Horus Heresy Project: Ancient Rylanor in-progress

I recently built up an Ancient Rylanor for my Emperor's Children army. I had tentative plans to include him in my army down the road, but a generous friend of mine donated his Emperor's Children Contemptor to me so I thought, "why not?" and started this side project. My loyalist Emperor's Children will be pleased to have Rylanor supporting them from here on!




Original Rylanor artwork

Rylanor doesn't have an "official" model, but he does have rules listed in Horus Heresy Vol I: Betrayal. He is equipped with a Kheres Autocannon and a CCW with in-built flamer. Building him was fairly easy now since I have built 2 contemptors before him. In my experience it's best to start with the feet first and work your way up. The Forge World Contemptor has excellent posability which is a blessing and a curse. I have had to break parts a few times just to repose it just right. It's good to be conservative with that super glue!

Since I didn't have to do a lot of conversion on the model itself I decided to add a more flare to the base itself. I liked the idea of special characters getting additional decoration in order to set them apart from the basic units of my army.

 

I might just move Rylanor up in the paint schedule since he is one of my favorite characters from the novel series. Hopefully I will have painted pics to show off here in the near future.

Axis & Allies Global 1940: Part 2

Turn 2 alignment

This article is a return to my previous article giving an overview of the complexity of playing a Global game of Axis and Allies. Take note that since I was the Axis Player for all 2 nations I will be mainly composing this article from the Axis point of view. The players on the Allied side were newer to the game so I did have a slight advantage, but I took care to advise when I saw them leaving me an opening for an easy win. This was largely a learning experience for the newer players.

On the 2^nd day of A&A 1940 Global I wasn’t too sure how the game would go. On one hand Germany was in a weak position. They didn’t have any air power or navy and were barely holding on to all their original territories.

Turn 5, Japan has the allies boxed in

Italy on the other hand was in a strong position which is nice for a change because Italy tends to be the weakest Axis Power, but on the rare occasions Italy is able to capture the Mediterranean and most of Africa they are definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Japan was in the best position of all the Axis powers at turn 4. China was blocked in to one last territory, UK in the East had no navy and could not break out of their last 3 territories, and US and ANZAC were not able to threaten Japanese naval supremacy. Also of note, the USSR decided to not threaten my northern Asian territories so I didn’t have to worry about them like I was early in the game when I didn’t have my position established.

By the end of turn 4 was where a lot of things on the map that had changed. I started rebuilding a German navy since the US had located their Atlantic fleet down near the Mediterranean and the UK fleet consisted of a cruiser and a transport. They could still scramble so I started with 2 subs, which then grew to 4 in later turns. Not having to deal with a real invasion threat from the west allowed me to focus more on the East fight the USSR. The UK began to ramp up production in the South Africa minor facility since Italy had almost captured all of Africa. I had to pull Italy back in the face of a combined US and UK counter attack in Africa. Since my Italian Fleet was about the same size as the US fleet I wasn’t too worried about Italy getting beaten up.

Turn 7, Italy is able to keep the US at bay

In turn 5 the Axis continued to press their gains. China was eliminated by Japan which was quite an important feat for the Axis. Sending bombers into India really helped keep the UK in check because they couldn’t repair enough to build any sufficient units in response. I even began to take away some USSR territory. Germany was able to capture Leningrad while keeping the bulk of the USSR southern units in check. At this point the US started to make a serious buildup to start countering Japan since they were almost unopposed in the East. Even though Germany wasn’t that strong with Japan’s help they could both weaken the USSR to the point of falling.

Turn 6 and 7 were enough in the Axis favor to where we decided to call the game since we had already put in 14 hours playing and it looked like an inevitable for an Axis victory. The US was positioned to try and take Tokyo with a small force, but the odds were against them and they couldn’t get through 2 rounds of combat before being defeated. With USSR having lost 2 complexes, ANZAC/UK having no fleet and all Axis doing well economically it was called an Axis victory. I really think Japan pulled this victory and if the tables are turned in a future game and I’m the allied player I will most likely send the bulk of the US forces in Japan’s direction.

 

Axis & Allies Global review and report

One of my favorite board games out there is Axis & Allies 1940. There are separate games for the Pacific and European theaters of war. When combined they are known collectively as Axis & Allies Global 1940 or just A&A Global. This is the most complicated version of Axis & Allies to date and that is largely due to the inclusion of neutral powers and minor powers into the global map. The original game from the 80’s only had 5 playable nations while 1940 Global has 9 albeit they are usually played in conjunction with a greater nation.

 

This is a brief review and battle report of a game that I started on 2/28 and as of the date of this article the game is still in progress. One of the challenges with A&A Global is that you need to set aside a good chunk of time to fully play out a game. I would say that most games can last anywhere between 6-12 hours. A game of Warhammer is less of a time commitment unless it’s a 4000 point battle; even then I think A&A Global would still take longer with an experienced group of players.

 

The game out of box has some room for contents improvement. There aren't any IPCs (money) slips included and nothing to represent the neutral powers. I dished out some extra money for to make the experience more enjoyable by purchasing some minis to represent the neutral nations since it is possible to attack and hold them.

 

Historical Board Gaming has an excellent selection of gaming pieces to customize your A&A game:

 

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/

 

 

We determined that I would play as the Axis powers in this game. It was a 3 player game so it made sense to have the other 2 players run the Allies. In turn one I tried to set up an operation Sea Lion threat with Germany, but fell flat since I had failed to sink all of the UK fleet and in turn lost almost all of my air power. I had easily taken France out with my land units and left some territory for Italy to capture. I was certain after all of my combat was done that I would have to focus everything that Germany would do from this point on for operation Barbarossa so I began staging my units accordingly. Italy and Japan had strong turns in the first round. I played to aggressively contain the Chinese areas and prepared for a strong push south. Luckily for me the allies couldn't make any substantial gains at this point and focused more on unit build up.

 turn 2 in progress

 

 By turn 2 I had made my attack against the USSR and took a few territories, but held in reserve most of my armor since they were positioned well to counterattack. Italy was able to secure the Mediterranean and started a massive land grab in Africa. Italy normally struggles if the UK pours a lot of IPCs into Africa. The UK attempted to rebuild her fleet and I took a gamble with my remaining Luftwaffe and sank more of their ship in order to delay them another turn. I lost all my air, but in turn gained some time to push east. Japan was able to begin grabbing some of the valuable islands down south and started bombing the complex in Calcutta, which stymied any UK production in the Pacific.

Turn 3 saw the Axis also make another large gain and took out the US and ANZAC fleet in the Pacific. Germany struggled to make any major gains in Russia, but Italy managed to secure most of Africa before the US started landing troops in Morocco. We had to put the game on hold at this point because we had spent a lot of time getting to this point and the game is still too close to call. The Allies have a chance of knocking out Germany before Japan can score the cities needed to win.

This is the state of all the nations by the end of turn 3

My next article will follow up with the conclusion of this match and what strategies really paid off in the end.