More Gruntz - Polish Flyswatter

Just a quick update. My New Vistula Legion troops for Gruntz have been a bit on the back burner, mainly because other "stuff" keeps getting in the way. I'm still planning to expand both my Poles and Crusties for use in Gruntz, when I get some organisation done.

One quick addition to the NVL is this MANPADS (anti aircraft missile) team. As with the others these are from Oddzial Osmy from Poland purchased from Fighting 15s and theyre great little figures. These are the first I painted from scratch myself, the rest of the Detachment were a lucky ebay win but I think I managed to get them looking pretty similar.

I'm hoping they will provide some much needed light AA capability. Actually in Gruntz because of how the game mechanics work they will also provide an additional light anti tank capability - something I am a bit lacking in as well - assuming there are no air threats, so a nice force multiplier.

Gruntz - Polish air support

Air support has arrived too. I liked the near future vibe, and I think its reasonable to assume in the future we will keep the current trend for stretching the service life of aircraft by refitting avionics etc. With that in mind I did a bit of googling. It seems Poland is currently looking for a new attack helicopter, with the Eurocopter Tigre, Mangusta and Apache all in the running. I ruled out the Apache, too instantly recognisable, that left the Tigre or Mangusta. I have a couple of Mangusta models in 1:100 that I picked up from a partwork a few years ago, and currently there is a partwork magazine on sale in Italy that includes a 1:100 (15mm) Tigre in German colours, so I ordered one on ebay, and some Polish aircraft decals from Pendraken. Not 100% certain which will win out yet, and I'm trying to avoid doing a full repaint but we will have to see. Here's the Tigre - still in German markings but should be pretty easy to swap for Polish. I suppose I could mess about replacing the rotors with some tilt fan engines but I don't know if it would be worth the trouble, and if I leave it as it is I can always use it to double up for a real Tigre should we decide to do some ultra modern games in future.

Vehicles are still an issue. I have some Old Crow models that I really like and will fit the APC and Scout roles, but I'm still short a tank. The Old Crow Sabre looks like an option, but I may be tempted to try and use something different like a wheeled chassis.

Gruntz Campaign - New Vistula Legion

We have been planning a little sci fi campaign using the Gruntz rules for a little while, hopefully to kick start in the New Year. I had originally intended to use GZGs "Crustie" aliens in 15mm , but was also hankering after something a little more mainstream - in fact I was pricing up some GZG Colonial Militia for the Christmas sale, when while browsing through ebay I spotted a lot of about 60 painted Oddzial Osmy (O8) miniatures New Vistula Legion, and made a pretty low bid. Much to my surprise, I won. The figures duly arrived, and I was rather impressed.

Here's the group shot of the platoon

O8 are a Polish manufacturer more well known for their 3mm scale Pico Armour, but they also have a small but comprehensive New Vistula Legion sci fi range, which as the name suggests, are a near future \ sci fi Polish faction. A quick look confirms that they are inspired by the modern 21st Century Polish infantry - they have similar helmets and equipment. The assault rifles could easily be modernised versions of the Radom rifle the Poles are adopting, however the SAW is pure Aliens "Smartgun" . The figures themselves are beautiful; nicely proportioned and posed, with some very nice detail.

Here's one of the fire-teams, which are currently deploying as five men with a SAW attached

The ebay seller said they were painted - and they pretty much were, and whoever did them had a good technique - far better than me nowadays. I wasn't too happy with the armour plates and helmets which had been left black - either by design or because he had got fed up with them (we have all been there) so I quickly painted them with green armour and gave the guns a little grey highlight to brighten them up a bit.

The bases were interesting. They came based, or rather stuck to what I initially assumed were very thin steel disks as they were magnetic (bonus). On closer examination the stuff they are based on is not steel at all but something flexible but magnetic. As the figures were all individual and I needed some doubles for specialists etc I peeled some of them off the bases planning to put them on 2p coins (cheaper than washers and still ferrous!). As soon as I started I realised the 2ps were going to be far to thick in relation to the other infantry and would look odd. I was about to order some 2 cm steel disks when I thought - why not try plain magnetic paper? I had some stiff magnetic paper I had used to hold figures in boxes. I dug some out and cut 2p sized discs of it, based the figures up and they look fine. The sand & pva helps give the magnetic paper rigidity.

In our Gruntz campaign these are going to be my core infantry. I'm going for reasonably mid to low tech, so no energy weapons, just projectile weapons and missiles, but the troops themselves being seasoned. Here's my heavy weapon teams, an anti tank missile. HMG and mortar.

Gruntz has a lot of scope for Specialists that can add some additional capabilities to your troops, and also some sci fi flavour. Here's the NVL Medic, Commander, and ECM Specialist Teams.

"My" NVL will also be using a fair amount of recce and scout units. This is a pair of recce specialist teams and a Sniper team.

Lastly there is a squad of Long Range Recce Patrol \ Spetznaz types. These have very high skills \ morale but are lightly equipped.

Crustie Heavy Support

My "Gruntz" Crusties from GZG needed a bit of heavy support. The problem is the heavy mecha from GZG looks a bit weedy to my eye - particularly the bottom half - see pic.

