The Yellow Rose of Messier 67

Last week we used Gruntz for the first time in ages. There were four of us playing an ambitious set of linked games with a central theme. The setting was our own background using our Messier 67 forces.

Each player fought in two games with the winner of each earning a token (marked either R, O, S or E for reasons that will become clear). What follows is not so much an AAR, since I was only properly following my own games, but will follow the linked scenarios and report how it played out.

The Yellow Rose of M67

The overarching plot is the quest for a rare plant. It was described in the notes of a famous deceased botanist who had visited the planet Hillier. It is thought that she planted the flower in an area of the planet (or its moon) with specific environmental conditions. Each location is the setting for a game but only one of the settings contained the real "Yellow Rose".

Motivations

Aslan (Dave): Although they have not been seen on the world since the arrival of the human ark ships, the Aslan claim it is theirs. The plant matches the description of a known specimen from their own history. If they can find the plant and validate it is the same, it will justify their claim.

Anarcho Communist Commonality (Me): Under its environmental protection laws, the rare plant must be retrieved, protected and cultivated.

New Commonwealth (Anthony): The flower looks stunning and will make a fortune!

2nd Confederacy (Ross): The botanist once visited a 2nd Confederacy fringe world whose population was primarily of Texan descent. As well as hinting at the plant having healing properties, she allegedly joked that it looks like a yellow rose.

Slot 1, Game 1 - Aslan v 2nd Confederacy

Jungle

A dense jungle has formed at ground zero of a terraforming pod. Indigenous locals have advised that they have seen a yellow plant along the banks of a river. Due to translation problems, the exact spot has not been described properly but three locations fit the description.

The tribe refused to act as guides in this area of the jungle. When asked why, the answer was difficult to understand. However, in needing to ask about the flower, the offworlders had learned the local words for different colours. The natives were scared of “something pink” in the trees.

Three markers are placed along the river which runs from corner to corner; one in the centre and the others 12” either side.

Forces start within 12” of the other corners and must examine the markers. An action is spent to check for the plant. Only one marker is actually the plant which must then be removed via one of the table edges adjacent to your starting corner.

When passing through area terrain, a skill check is needed to avoid disturbing a pack of Terrorformed. Activation is by card...draw a card for each unit on the table then assign each to any unit. Activate in descending order. When Terrorformed units are in play, they get a card too.

Both forces advance on the river

Dave's Aslan sent drones ahead to disturb the creatures near the 2nd Confederacy. This strategy pinned them down for most of the game. You can see the Aslan crossing the river to two of the possible locations (yellow flowers).

The Aslan found the flower (Token R) at the first location but that didn't stop them pretending they were still looking leaving Ross to stay on mission and leaving his Texans knee deep in pink horror.

Slot 1, Game 2 - Anarcho Communist Commonality v New Commonwealth

Dome

A small colony on the barren moon of Charlie fled when they heard about the Aslan fleet. At the centre of their colony is a biosphere. The plant might be located here.

Retrieve the plant from the dome and take it off your table edge. When infantry are hit and the damage check exactly equals their armour, they must take a skill check (12) as the toxic atmosphere tears at their body and they try to patch their suit.

The target flower was in the dome on the left.

Ant's Commonwealth sped up and started harassing my powered armour. To the left, my Boudicca APC is finding somewhere to drop two fireteams under the cover of the hab units.

That went badly wrong. After the first team deployed, a push move (move, move, shoot) saw one of Ant's units round the corner and kill my men with a well placed rocket! The second team disembarked and I returned the favour.

The APC had an exchange with a couple of Ant's vehicles amid the huts but was ultimately removed. At this point, we only had a few stragglers on each side. Our commanders, pictured here, had a rumble with Ant's leader heading off to the dome. Luckily, the remainder of my powered armour took him out.

The remainder of the commonwealth infantry used the other dome to get safely past my tank. They knew they had no hope of escape, though, so surrendered humiliatingly amongst the cabbages.

My last trooper entered the dome and collected the yellow flower (Token O).

Slot 2, Game 1 - New Commonwealth v Aslan

Farm

The botanist left some plant samples with an old farmer for safekeeping. The farmer has since died and the ownership of the holding has changed. The new owners know nothing of the agreement and likely ploughed the field where the plant was growing.

Some of his animals are behaving strangely...one in particular.

Both human forces must attempt to kill (or use a tranquilliser round) the cow and spend a turn at its body removing the contents of its stomachs. The sample must be removed from the table.

