Landing Pad - Update

Ok, here I'm again.

This time with an update of one of my on going projects, the landing pad for 28mm miniature wargames such as AT-43 or Dust Warfare, my current obsession :)

On a previous post I talked about how to use some protecting cases for picture frames made of polystyrene as surface for the landing pad.

After painting the cardboard which will replace the picture frame and will give consistency to the landing pad, I just spray the polystyrene with black painting without primer and poured some decorative sand on it.

The sand I got from a normal outlet store for household items, looks like normal beach sand but a little bit bigger (I mean the size of the individual particles).

The black paint not only fixes the sand onto the polystyrene but will also dissolve partially the polystyrene and give it a more rough surface which will look quite nice.

A upper layer of anthracite grey, aslo spray, will not only fix the sand to the black paint but also give the proper colour to the surface as the sand was white originally.

The surface of the sand particles is slightly light reflective and give some nuances to the grey colour which makes it not uniform.

The border (not visible in the pictures) was painted with some more dark grey with the pincel and I will apply some light grey to highlight the surface as soon as I get some more time for it. 

I intend to paint the four corner in reflective green and maybe put some green and yellow light on then.

Landing pad for 28mm

I must say that this project actually started for the AT-43 game, which even if officially dead and with questionable rules I still like. Unfortunately I do not have too much time to play now nor to design or build thing for it.
Usually I try to make things which are not very difficult to assemble and with the materials I find around me. As a friend of mine put it once while holding a piece or random plastic "imagine this painted in black..."
So, I am always looking to what I have at hand and trying to see how it would look once is out of context, glued to something else and painted frist, of course, in black and then in the new context.
In AT-43 there are some maps which include a landing pad of a spaceport and in the now disband AT-43 forum there was a nice 3D home made version which made me wonder about trying my own version.
In the mean time Dust Warfare was released and even if we still did not play it, the game sounds great and in the next expansion "Zverograd" they are going to introduce the SSU faction which will include some aircraft units, so a landing pad could also be a nice addition to the terrain elements for that game ;)
It happend I was having some picture frames still in their styrofoam (polystyrene) covers and some pieces of isolation for the floor (the one you put below the laminate or other "wooden" floor) which I cut to fit inside as you can see in the picture.

The thickness of the isolation piece just an exact fit for the height of the styrofoam cover which was a bit bigger than the thickness of the picture frame.
Once they are assembled, they look like that.

The styrofoam will be painted as concrete and the isolation piece as red-white landing signals. For this I just cut a template in piece of thick paper, actually part of a cardboard carton from a package of something for the household, nothing fancy. Obviously the colours of the template are inverted, I mean the white would be red in this case and the holes is where I intended to paint with white, but this picture represents more or less the final idea seen from above :)

 I painted in dark red the inside "corners" of the landing pad in the isolation piece.

And using the template I applied the white colour.

Probably I will need to retouch a bit the border of the white lines but I will wait until see how it looks once the styrofoam cover is painted and on top of this piece. And the part which is supposed to be like arrows pointing towards the centre does not look like I have it in mind but, we will see...

Breaking the Wall

AT-43 is officially dead but I am afraid a lot of people have their miniatures still around. I have :)
And I am also trying to learn how to build and paint some terrain for the game (or for other miniature games).
In this endeavour, I try to use anything, specially everything which comes into my hands. This time it was a piece of Styrofoam which was intended to protect the head of my printer during transport.
I gave a first layer of Payne's Grey mixed with some thickening medium and beach sand to obtain some texture and a dark background.
Afterwards, I highlighted it with some dry brush work with three different greys, and a bit of white mixed with the lighter of the greys.
Hope you like it.
Suggestions are welcomed.

Hussar, the new players in the team

The last (so far) two members of my Red Block army arrived today.

I can not wait to try them in the field :D :D

Therian Chemical Station (2)

Here some pictures with a Molot unit and a Krasny soldier for size comparison and a huge OF TOPIC that I think you will indulge me :D :D

OF TOPIC

Therian Chemical Station

The Therians have a powerful industry. Their factory worlds cross the cosmos transforming entire solar systems. The landscape of those planetary industrial complexes should be full of tanks with different chemicals, fuels and similar.
This could be one of those.

Piece of Landscape

Yesterday I found something which seems to fit quite well with the size and scale of the AT-43 game. It looks like a volcanic rock from a desolated planetary landscape or like some kind of industrial post-holocaust dervish. Actually it is a piece of pavement, which happens to be very hard but incredibly light due to its porosity.

