My latest bunch of purchases...

Once again I found myself with money burning a hole in my pocket, so I went to Spirit Games in Burton, my Friendly Not-So-Local (20 mile drive) Gaming Store. As always the service was excellent and the staff were friendly. And as always I walked out with a bunch of stuff I don't really need.

This trip's haul:

• 1x 'Raptor' Assault Biped from Scotia Grendel. Nice AT-ST-esque walker, should go well with my GZG infantry
• 1x GZG Neu Swabian Panzergrenadiers Squad
• 1x GZG Japanese Corporate Mercenaries Squad
• 5x Copplestone Bio-Chem Troopers. Nice looking models
• 1x Bag o' Zombies. To fight the Bio-Chem Troopers. I couldn't resist 100 zombies for £7
• 1x Small Urban War Platformer set. These will end up as colony hab-blocks, I wager
• Various basing materials

Hopefully, I should get them finished over the remainder of term, pacing myself so I can keep going until Christmas. Not very likely, but a nice idea.

Stargrunt AAR (Or: Do Not Feed The Claymores)

Played my first game of SG2 in ages at the club on Saturday, against my friend Daniel. We decided to try to try the Convoy scenario from the SG rulebook, with me being the Blue side, using my ESU (I'll get round to posting some pictures eventually), and he playing the Red side, borrowing my NAC. Between us we had 3 APCs, which was just enough to transport my short platoon of ESU, but no trucks, so we changed the scenario slightly and removed the 'claim the cargo' aspect.



Daniel started by rolling abysmally for his counters, only getting two mines and one dummy counter. He did manage to get two veteran squads, though they both had abysmal leadership. For my part, I managed to get two green squads, and a regular platoon command squad with Ld 3. From the start things were not looking good for me.



Terrain was a fairly open stretch down the middle ('the road')' with fairly dense trees and rocks on either side. Whilst I went to get a drink, my opponent set up his counters. The obligatory AV mine was placed roughly halfway down the board, with one counter on top of a hill, another between that hill and a clump of trees, and several dotted about the trees, including one in a crater in the ground. For some reason, he had put all his stuff on one side of the road.



The troops in the lead APC faired well, considering they ran over a mine, with only one figure dying. The squad's first action was to reorganise and check the wounded man, and he turned out to be fine. Obviously a dud mine. The troops in the other APCs dismounted shortly before their rides got toasted by IAVRs.

Before the troops firing the IAVRs could open up on my infantry, I moved them behind the smoking wrecks of the APCS, which were large enough to block LOS. Problem was, because of the part of the road I 'd stopped on, there was no way I could get round the APCs to fire at them without leaving my troops out in the open. So I tasked one of the green squads to trek off down-table to try and set enfilade fire on the ambushers, whilst the other two held the fort. Big mistake.

Two ambushing squads came round the trashed convoy, one from each end, whilst a third went off to deal with my flanking unit. The fourth still hadn't activated and was hidden.

My platoon command unit tried to call in artillery fire on the squad going after the flanking squad, but his abysmal leadership meant I kept failing my comms rolls. Shortly after, the rather depleted command squad was close assaulted by a full-strength NAC squad and ran off, its morale dropped to Broken. This was not good.

The flanking squad had managed to advance most of the way up the table and had taken the NAC squad tasked to deal with them under fire, pinning them in a patch of wood. They tried to combat moved across the road, and managed to almost make it. They had been advancing towards a counter I assumed to be a dummy, or his concealed command squad. After dicing for the combat move, the squad ended up 4" away from the counter.

Suddenly remembering the second mine counter, I measured the distance from the counter, and was relieved to find none of the squad were within 3" of it. Then Daniel smirked and flipped the counter, revealing a CDM. As my entire squad was within 6", the effect was horrific. Of the 8 man squad, only two survived, and rifle fire from the nearby squad soon finished those two off.

With my only squad still functional pinned by fire, and my only hope of rescuing them a nasty red smear on the ground, I conceded.

Overall, a fun game. With hindsight it was fairly obvious the counter was a mine, but I thought my opponent was trying to double-bluff me and ran headlong into it. Very Russian, but not really a smart move. If my squad had managed to get stuck in and deal with the NAC squad, I still don't know if I could have salvaged the game, with only two squad to his four, with one of mine pinned down by fire. Still, it was a laugh.

Setting the Scene

After the US and Russia pulled out of Serdaristan, the small country was left with a massive debt in gold bullion to The Legionnaire's mercenary unit. With Serdar in self-imposed exile, his son, Serdar II, undertook to write off this debt and get his country back. Russia offered to bail them out, but naturally, their were strings attached, and Serdaristan soon became a Russian satellite state.

Thus, when the Eurasian Solar Union was formed, Serdaristani colonists were amongst the settlers who began staking the People's claim to the outer rim. New Sedaristan was a small backwater colony, until significant natural resources and diamond deposits were found. However, the ESU was uninterested in such capitalist prizes, and so the significant wealth was left untouched by the ESU, and found its way into the pocket of the planets ruler, Serdar XII. This piece capitalist imperialism went unnoticed by the small navy picket left in the area by the ESU, even as it funded Serdar's shiny new house, golf course, custom yacht and lavish lifestyle. The Serdaristan people were left in their People's Housing Bureau tower blocks, living on pittances. Business as usual for Serdarastani government.

Then the Third Solar War happened. New Serdarastan's position close to the NAC recently moved spatial border made it a suddenly vital strategic point. Realising a large ESU force would be on the way soon, who would undoubtedly not be too understanding about his 'expenses', Serdar panicked and defected his planet to the NAC. An ESU force was dispatched to 'protect the People from exposure to capitalistic rhetoric and imperialism' and bring Serdarastan back into the ESU fold, arriving almost simultaneously with the NAC force sent to secure this new strategic and economic asset, and after an inconclusive space battle both sides made planet fall and a long ground engagement followed.

The principle sides in the New Serdarastan conflict are the NAC and ESU ground forces, the Serdarastan Patriotic Army (TO&E to follow), a number of mercenary contingents and various militia and insurgency groups. The SPA is nominally allied with the NAC, though its main goal seems to be to secure Serdar's rule and control of the diamond mines. Apparently not learning his lesson from his namesake's mistakes, Serdar has hired several mercenary contingents to assist in the task of securing his rule in the face of the ESU onslaught. In the occupied areas, several Serdarastani insurgent movements have emerged, such as the People's Front of Serdarastan, the Serdarastan People's Front, The Popular Front of the Serdarastan People and The Serdarastan People's Front for Popular Freedom, all at odds against each other and the power blocs.

Whatever happens in Serdarastan, its no going to be pretty.