The cow starts near the centre of the table and moves 6” in a random direction each turn. Its herd of 5 other cows surround it (radius 3ish”) and will attack anyone that come within charge range.

Daisy and her bodyguard at the centre of the table.

The Aslan and New Commonwealth forces are both fast so there was a rush to the centre to fight over the cow. At this point, Daisy is still alive but some of her herd are dead.

Ant's forces include missile defence and devices that hinder targeters in close proximity which gave Dave some problems. Daisy's stomachs (Token S) changed hands a couple of times but, in the end, the New Commonwealth won. Not before one of the cows killed a grenadier, though!

Slot 2, Game 2 - Anarcho Communist Commonality v 2nd Confederacy

City

The botanist’s original lab was located somewhere in Dimmock City. The city was destroyed by a WMD and is now deserted. Although the rough area of the lab is known, its exact location is not. The plant is still in the remains of the lab.

At the end of six turns, the location of the lab is randomly determined as being in one of several buildings. Whoever has the nearest unit is the winner.

Deployment: Players assign a number to each unit and list which of the 16 imaginary grid squares each unit is in. Where a player is the sole occupant of a square, that square is locked and belongs to them. Where two players are in a square, they roll a d6 for each unit and keep the highest. The player with the highest dice locks and owns the square. The loser must retreat to one of the surrounding squares that is not yet locked.

Dimmock City ruins.

This Confederacy gunship buzzed round the table for most of the game. Luckily for me, Ross rolled poorly for it throughout and it did nothing! Unluckily for me, The "cube" building below it had two of my fireteams inside. They were caught in crossfire between Ross's men in the two adjacent buildings and a third, closer to the camera (out of shot).

My actions at this brick building were also a disaster. I should have stayed in there and held it but I got greedy and tried to string men out to the crashed dropship to control more ground. To the right was another building housing Ross's bots. I was hoping to spot them and rocket them from my tank. Yet another crossfire with the bots and a unit in the central building wiping the team out.

I had better luck with Commander. He fired in through the windows of a small building (just in front of the green truck), killed the unit inside and held his ground. Although Ross held 6 buildings against my 3 (effectively half the table was uncontested for him!), the lab turned out to be the building my commander was in (Token E).

Resolution

Aslan Dave: Token R
Anarcho Commie Me: Tokens O and E
British Ant: Token S

With that, we went out to the missus' flower bed were I'd sealed the identity of the real Yellow Rose in a box. But it was dark by then so, Ironically given the ACC environmental laws, I probably crushed a load of flowers!

And the winner was my Arnarcho Communists. The Rose was token O and had been in the Bio Dome on the rocky moon. Yay!


Summary

Loads more happened than I can remember or write (or you could stand to read). It was an ambitious day but we all agreed it worked well and was fun (or the others are just humouring me!). Four different types of game with a central theme. Gruntz allowed us to put some diverse forces of our own devising on the table.

The missus is back from France tomorrow. I think the garden is still alive thanks to another British summer.


Other pics as requested by MrHarold:

Reverse angle on the domes

Slightly wider shot of the city. Here you can see the building housing Ross's bots (bottom left) and all three buildings surrounding my units and pinning them in the "cube" building.

Better shots of the jungle terrain can be seen here where we played the original version of this scenario in January.

Clash on the Fringe - Game Review

As promised, here is a review of Clash on the Fringe by Nordic Weasel Games. This follows a few read throughs of the pdf and a small game (report HERE).

The product

Clash on the Fringe is a scale agnostic sci fi wargame by Ivan at Nordic Weasel Games. Ivan doesn't like the term “wargame” with regard to CotF as it is designed to be suitable for small clashes between gangs, law enforcers, space pirates and the like as well as the usual military factions common to the hobby.

The writer has stated that the game is an unashamed homage to Rogue Trader and other games of that era but with a modern take on the mechanics.

So, how does that translate into a game?:

The rules

Ivan has gone for simplicity with a heavy dose of common sense. A recurring theme is mitigating the opportunity to metagame. You’ll see what I mean as I go on.

Activations

The turn sequence is based on opposed dice rolls between the players with the winner deciding which of their (remaining) units they would like to activate. Once that unit has done its piece, another opposed roll is made.

There is extra depth to the game here as the roll is modified by the quality of unactivated units: depending on the composition of his force, the player will have tactical decisions about whether or not to activate better troops early on or hold them back and benefit from their initiative. As a result, activation ranges from completely alternating to runs of the same force.

