Trouble at New Hamburg

We played a game of Gruntz on Thursday night. The setting was our custom M67 background (https://sites.google.com/site/system15mm/).

We were pretty engrossed in the game so didn't manage to take enough pictures for a cohesive battle report. However, I've posted the scenario and outcome here as it played well and may be of use to others.

Background

New Hamburg was a major city in an independent ark colony. The city had grown quickly for a small independent, making its fortune as a shipping hub due to its host planet’s prime location. Although not an immediate threat to some of the larger corporate powers, it was becoming a nuisance to someone. Five years ago it was extensively bombed by unknown agents. The bombing was enough to effectively destroy the city, ending the colony. It since became no man’s land, open for the taking.

The Anarcho Communist Commonality (ACC) recently began clearing debris from the ruins using nano-cloud technology. In doing so, they have discovered evidence about who bombed the city. Before the ACC engineers could get the evidence off-world, their craft was (conveniently) shot down by a combined force made up of Lone Star Mercenaries and BlitzKreig AG who wish to contest the land.

A small force of ACC Guardians of the Revolution arrive to help the engineers escape.

Game

The game takes place on a 4 x 4 table, ideally covered with dense urban ruins. The crashed engineering craft is between 12 and 24 inches of the Lone Star/BlitzKreig edge. Three engineers are noted in secret as being somewhere along this same strip (i.e. 12 to 24 inches of Lone Star/BlirzKreig edge).

Both forces (400 points each) are set up no more than 6” onto the table.

Lone Star and BlitzKreig units can scan an area 6 + d6” in radius (centered on themselves) with an action. If an engineer is in this area, they are revealed. If the engineers move position, they are instantly revealed and placed on the table. They carry small arms but should be fairly easy to hit and kill.

Each engineer carries an encrypted device that may contain evidence about the illegal bombing. One is a dummy, the other two are actual pieces of evidence. Neither side knows which until the end of the game. If an engineer is killed, they drop their device and it can be retrieved by infantry of either side (using an action to pick it up).

The ACC mission is to get both pieces of evidence off their table edge. If they extract one device the game is a draw. If they retrieve neither of the genuine objectives, then Lone Star/BlitzKreig win.

Early on, a Che Guevara MBT takes up a commanding position atop a building.

Lone Star detect an engineer (directly below the satellite dish). They kill the civilian and take his evidence. The Goblin walker sets up in the building to defend their retreat.

Lone Star as they enter the building.

GoR powered armour cross the street to enter the building and take the data back from Lone Star. They are shot down by the Goblin but recover due to nano-tech. Ultimately they change course away from the camera to defend another fleeing engineer who appears between the crashed ship and the large gas cylinder.

Slain powered armour can be seen below the dish. The engineer they go to defend is killed by cylinder 7 but they pick up the evidence and escape through the C-shaped building to the left. Lone Star had taken the other data as far as the distant block by the green truck. They were taken out by a lucky missile strike, leaving the damaged grav APC (far left) to go and retrieve the device.

The third engineer escaped down the left flank (wrecked brick buildings) fairly unmolested.

 I was worried that I would only retrieve two of the devices and, should one of those be the dummy, the game would end in a draw. There was plenty of other action not covered above. BlitzKreig AG committed to my right flank which I managed to counter by moving the engineer around the tall cylinders. This commitment to the wrong area also left one of my Che Guevara tanks unchallenged. In turn, that allowed the lucky shot that stopped Lone Star from escaping with evidence that I had all but given up on.

If you are thinking of using the scenario, something to be aware of is how easy it is to kill the engineers. Luckily, this is offset by the dense terrain providing them opportunities to hide and the ability for troops to pick up the evidence. I'm not sure the scenario would work as well in a ugo-igo system - the attackers might kill all the engineers in one turn. With alternating activations or similar, it is difficult to commit units to a headlong search as they will require support.