Nice, isn't it?

Chemical Reactor

I developed a chemical reactor for the AT-43 (or any other sci-fi 28mm wargame) basically from a plastic container for deodorant replacement for toiletry, a bunch of random pieces from my spare parts toolbox and a bit of color.

I hope you like it :D :D

P.S. No UNA-troop was killed, injured, damaged or mistreated in any way during the "shooting" of the photographs.

Thiamat again !

I know that lately I have not been very active with the AT-43 game but yesterday we finally played again.

My Army List was basically Supra faction, with Urod and 4 infantry units, two Dragonov kommandos with AT-Gauss and two Spetznat kommandos with rocket launchers. In reserve there was a Kossak and another unit of Dragonov kommandos.

The Therian fielded a medical container, a Incubus, Thiamat and Nina-Zero on foot with three heavy infantry.

That was another massacre of Red Block people.

The terrain was basically agreed by us, so we started putting things until we were more or less satisfied with it, three markers for RPs of 200 RP each were placed and two markers for 1 VPs each also.

The RP markers were the elevated platform (controlling the base was enough to get the RP), the red container and the Therian artefact; the VP were on the chemical reactor and in the chemical tank.

The Red Block entered the battlefield from the elevated platform side, which was taken by the Dragonov kommandos.

Therian medical container dropped behind the chemical tank, close to the red container with the RP marker.

Spetznatz kommandos deployed close to the other red container and waited for enemies.

The Incubus entered the field by the dark container and activated the overwatch of both kommando units. I think that the rocket of the spetznatz was a hit which damaged the propulsion and the frame, and that the AT-Gauss was a miss.

The incubus killed several of the Spetznatz with its cannons.

Urod entered the field and walking without running over the medic of the spetznatz forced him to relocate closer to the other two spetznatzs and getting cover from the container opened fire on the incubus and I think to remember that there were two hits to the frame but not sure now. Anyway the incubus was not destroyed.

Thiamat dashed towards the spetznatz and the urod but was two short to engage in melee, so she created a hekcat.

The other infantry units tried to control the central objectives (the spetznatzs) and the dragonov tried to shoot to the Therian AFVs but without too much success.

The deployment of Nina-Zero and the heavy infantry signalled the dead of some of the dragonov kommandos taking cover at the base of the elevated platform.

That was the end of the first round.

Red Block got 400 RPs, Therians 200 RPs and 1 VP.

The second round was very short. Urod moved towards the heavy infantry letting the Spetznatz to die in front of Thiamat and the Hekcat, and managed to kill all the heavy infantry except Nina.

The Spetznatz were killed by both Thiamat and the Hekcat and Urod was destroyed by the heavy infantry which was back on the game thanks to the Therian routines (Therian faction was Cypher).

Red Block was forced to surrender :(

Funniest thing was that when the heavy infantry opened fire on the dragonov, they got 6 hits (on 2+) but the dragonov got the 6 cover rolls (on 3+), but Nina killed two of them with her snipper ability, obviously the medic and the AT-Gauss.

AT-43, a brief intro

AT-43 is a game.
AT-43 is a wargame.
AT-43 is a sci-fi wargame.
AT-43 is a miniatures sci-fi wargame.
AT-43 is a French miniatures sci-fi wargame.

The game follows the line of Warhammer or any other tactical miniature wargame. Therefore and basically, the game is a battle between at least two players, each commands an army represented by plastic miniatures.

However the game has some peculiarities which makes it quite different compared to similar games.

AT-43 is an army based game.

That means that there are several different armies from which the players can choose which one to play. Each army has a different way or approach to technology and war, some are fast but light armoured, other are slow but heavy, one can be more infantry oriented, another will rely more on tanks and so on.

For a battle, both players will agree previously the amount of Army Points (APs) they are going to field. Every single unit on the game has a value on APs and therefore the agreed amount of APs will determine the size and the strength of the combating forces.

A normal game uses 2000 APs, divided in an Assault force and a Reinforcement force. For a total force of 2000 APs there is a maximum of 1500 APs for the Assault force and the rest (at least 500 APs) for the Reinforcements.

The Assault force enters the game directly on the 1st round  (usually, there are however exceptions) but the Reinforcement units will have to wait until the Assault units have captured enough secondary objectives to generate enough Reinforcement Points (RPs) to bring the Reinforcement units into the battle field.