There is a chance that some units will be unable to activate which adds a nice “fog of war” touch as well as suggesting some narrative to be added to the fight. Notably, some units will fail to activate because one player has many unactivated units left when the other player has finished for the turn. This nicely avoids metagaming of the “multiple small unit” style.

Orders

An activated unit is given an order from a selection. The order type will determine whether the unit can shoot, rush into combat, use or receive reactive fire and so on. In our game, we found that sometimes a unit was in a position where the order didn’t matter too much (it wasn't able to shoot or be shot at) so, we just chose one of the orders that has a full movement element to it.

Movement

The amount of movement varies based on a several factors such as the species and “class” of the figure and the type of armour it is wearing. There are a couple of other factors such as cinematic bonuses for heroes and being slowed by heavy weapons and the like. This really does take me back to the days of 1st and 2nd ed 40k, Necromunda and similar games. Frankly, if something is supposed to be fast, then it should have a higher movement score!

There is no unit coherency although it benefits troops to be near to a leader (as he can help them remove pinning or use extra shots etc.). This means that individuals can take cover when under fire instead of being draped artificially across an open kill zone. It’s also liberating as a player as you can imagine a fire team coordinating their advance around a building or keeping apart to avoid fire. I guess there might be issues with similar looking units getting muddled up but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Combat

Shooting is a simple “roll equal to or less than your stat” on a d10 while close combat uses opposed d10 rolls with the winner scoring a ”hit”. As you can imagine, these rolls are modified by cover, targeting systems and all the usual fayre. Although I quite like the bell curve probability associated with 2-dice-roll systems these days, there is an elegance to using “flat” d10s...they are easy to understand. If you need 5 or less to hit, you have a 50 per cent chance of hitting. The modifiers are then just as easy to understand and even “hacking” the ruleset is intuitive if you want to introduce your own bonuses and what not.

More common sense abounds here as you cannot shoot through your own figures. There is no point in taking a daft unit of 30 men to lever yourself 30 attempts to hit. They will just shoot themselves in the back of the head. Such a unit is also realistically inefficient since Ivan has given automatic weapons an area template...attacking a large, bunched up unit would be a turkey shoot. This often plays plays well with the lack of unit coherency mentioned above. If a unit gets trapped in a bottle neck they are easy to take out...didn't Sun Tzu write something about that? Regardless, it’s nice to see in this game.

With a hit scored, you might wound the target (depending on the weapon strength and the armour/durability of the target). If not then you’ll probably pin them with a Heads Down marker. In fact you can sometimes force a heads down even when you miss the target. This makes even unlikely shots worthwhile from a suppression point of view.

Morale

There are two distinctive stats that deal with morale, leadership, courage or whatever you want to call it. Discipline covers the ability to come under fire (avoid suppression) as well as determining the distance of your own battlefield awareness (for reaction shots and the like). Morale is how a unit deals with adversity such as taking casualties. Instead of just turning and blindly running, failure of morale adds Stress to a unit, affecting all of its stats as things get more dire. Eventually, the unit might just be removed.

Vehicles

These are handled using various exceptions and enhancements to the core rules. Again, this is standard stuff such as longer movement, grav vehicles flying over obstacles, increased durability. Stats are given for an assortment of vehicles divided by movement type and size. Notably absent for a Rogue Trader-esque game are jet bikes. Even He-Man used jetbikes back in the 80’s and they should be here!

When vehicles sustain damage, a table is used to determine what happens. Variuos type of damage might occur from losing weapon systems right up to exploding completely.

The Setting

Once you make it make it past the rules and have realised they are simple and sensible, you are rewarded by a huge section detailing different races and “classes”. These fit into Nordic Weasel’s “Unity” setting which has been used in his other science fiction games (though they are familiar tropes so you can represent all kinds of existing settings or make up your own).

The setting premise isn't original but isn't supposed to be: Unity is a galaxy spanning empire of humans and sanctioned aliens. Other aliens have their own agendas and may variously be allies or enemies. This allows a gamut of settings to represented from rebellion on core worlds to the excitement and randomness of exploring the eponymous Fringe worlds. It feels like the Imperium of Rogue Trader is born again but without all the skulls and grim dark.

19 races or human variants are described. Ivan has provided special rules for some but none of these are so outlandish that they mess with the game engine too much. There are also 11 “classes” which many of the races can access. These have suggested stats for the likes of law enforcers, gangs and elite assassins. In many cases, the racial differences are simply modifiers applied to these classes...a veritable cosmos of characters.

