill or drive off many of the Serpentine defenders on the Ry'Hlyn left, they were unable to completely clear the area. This wasn't going according to plan.

To make things worse, hits were mounting on the heavy droids.

 The Beasts started to gain the upper hand, but was it just too little, too late?

The Ry'Hlyn heavy weapons in the centre were also destroyed, as was one of the heavy droids. Taking the objective was beginning to look like a lost cause.

The troops on the Ry'Hlyn right began to advance in the open to try and get close to the shrine.

Unhappily, this was unsuccessful as the Serpentines managed to destroy sufficient troop stands to force the Ry'Hlyn army to break.

So, the rematch, on ground sacred to the Serpetine Cult, proved to be a disaster for the Azathoth Cult of the Ry'Hlyn Empire. Assaulting troops in built-up areas proved to be a problem for the Beasts and early damage to the heavy droids reduced their effectiveness.

Nevertheless, the two games were hugely entertaining and I am looking forward to using my Alien Imperial Ry'Hlyn in the club's forthcoming ASQL tournament.

An ASQL AAR - Alien Imperials vs Human Colonials

On Sunday my Alien Imperial forces made their debut against a Human Colonial army last Sunday at the club. The Human commander was Alex Self, the author of the Alien Squad Leader rules.

We played a 200pt game with the chosen scenario being Envelopment. As the defender, Alex had two objectives to defend and, as the attacker, I had a second deployment zone, which I decided would be behind the jungle area at the bottom of the first photo.

Alex deployed first, with the bulk of his troops in the two built-up areas which represented the objectives he would be defending. He also had two groups of civilian refugees to escort from the field of battle. He had two defence turrets in the objective areas and these worried me a fair bit.

I decided that I would have to place a threat on my right flank to tie down his tanks while assaulting the lefthand objective with waves of tribal auxiliaries, supported by droids from my flanking deployment area. The bulk of my alien infantry, supported by heavy weapons were on the right;

and I had two lines of Tribals on the left. The Beasts would be able to advance rapidly. so long as the commander and sub-commander on this flank could motivate them to advance. The second alien wave also had some Shooters.

Before long, the scary Beasts started to close in on the objective.

The droids began to deploy behind the cover of the jungle as the Beasts prepared to assault the gallant Human defenders.

This combat would go on for a number of rounds and prove to be decisive.

The Tribals and Beasts took casualties, but they also caused a lot of damage, gradually whittling down the defenders.

Elsewhere, Human Colonial Police and Defence Troops escorted the civilians away from the fighting. I ignored these. My aim was the two objectives, with most of the fighting going on around the buildings on my left. Fire support from my heavy droids kept the Human artillery pinned and this allowed the Beasts to assault them.

Finally, the breakthrough came and Aliens were inside the built-up zone. Over on my right, which was pretty much a stalemate for a long while, my heavy weapons managed to destroy the defensive turret and cause some damage to Alex's tanks. 

Below, you can see the Human Floating Platforms (with heavy weapons) advancing into firing range. These managed to cause casualties to my Alien Infantry and Elite power-armoured troops who I had deployed to threaten the Human rear.

Finally, my Tribals and Beasts destroyed the Human heavy weapons and defensive turret, which enabled me to unleash my droids without fear of being knocked out. Slowly but inexorably, the Aliens wore down the Human resistance. First, the lefthand objective fell to my forces and I ordered my right flank to advance on the righthand built-up area. Below, you can see the Humans deploy more infantry from an APC (which would later get shot to pieces by my droids).

 

The Alien troops closed in on the righthand objective. As I had already managed to destroy enough Human stands to take them to break point, all I needed to do was outnumber the Human defenders in the second objective to win the game.

And, after a few delays, this happened when my robot infantry won a combat against the Human defenders and I advanced a heavy droid into the built-up zone, together with some infantry who had managed to destroy a tank in combat..

So, as a first game with this new army, I was well-pleased with the outcome. My plan worked pretty well and the Alien Beasts proved to be amazingly effective at the task I'd set them, which was to draw fire and get into hand-to-hand combat quickly. When I started to use my Alien Infantry, they proved to be a real shooting threat with their superior energy weapons (which allows them to roll three D6 and discard the lowest scoring one). I think that using droid troops is also a good idea, as it lets you use your command stands to keep the Tribals moving forwards as much as possible.

More Alien Imperials

I've been working on getting my new Alien Imperial army finished so that I can get it into action ASAP. The thing about this army is that you have to take a mandatory five stands of Primitive troops for each 100pts in the army. That means a whopping 10 stands of Primitives in a 200pt army. When you add in the mandatory 3 stands of Alien Soldiers per 100 pts, this is a pretty large forces compared with some of the other choices in the rules.

Anyway, it is finally finished. My source for miniatures is, as usual, Ground Zero Games; Crusties for the actual Imperials and a mixture of others for the Tribal Auxiliaries, who are classed a Primitives in ASQL, i.e. members of a low technology subject race.

First, here are some GZG Xenomorphs who will represent "Trained Creatures", beasts with no shooting capabilities but who gain a +1 in hand-to-hand combat. These are clearly inspired by the creatures in a classic sci fi film series.

Next up are three stands of Imperial Soldiers plus three stands of Tribal Auxiliary Shooters (including one sub-commander stand), who are obviously nothing whatsoever to do with one of the troop types produced by a well-known company with its own set of rules, even if they are green. Any resemblance is clearly coincidental.

Here are three more stands of Imperial Soldiers, with a round character stand, representing a First Commander, plus two Imperial Soldier command stands (the ones with four minis on).

And some Imperial Heavy Weapons stands.

I'm interested in seeing how this army performs. The Imperial troops and Droids have Superior Energy Weapons and the Elites also have energy shields, so they should be pretty tough. However, that is balanced by the large number of Primitives, who are best considered as a disposable mass of irritants to get in the way while the better troops get into a strong position. The option of having a sub-commander stand means that there is always someone to command the Primitives if the other commanders are busy elsewhere. Lacking true long range primary weapons, this army is going to need to get close to make best use of those superior energy weapons. The Primitives will act as a set of non-human shields. Well that's the plan.

Anyway, however things turn out, it should be fun playing with them. I shall find out on Sunday.