However some time ago I saw a pic posted on an internet board of a conversion using the torso, arms and legs of the GZG Mech with some donated legs from another model. I shamelessly pinched this idea, so without further time wasting here is my new Crusty Heavy Mech

The bottom is a repurposed and reposed plastic Mech from EM-4 Miniatures plastic Mechs - £2.55 for 5!  with the arms and torso from a GZG Crustie Mech. I'm rather pleased with it

Gruntz - a distraction, but welcome

I'm enjoying my regular Dropzone Commander fix, but it was suggested we give Gruntz 15mm Sci Fi a try. Gruntz is a generic set of fairly "hard" sci fi rules written with 15mm figures in mind. There are no "official" figures, you just use what you want, and you build your units based on any background you fancy, paying points for each trait or factor.  I say they are "hard" sci fi because they are more grounded in "realistic" combat with ranged weapons than hitting each other with chainswords and the like (like DZC). That having been said, if you want to do that they will allow you to - though you may need some method of crossing the fire soaked intervening ground between you and your target.

Grunts are aimed at a tactical level down from DZC, so each figure represents a single soldier , who operates as part of a squad. They're based individually, but some specialists and support weapons are based in pairs or teams.

I've had a copy for a year or so but never got to play properly - partly because after DZC arrived it eat up my sci fi gaming time allowance, but I did manage to paint up a nice little platoon sized unit of about 30 figures. And therein lies the first plus point of Gruntz. You can play with a platoon of 30 15mm figures. Total cost of a reinforced infantry platoon is less than £20, and the figures paint up quickly and easily. I have a platoon of 15mm "Crusties" from Ground Zero Games, who bear a passing resemblance to the aliens from the film District 9, so I pointed them up and headed for the club, where Paul, my opponent for the night, had agreed to bring some opposition. There was another first tonight - we both had the rules on our tablets, which was a new step for us old fashioned folks, but seemed to work. I used the tablet to take the accompanying pics, which goes to prove it doesnt matter how good the technology is if the operator is a idiot!

So without further ado "Meet the Crusties!"

I went for 3 squads of six laser rifle armed Crusties, with each squad having two plasma gunners attached, plus a Medium Laser, a Commander, and finally a pack of Prawns (just out of shot) - vicious if stupid close combat creatures. The Prawns usually come with a herder, but I couldn't afford the extra points needed for him :-(, I also had a tripod mounted medium laser to give me some heavy weapon fire.

Paul had chosen a similar platoon organisation, however in addition to his three rifle squads and Commander, he had a medic, and what I'm sure my Commander would call, a "Fooking Tank". Each of his rifle squads had an anti tank launcher and a squad automatic weapon in support, all conventional projectile weapons, but his tank had a rather big laser.

The table was set out and we got started

The game played fast and was fun. Paul made the mistake of pushing his tank forward ahead of his infantry support, which resulted in it being deluged by plasma gun fire from the three Crustie squads plus the rather more dangerous support laser. The tank took repeated hits from plasma weapons, and although none of them were serious or caused a lot of damage the tank was being gradually shot to bits. This was made clear when a lucky laser hit caused a critical hit on the tanks targeting systems, making hitting anything at other than point blank range difficult. Paul tried to pull the tank back but a sequence of rather lucky plasma hits immobilised it and then the laser got in a killing shot - first blood to the Crusties. Also centre in the pic is the Prawn Pack heading enthusiastically for the ramp leading to the landing pad and what they thought would be a tasty snack of Humans!

The Prawns charged forward, straight into a withering burst of automatic weapons fire which decimated them and sent the sole survivor scuttling for cover. This was all part of the Crustie Commander's "Cunning Plan" in that it allowed a Crusty infantry squad to climb up a steep slope to try and attack a human squad. The humans were waiting however and opened fire as the Crusties cleared the top, causing 3 casualties, but the Crusties passed a rather difficult morale test and won the initiative to put down a withering hail of laser and plasma fire on the humans.

At about the same time on the other flank a human flanking move came up short when the squad took some heavy casualties and fell back to cover.

In the centre the last remaining human squad took a "lucky" hit from the Crusty support laser, but the casualty was saved by the quick intervention of the Medic team. It was clear however that he Crusties were going to win, so Paul called his men back and left the Crusties in control.

It was a really fun and quick game, and we both enjoyed it. I think we learned different lessons - certainly pushing the tank up unsupported was a mistake, and Paul was impressed by the Crustie Plasma Guns, whereas I have developed a healthy respect for his squad assault weapons, which were rather nasty. There is going to be some furious painting and reviewing of stats too - the Crusties are going to get a drop in morale value in an effort to make them cheaper as at 29 points a squad compared to the Humans at 21 points they're way too expensive.

Judging from this game, I suspect we will be seeing some more Gruntz on table.

If you are interested the rules are available as a download from Wargames Vault for under $10, great value, as is the squad builder which makes building your squads much easier. There is also the authors dedicated blog here Gruntz which has loads of useful stuff.