There is much more to this section than just racial rules. Here you will find ideas about how the different tropes might be represented, suggestions for what their miniatures might look like and alliance/force organisation proposals. This has been really well thought out and is a valuable asset to the game.

Point System

I’ll admit that I haven’t looked into this part too deeply. Ivan includes more than one disclaimer about points systems (in any game) and how well balanced they can actually be. That said, it looks like a well considered system and will at the very least act as a guide for straight up shoot outs or designing scenarios. As mentioned above, the engine is so easy to understand that astute players should be able to judge where forces seem desperately outmatched.

The bulk of the points system is aimed at the listed classes and races but Ivan’s formula is included so you can build your own.

Scenarios

There’s plenty of fun stuff here. All the basics such as table layouts are included but there are some (big) random tables to prompt scenario ideas. Who is fighting, what for, their environment and some twists to include (wandering monsters, dangerous weather and the like). This is fantastic and fires the imagination. If you are a Rogue Trader fan, think of those scenario tables (Abdul Goldberg and all that) back in the day.

CotF comes with suggestions for different gravity and other physical properties. I think this is missing from most sci fi games. All these worlds to play on but they always end up feeling like Earth. Ivan’s got this covered, albeit briefly. As ever, the system is easy enough to tweak if you want to explore this further.

Other Stuff

• There’s a fairly extensive section for solo players (not something I do but it looks comprehensive).
• Rules for “monsters” and critters on the battlefield.
• Campaign ideas are covered.
• Throughout, there are some flavourful pieces of fiction and fun thematic quotes. I was worried these might be pretentious but they are very well done.

What I didn't like

I guess by now it's obvious that this is a very positive review. It’s hard to find fault with what Nordic Weasel has produced (especially for the price!). So, in the interest of fairness, here’s what I didn't like:

The layout

It’s functional and well structured but it just doesn't look that appealing. I appreciate that this is an indie game but similar products have put more effort in here (such as Victory Decision or Gruntz). I know it shouldn't matter and, once a game is under way, who cares? I do have friends, however, who would be put off buying because of this.

Images

The same issue really. There is no artwork but there are a few photos of miniatures. These are well painted and look good but they are just pictures of miniatures with none of the game’s flavour being dynamically represented. Where there is an attempt to do this, 6mm kit has been used. With sincerely no offence meant to Angel Barracks, at that scale I can’t really tell what is going on. Don’t get me wrong, they are attractive 6mm pieces and scenery but the photos just don’t evoke the spirit of the game. Maybe I’m nitpicking.

Reactive Fire

One of the mechanics allows reactive fire which is great but, in all cases, it only allows a 1 in 10 chance of hitting. I think this is fair for genuine unaimed shooting but seems unreasonable to apply it when someone is effectively on overwatch (a well trained troop on guard should be better than an untrained troop on guard). It’s easy to house rule and, to be fair to Ivan (who always responds to customers), he said he didn't want that level of defensive strategy to be core to this game. I guess it jars with me because other situations are so well represented in the game.

Summary

For $15 (or a tenner in real money), there is a huge amount in this game. If you are looking that old school Rogue Trader feel or just want to put some of your unused sci fi figures down in anger but in more than a small skirmish situation, this is the ideal game.

The system is simple yet deep and often “realistic”. I've got all kinds of ideas flying round my head inspired by this game. My brace of Daleks are now looking for someone to exterminate; The Jury have some wrongs to right (see my earlier post and Adam’s write up below for AARs) and I'm hoping my friend Ian will get his Space Wolves on the table and play them how he wants to (he hates 40k!).

Great work Nordic Weasel Games! I now remember how I got into this hobby in the first place.

After Action Report

Adam's write up of our game is below (my original AAR is HERE). I think he has an eidetic memory as he covered much more than my demented, half-remembered ramblings.

Introduction

We had a first run through of the rule set Clash on the Fringe (CotF). We played in 28mm with roughly twenty figures a side and no vehicles.

The scenario

CotF is intended to be scenario driven (although it can be played head to head with points values). As a group we quite like scenarios any way so this play style was the natural choice. To get the full CotF experience, we decided to use the random tables to roll for force types, terrain and objective. We rolled an anti–robot cult fighting hired guns amidst urban decay over a scientist.  We fleshed this out, deciding that the scientist was working on cutting edge AI, which infringed the law. A local paramilitary vigilante force known as the Jury (Lea’s force) were out to enforce this law terminally.  Anticipating that there might be trouble, the Scientist had called in Nakamura Security Incorporated (Adam’s force) to protect him. The Jury had The Foreman and four squads of regular soldiers with a Gatling gun and a missile launcher.  Nakamura had a Daimyo, two squads of regular soldiers, one of hardened veterans and one cannon toting Mech.

