US Army Light Infantry for Tomorrow's War

So like many others out there in 15mm land I grabbed my copy of Tomorrow's War almost as soon as it came out.  Tons of other bloggers out there have reviewed the book, so I won't spend much time talking about the rule book other than to say it's well worth your money.  As you've probably seen, TW was the rules set I used in my last game and I see it being my primary rules set for platoon scale battles for now on.  I do like  Chain Reaction and I plan to use it in the future for man-on-man combat though

So I'll just jump into what I want to do with it.


While flipping through the book I stumbled across Appendix 2: Organization Examples and its section on the US Army.  In particular, I was impressed with the US Army Light Infantry Platoon with its mixture of conventional troops and robots.  That's a pretty original force and it's nothing like I've ever seen on the gaming board.  Yes, I've seen a bot here and there and maybe a mech or two.  But I've never seen a force that uses bots so heavily.  You don't have to be a genius to see how much firepower this unit has AND how many models it needs!  To me it appears to be a very visually striking force with lots of units and a serious ability to lay down some hurt.


So I'm planning to build a US Army Light Infantry platoon for use on Liberty.  Yes, it's blending two backgrounds but what the hey, it's my game.  So here's what I'm looking for miniatures wise:


1 Platoon HQ with six humans: One command, one medic, one techy troop, and three rifle men.  Bot wise I need 1 mule (with 3 recce drones) and 1 AMU (medical unit).  I'm thinking about using GZG's MULEs for both of these units with the AMU having a red cross or something.  I'll just leave out the human drivers.  


3 Rifle Squads with 7 humans, 1 MULE, and 7 AGPs.  That breaks down to one squad leader, a MULE, two light infantry fireteams and team called "AGP Contact Fireteam".  Each team has two riflemen, one SAW gunner, and one AGP bot.  So that's five riflemen, two SAW gunners, and two AGP bots per squad.  The AGP Contact Fireteam is all bots: 4 AGPs with GPMGs and 1 with a MPPC Do the math to see what I need total here... the troops aren't a problem, but the bots/MULEs could get expensive!


1 Light Infantry Weapon Squad with one squad leader, 4 AGPs, two gunnery techs (riflemen) and 3 MULEs. 


So miniature totals look something like this:


30 humans, 1 AMU, 7 MULES (one with 3 sensor drones), 6 AGPs (fireteam level with "launchers"), 12 AGPs with GPMGs, and 3 APGs with MPPCs, and three recce drones.  


That's a BIG PLATOON!  I have the troop side of things done with the Khurasan Exterminator troops:

I'm going with these guys because the do match-up reasonably well with my QRF Deep Space Marines.  The gear looks similar enough to be the same nation, but different enough to show that they are two armed forces.  Also, the Exterminators look more "high-tech" than the QRF marines which works fine.  The US Army always gets the pick of funds, gear, and other perks.  Whereas the marines always have to make due with older gear and obsolete weapons.  


Bots are a different story.  GZG seems to be the only game in town for wheeled bots.  I like wheeled stuff and they "match" with my wheeled AFVs/Tanks, so why not stay with the theme?


These GZG bots are for the squad level AGP contact teams and the weapons squad:

re 

And these GZG bots for the fire team level AGPs:

That is two different models to do the "same" AGPs, but I figure that I needed two different units for the GPMGs and the team level "launchers", whatever they are.  The $$ isn't too pretty with the bots running bots running about a quid each.  The MULEs are going to be worse: three quid each!  I might buy a couple and then slowly add them over the coming year.  


Right now I have three packs of Khurasan's Exterminators, three AGPs, and a single MULE.  Not quite a full squad although I do have most of the humans needed.


That's going to be quite an outlay for miniatures so I'm going to stretch this project out a bit.  I'll grab bits of this force at a time with my goal being to have the full platoon done by this summer.  I'll probably start with the platoon HQ squad and a rifle squad, then I'll start with the other combat elements as I purchase the needed figures.  Perhaps at a rate of one squad per month?  I may do orders every other month with GZG to save on shipping and I plan to hold off on my first purchase until I see what I get for Christmas ($$ wise) and to get a feel for what Jon will do sale wise.  He always does a Christmas sale and he usually tosses in a free mini or two that goes with your purchase theme... so I plan to wait a bit to see what happens here.


I'm off today and the weekend, so I'll use some of this free time to get going with painting.  Perhaps I'll have a few units done by Sunday and post what I have.  


I'm also figuring out my organization chart stuff for the USCMs so I can use them in Tomorrow's War.  I'll probably post that later next month along with stats for my APCs and tanks.


Anyway, enjoy the holidays!


Semper Fi,  Carry on...