Goodies; AARs

As I was on the way out to go to work this morning I found a packet on the stairs - my order from Khurasan had finally arrived. I guess it got delayed during the Christmas period.

So, what was in the package?
1 Space Demon King
1 Space Demon Queen
48 Space Demons
24 Chewk infantry
12 Chewk heavy weapons
1 cargo handler (think of the one Ripley used in Aliens)
1 pack SF furniture
1 pack SF consoles

On quick inspection the figures are all very well cast with very little flash. I'm looking forward to getting these painted up once I've done the Sarmatians. In the meantime, they'll be going into my lead-pile.

(OK - the Space Demons might be paintable before my elbow is healed: spray-prime, metallic spray base coat, Klear/ink wash and some detailing could be possible without having to bend my left elbow too much).


And now for the AARs.

Between 4 of us we played 3 games of Tomorrow's War last night at CLWC. Sorry there aren't any pics - I did take my camera, but forgot to take any. These AARs might not be 100% accurate, as I didn't make any notes as we were playing, but they should be pretty close to what happened last night.

Game 1: GW Orks (Mike) vs GZG 25mm NSL Armoured Infantry (me)

This was a patrol encounter in rolling countryside with a lot of scrub cover around a road/track. Mike had 1 squad of 7 Gretchin, 3 squads of 7 Orks, a scout car with 2 Ork and 2 Gretchin crew and a 3-Ork command team. My force consisted of 3 six-man squads (each with 3 squad support weapons - 1 x AP2 SAW, 1 x AP2/AT2 RPG, 1 x AP2/AT2 Plasma gun) and a six-man command/weapons team (with 2 support weapons - 1 x AP2/AT2 plasma gun and 1 x AP3:AT2 rapid plasma gun).
Pre-game we'd agreed that my NSL would be TL3, D10 quality/D12 Morale against Mike's TL2 Orks (hmmm, not so sure they'd be that high tech). We also agreed that the Orks would have a base D8 for TQ/Morale increasing to D10 if the "Boss" was in LOS. Mike would have initiative for Turn 1, my force would start anywhere within 12" of the centre of the table.

Mikes' first activation saw his scout car advance along the road, where it was attacked by the nearest NSL squad with their plasma gun and RPG. The RPG shot whizzed over the top of the vehicle, but the plasma gun hit with both dice, immobilising the scout car and taking out half its firepower. The return fire saw two hits on my NSL squad, but they were easily beaten by my defence rolls. the vehicle crew, realising that they were a sitting target, bailed out only to be fired on by 2 of my squads, resulting in 3 casualties. I then moved the two squads furthest back forward to positions where they would be able to engage the enemy.

Mike then brought on the reaming squads of Orks, who were rapidly decimated by my reaction fire, their return fire was totally ineffective.

Turn 2 saw me winning the initiative. The Command/HW team went on Overwatch, the 2 squads nearest the Orks opened fire causing even more casualties. The presence of the Boss in LOS for most of them caused an improvement to their return fire and 1 of my squads took 2 casualties. The Overwatch team were very effective, winning most of their interrupts and wiping out even more Orks. Mike's remainign Orks were intending to charge, but either failed their tests and were unable to or they got knocked out by defensive fire as they rushed forward.

At this point we decided to call an end to the game. During a brief post-game debrief, we realised we'd played a couple of the rules wrong, and had forgotten a couple of tests that should have been made, but who care? We had fun for an hour or so.

Game 2: "Lost and Found" scenario
USMC: Slim (using 15mm CMG ARC fleet figures)
DPRG: Mike and Tamsin (using 15mm GZG UNSC figures)

Turn 1 saw Slim's marines come onto the table, unopposed. Straight to Turn 2, Slim retained the initiative. One squad advanced to the river bank and tried - but failed - to spot the nearby DPRG team, who proceeded to launch their ambush. Unfortunately, the rush to put conscripts into the filed had led to a lack of proper weapons training and their fire was ineffective - the return fire from the marines caused 2 casualties. Our command team also reacted from ambush to fire on the marines, equally ineffectively. The marines return was again effective, causing 4 casualties. Dicing to see if any of the "specials" had been hit, the squad leader was down.  He obviously wasn't well loved by his troops as their morale test was successful and they were quite happy to carry on. Slim moved the remaining squads up, taking more ineffective fire from the DPRG and causing a couple more casualties. I then moved the 2 DPRG teams that hadn't activated, bringing one up closest to the hut where the downed airman was sheltering and the other moving forward to get a good LOS to the river crossing.