Every army has a basic Army build pattern and four factions which offer another four alternative Army build patterns. Those five Army build patterns are use to build up the Army, which means that in order to spend the 2000 APs of our force we are required to field certain type of units as defined in the choosen pattern. For example, the ARC faction of the Red Block is based mainly in infantry units, however the Frontline faction of the Red Block is much more tank based. So 2000 APs of a Red Block ARC will look or field very different units than a Red Block Frontline force.

The four basic Armies of the game are U.N.A., Therians, Red Block and Kharmans. Another two, new Armies are available since some months (Cogs and O.N.I.) and another one (Kriggs) is in the production phase.

AT-43 is an objectives based game.

Every battle has two different classes of objectives. On the battle field there will be different points or positions, for example a bunker, a communication antenna or another Tactical Marker which has to be controlled by the players. By controlling a primary objective the controlling player will get a fix amount of Victory Points (VPs). Usually a battle or scenario is won by the first player able to achieve 20 VPs.

The control of a secondary objective gives Reinforcement Points (RPs) which are used to move units from the Reinsforcements into the Reserve of the assault force and then into the battlefield.

A player controls an objective by placing more soldiers at less than 10cm of the objective than its opponent. Usually only soldiers can control objectives, Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) can not control objectives.

Therefore an Army should field both, soldiers and AFVs. There are some exceptions to this, however

AT-43 is a sequence based game.

Every battle is played in rounds. A round is divided in three Phases.

The 1st Phase is the planning Phase. Each player decides the sequence in which its units are going to act. This is achieved by the use of cards. Each card represents one of the units of the Army and at the begining of each round, at the planning Phase, each player chooses the sequence of its cards in secret and places the cards face down on the table in the order in which the units have to be activated and played.

Once the Activation Sequence has been done, the players determine which one will act first. This marks the end of the planning Phase.

The next Phase is the Tactical Phase. The 1st player reveals the first card of its sequence, activates the represented unit and resolves the possible movement and actions of the unit. When the first player finishs the activation of its first unit, the second player reveals its first card and proceeds to activate its first unit. This process is repeated until both played have been able to activate all the units in their Assault force.

In this way the activation of the fighting forces alternates between the two players.

The last Phase, the Control Phase, simply consists on checking which units control which objetives, the asignation of the corresponding VPs and RPs and eventually the transfer of units from the Reinforcement into the Assault Force by paying the required amount of RPs. The card representing the Reinforcement unit is added to the activation sequence and enters the battle the next round. 

Questions ?

DRAKE D7 - UNA APC

Flashback
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Ariano - Have you seen the topic in the forum about the ARC faction of the Red Block ? It seems to be that not so many people use it. I must say, you already know, that I have never use it neither. Maybe we should give it a try. What do you thing ?
Kobra - Well, maybe...

Flashback 2
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Kobra - Have you seen the suggestions for UNA ? I think my UNA APC could give UNA Shock Troopers and/or UNA in general the needed speed to reach objectives. What do you think? Maybe we could try it.
Ariano - Well, maybe...

Flashback 3
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Ariano - What do you think about the following? I try ARC agains your UNA with the transport, what do you say?
Kobra - Sounds fine to me
Background Very Evil UNA Laughs and Imminent Armageddon UNA Music....

The Armies
Poison Red [ARC] (1500/500)
Assault
Urod (Col. Odin and Manon) [570 AP]
8 Krasny Soldaty (1 Gren. Launcher, 2 Medics, Smoke Gren.) [190 AP]
4 Dragomirov Kolossus + Lit. Dragomira [665 AP]
3 Krasny Groupa G [75 AP]

Reinforcements
4 Strielitz Kolossus [400 RP]
4 Krasny Groupa G [100 RP]

I was very proud of this list as it was exactly 1500/500 with a fair amount of LP (16) to activate all my units and plenty of LP to wager (6 LP max.) as the limitation of 1 combat drill per unit means that I was going to spend a maximum of 4 LP in combat drills and 2 LP in activation of the two units in my Assault force without officer, letting my 10 LP to play with.
However I was not prepared to deal with the Sneaky Kobra ;D ;D (my usual UNA opponent)

Rapid Assault Team // 5th Company (1495/495)
Assault
2 Wing Laser Team [110 AP]
2 Fire Toad (Serg., Light Laser Cannon) [415 AP]
Drake D7 Transport (Serg., 2 Light Laser Cannon, 1 Light Machine Gun) [315 AP]
Surprise Troops inside of the transport [655 AP]

Reinforcements
MedTech [75 RP]
3 Steel TacArm (Serg., Laser Gun) [310 RP]
2 Wing Laser Team [110 RP]

Kobra was even more proud of his list as apparently he has been dreaming with trying it since months (you will read later why)

Battlefield
We tried again the method of generation of battlefield discussed previously and which have been patched recently to include the feature that now you may wager LPs to get some "advantages" during the creation of the battlefield.
We roll for 13 terrain elements by rollin g 4 dices, taking one out and rolling another one. The distribution of the elements was basically a big terrain element as focal central point of the table (the deposit for liquids) and then some containers and low walls around.

