The Cruel Desert

Two-and-a-half topics for this post, all quar-related!

First is a handful of Partisan figures which I've been working on.  In the first photo are an officer, sniper, and rhyfler (the quar equivalent of "private", or basic trooper):

I attempted a tweed herringbone pattern on the Rhyfler on the right - came out pretty well!

I also painted the partisan "kit", a term for quar adolescents.  I painted him up in the same color scheme as my partisan's Yawdryl (equivalent to the rank of "Sergeant").

Like father, like son!

Here's a group shot of almost all of my partisans so far.  The remaining three are more civilian pieces than combatants - a mechanic, a farmer, and another kit (this one with a ball under his arm, rather than a knife), but they're not even assembled yet so they're still some ways from being painted.

The second part-and-a-half for this post are two short battle reports.  Gamescape North has been hosting quar games every other Sunday, and I had a couple of games with the store manager, Nick, yesterday.  We played the scenario "The Cruel Desert", out of the vehicle & elites supplement book "Of Spats and Pedrails."

The Cruel Desert, Episode I

The lead-in to this scenario is that a crusader kite (the quar term for airplanes) has crashed in the deserts of Kryst, and a recovery team has been sent to do repairs.  Unfortunately, the salvage tractor has become stuck in the sand, and at that moment a band of Kryst Sandstalkers descend on the wreckage.

Here's the table an initial deployment:

You can see my significantly larger Crusader force (10 models in total) surrounding the tractor and kite wreckage, and in the surrounding trees are the Sandstalkers (5 in number) preparing their ambush.

Sandstalkers hiding in the trees.

Things started going downhill for the Crusaders pretty quickly, as the first shot fired left my Yawdryl Out of Action.

After a bit more fire, several Crusaders are left shaken, but no more casualties (yet).  Without their Yawdryl, however, the Crusaders are much less efficient and get relatively little done before the Krysters are able to press their advantage.

Yawdryl Mik Allok moves up around the backside of the tractor, killing one of the Crusader heavy Rhyflers on his way.

Since the Crusaders failed to do much more than make progress on freeing the tractor, Mik Allok is free to continue his advance, and ends up fending off no less than 5 quar in melee!  (Admittedly most were non-combatant crewquar, but it's still impressive!)

He quickly dispatched the aerocrew and fell back to avoid being mobbed.  In the brief respite from the Sandstalker's assault, the engineer and crewquar manage to finish repairs on the tractor.

Unfortunately for them, Mik Allok charges in once again and unleashes a spray of bullets from his Moog, killing all 3 tractor crew and putting the last two Rhyflers to flight.

As he retreated, the last Crusader heavy Rhyfler took a pot shot and got lucky, killing Mik Allok...

...but was quickly shot by another Sandstalker, resulting in a gory death and causing the last Rhyfler to flee off into the desert.

A pretty decisive victory for Kryst!

The Cruel Desert, Episode II

We played a follow-up scenario, in which a Crusader recon team which had caught wind of the Kryst victory tried to head them off and recapture the tractor, or at the very least stop the Sandstalkers.  The Sandstalkers picked up a few reinforcements, bringing their number up to 6 and the captured tractor (trading Mik Allok for a regular Yawdryl), while the Crusader team consisted of a Yawdryl, Musician, LMG team, mortar team, sniper, and 3 Kryst scouts selected from the pro-Crusader Kryst list.  The somewhat odd assortment of Crusaders is due to the fact that I wanted to try out the models I had painted up in "Team Zissou" colors!

Initial deployment saw the tractor with infantry support, on a road headed across the board, with the Crusaders in ambush positions, ready to head them off:

Right of the bat, the sniper moved into some trees and picked off one of Nick's heavy Rhyflers, who was on the distant hillside.

Following that kill, the mortar fired a shell as the tractor moved up the road, hitting the tractor dead-on and disabling one of the crew inside, while the four infantry around the tractor were uninjured but all knocked to the ground by the impact.  Two of the Crusaders' Kryst allies moved up the hill and picked off some of the downed Sandstalker infantry before they had regained their footing.

 The tractor then responded by rolling off the road and heading straight for the hillside, firing on the Krysters, both of whom hit the ground but still alive.

Meanwhile Team Zissou advances from behind a rock outcropping, and the LMG team opened fire on the tractor, to no avail.

Alert to the new threat, the remaining Kryst infantry returned fire and scored a gory kill against the LMG-toting Rhyfler, causing his loader to flee the table.

Meanwhile the tractor opened fire again, killing both Kryst allies, and then rolled forward, attempting to steamroll the sniper who deftly rolled aside, then levelled his rifle against the Sandstalker Yawdryl and killed him as he closed in.

The tractor then switched gears and headed for the remaining members of Team Zissou:

The unfortunate Yawdryl had been making his way over, hoping to plant a sticky bomb on the tractor, and found himself square in its tracks.

 Who will win?!

Not surprisingly, the tractor won.  The unfortunate (or overly confident) Team Zissou Yawdryl was shot down by the tractor, causing the mortar team to flee the table as well.  At this point, the Crusaders had gone from a pretty decisive start to being more closely matched, with one sniper, one Kryst ally, and one musician facing off against a Sandstalker and the tractor.

 The Kryst ally quickly ran around the rock outcropping and closed in on the tractor, whose turret was at that point locked and therefore couldn't rotate to fire on him.  Meanwhile the sniper took a shot, hoping for a lucky hit on the engine, but his bullet bounced harmlessly off of the tractor's hull.

The Kryster successfully got his bomb on the tank, but was then shot in the back, causing the sniper and musician to flee.

We decided to roll up the results of the sticky bomb anyways, since it was planted we reasoned that it would go off eventually anyways, and if it destroyed the tractor then the Crusaders might be able to claim a slight victory, albeit with heavy losses.  However, the bomb detonated but proved ineffectual, and as such the tractor and sole surviving Sandstalker managed to escape with the captured intelligence.

All in all, a good day to be a Kryster (unless you're a Kryst ally of the Crusade...)!

Wellsirs, hope you enjoyed that pair of fairly bloody battle reports!