Turn 3: Mike and I (somehow) won the initiative. Doing the first aid checks, saw 3 kills, but the hated Squad Leader had survived with a serious wound. The command team went on overwatch; the team close to the hut arrived there but Slim had LOS to them and reacted with fire from one of his teams - our command team successfully interrupted, but failed to cause any casualties; the marines' return fire caused 2 casualties. Dicing to see who was hit, the Squad Leader was down again! The team failed it's morale check and was pinned.We then resolved the reaction by the marines to the team moving to the hut - the marines won but failed to didn't score any hits, the DPRG's return fore also didn't cause any casualties.

Our team by the river, nearest to the marines opened fie, but the marines reacted and got their shots in first, reducing the team to 1 man active who failed his morale check and was pinned. Slim then moved one of his teams to the bridge where a pointless exchange of fire occurred and his third team over the bridge. None of my teams had LOS to them, so couldn't react and that ended Turn 3.

Turn 4 saw Slim regain the advantage. Doing first aid tests resulted in the Squad Leader gaining a second serious wound. Some guys just don't know when to stay down. The DPRG saw a couple more deaths.

Slim put 2 teams on overwatch, and moved the team that had crossed the river up to the hut. My command team and the team by the hut both reacted with fire, but lost their reaction tests and also lost their tests against the interruptions by Slim's teams on overwatch. The command team somehow only took 1 hit - neither Mike nor myself wanted to roll the dice to see who the casualty was, so we allowed Slim to roll  after all joking that it was bound to be the Squad Leader. Slim rolled, and guess what? It WAS the Squad Leader. The die roll couldn't have been timed better - just as it landed on a "1" there must have been a goal in the football match that was being shown in the main bar as there was a huge roar of applause.

The rest of the turn went pretty much as expected - DPRG fire totally useless against the marines, the marines' fire devastatingly effective against the DPRG.

Turn 5 and first aid checks - the dauntless Squad Leader got a third serious wound. He must be a descendent of this guy!!!



Turn 6 was even more of the same, with 1 really bad Fog of War card for the DPRG - they set off a hidden booby trap/mine. Guess which team took the hits? Yup, the command team. Guess who was the only casualty? Yup, the Squad Leader. Slim's marines managed to collect the downed pilot from the hut and the turn ended.

Turn 7: we did the first aid checks, just to see if the ultimate survivor had actually been killed - a light wound to add to his 3 serious wounds. Our remaining DPRG troops, realising that their numbers were rapidly dwindling decided that desertion was the better part of cowardice, and bugged out to the back-country allowing the marines to get away having successfully completed their mission.


Game 3: "Lost and Found" Redux
USMC: Seb
DPRG: Slim

This game proceeded pretty much the same as the last one until near to the end, one exception being the Squad Leader actually getting killed. During Turn 5 (I think) Slim rolled a 1 during a reaction test and went "Whoopee!" (or words to that effect when he read the Fog of War card he'd drawn as he thought he'd gained a D10 quality sniper team. That was until I read the card and pointed out that it said "Your opponent has a sniper team......". The snipers managed to score hits on the remaining DPRG on the hut side of the river, leaving them with a single team (down to 4 men from earlier fire) on the other side of the river, who decided that bugging out was the best option in the circumstances.



All in all, 3 fun games, and it's had the result of persuading Seb to have his 15mm SF figures brought over when his parents visit him in a week or two. I think that it does help (at least with players who aren't familiar with the rules) to have a third person assisting who can look things up as and when needed, especially as the rule book isn't as well organised as it could be.

The contrast between the 2 games was interesting - differences in Troop Quality really do matter, and the difference between D6 vs D8 TQ is very pronounced compared to D8 vs D10 TQ