Now, we were supposed to wager some LPs to be able to influence the amount of Access Zones / Drop points, Reinforcement and Victory markers. I won by expending 5 LPs as I wanted to try what happens if you win and I was having enough LPs (later the reality probed me wrong on both accounts, the actual system of creation does not seem to give the winner of this LPs wager action too much advantages which justify the expenditure of so many LPs and in the 1st round I actually missed some more LPs).

We rolled four dices and as winner I was able to choose which one was going to determine the amount of Access Zones / Drop points which were placed by my opponent. Not having any further control on this point, I decided to take the maximal amount of them, in our case four. Kobra placed two neutral access zones of 20cm each and 3 drop points. After this he decided which of the three remaining dices was to determine the amount of RP markers, also four, which I placed without him having any control about where I put them and finally I was to choose which of the two dices which were left was to give the amount of Victory points markers. As the two last dices were both a two, there were two Victory points marker which Kobra placed both of them, together on the central deposit.
Therefore, the scenario was basically a "Bridgehead" with a kill-them-all set up. Not the best kind of scenario for the Red Block.

The Battle

1st round

The Red Block gets the initiative by using some more LPs (I think to remember 3 or 4 LPs). Not being really satisfied with my original sequence of cards, I decided to expend another LP to move the first card to another place of the sequence and therefore my first card now was the Krasny unit which enter the battlefield on the left side, taking control of the container.
UNA Wing Laser Team enters the board and hide behind the container in front of the Krasny unit.
Urod enters the field and goes into overwatch. UNA was surprised by this, Kobra was not expecting Urod.

The Fire Toads enter the table in front of Urod which fires on them. The rockets fail to hit but the cannon damages the frame of the Sergeant Fire Toad.
The Fire Toads manage to damage one point of frame of Urod.
The support groupa G takes positions behind the central container and controls the Reinforcement point.
UNA delays to be able to move the transport APC and deploy the surprise inside.
Here I made my very, big mistake. Instead of activating my Dragomirov Kolossus, I delayed them. I should have put them in the table in overwatch waiting for the transport, even without the Take Cover drill as they were 4 Kolossus plus Dragomira.
UNA activate double and the APC enters the field and fires Urod for two point of damage in the rocket launcher.
The unit inside the APC results to be not UNA but ONI, something I was not expecting at all and which Kobra keep secret for the last months, since he came with the idea of the transport.
Now 6 zombies TacArms Alpha plus Daimyo J. Priest were on the board and fired Urod for a total of four frame damage points.
Urod was a big explosion for a moment, and then Odin and Manon were on foot still asking what just happened, when the Zombie gun made them braineaters.

This was the death sentence for the Red Block.

I still put the Kolossus on the table but the rockets failed to hit the APC and the MGauss killed only one TacArm.

End of the round, 400 RPs for each, no VPs.

2nd round

UNA gets initiative as Red Block has suddenly only 7 LPs with a max. wager of 3.
The first unit of UNA is a reinforcement unit, the MedTech which drops in front of the Zombie TacArms.

The Dragomirov managed to destroy the APC but failed to kill any further TacArm or nurse/doctor of the MedTech.
The Zombies fired into the Dragomirov killing only one, but gounding the rest.
The groupa G launched its grenades but without any success.
The Fire Toads failed to hit the Dragomirov.
The Krasny unit was force to pass as there were not enough LPs to activate it, to fire to the zombies (1 extra LP for this) and to activate the reinforcements and make them shot.
The Steel TacArm reinforcement unit enters the game and takes positions behind some low walls in cover and overwatch.
The Strielitz Kolossus move into position behind the deposit, and after firing to the Tac Arms with no result, Red Block concedes the game.

I do not think that the list was so bad from my side, but maybe my tactical decisions were not the best, but of course, suggestions and critics are always welcomed.

The visual archive is of course also available :D