The scientist was holed up somewhere in a complex of four lab buildings in a rundown sector of town and probably cowering under cover. Both sides had to search the buildings; searching required a training role.  The Jury were looking to kill him and Nakamura to escort him to safety. The Jury came in from the west and Nakamura from the east.

Jury set up

The Jury lined up two squads to cover the comparatively open ground of the south aiming to head forward and then sweep into the south and east buildings. The central squad and the Foreman were advancing on the west (and therefore) closest building. The final northerly squad was planning to go wide on the flank to cover them.

Nakamura set up

Nakamura set their mech up to suppress the southern killing field and be a relatively static lynch pin for that wing of the force. The veteran squad were on the centre aiming for their closest building. The two regular squads went north aiming to outflank the jury.

How it went

There were some early long-range exchanges. Very early. CotF has unlimited maximum ranges (at an accuracy penalty) and there was an unexpected fire- corridor from the open south west to the door of the east building. Unexpected at least to the Nakamura veteran squad who lost two men (including the HMG).  The remaining three were pinned down hard (five heads down tokens between them).

The Jury fired their missile launcher at the mech but it pinged off his armour. He responded by striking out with his Gauss cannon at his attacker, punching a hole clean through him (no survival roll was allowed. Well it is an anti tank weapon). With the main anti-armour threat removed the mech could breathe a sigh of relief. Not completely though, as a lucky assault rifle hit could still take him down. Unsurprisingly therefore the mech received a lot of small arms fire from one and a half of the southern Jury squads.

There then followed a flurry of inactivity with two squads on each side failing to activate (basically a tied initiative roll means both sides have to pick a unit to remain inactive for a turn).  The Nakamura Daimyo had the tough choice of whether to effectively freeze active units or render the pinned and hurt veteran unit immobile in the killing corridor. This would have effectively written them off. Instead he elected to regroup them and pull them back. Some luck on their side saw them regain composure and drop back into the shelter of an easterly burnt out car. In hind sight this was probably a key moment with Nakamura centre still holding albeit weakened.

Jury forces advanced purposefully in the centre and to the north. They got three men into the western building and after a very thorough search established that the scientist was hiding elsewhere.  Behind the searchers, the foreman was quite cautious and held back. He had given his attention to activating other units at the cost of his own movement.

There was something of a straight road across the northern face of the complex. Jury and Nakamura units exchanged fire down this straight line.  The Nakamura regulars filed in to the road in a line and enjoyed some early successes taking three Jurors down. Unfortunately to maximise shots on target they had bunched up into a small area.  They paid for this with return fire shredding their unit (Most weapons including assault files have area effects in CotF which I felt really gave the game a modern/sci-fi feel). Ultimately, one Nakamuran was left pinned in the road and one was forced out wide in to a forecourt area. The unit leader who had no ranged weapons (a lovely mono-katana but nothing ranged) took cover behind abandoned agricultural machinery and waited for the flanking reinforcements.

The southern Jurors began to swing round in to the centre to exploit the hole in the Nakamuran line left by the retreating Veteran squad.

However the veterans were now (somewhat) refreshed. Emboldened but still down to three men. They strode out from their cover firing double shots before dropping back in to the car wreckage. (in CotF you can opt to move then fire or fire then move – so you can step out of cover and fire at the end of your turn and then fire and drop back into cover - ideally early in the next turn. This blunted the southern sweep as did the threat of the cannon-toting mech on the south Eastern corner. The veteran leader did pay for their renewed courage getting killed whilst out in the open and one of his fellows bought it amongst the wreckage of the car. The shots came I believe from the Jury’s Gatling gun. However, the Jury advance was not fully blunted as Jurors did enter and search the southern building.  However, the scientist was not hiding there.  

Whilst all this was going on the Daimyo had hoped to swing round on the northern flank supported by the most northerly Nakamura squad but a number of failed to activate rolls had left this squad lagging behind (also unattached heroes are quite quick in CotF). Undeterred the Daimyo advanced on his own behind cover and ended up charging into the flank of the northern most Jury squad (now down to two men) He won the only melee of the game but failed to kill and drove the juror into the open road.

The northern most Nakamura squad (the one who had not kept up with the Daimyo) moved into fairly dominant position behind some upright vats. From here they could cover the forecourt in front of the northern building (which was still unsearched) and even fire into the path down towards the unsearched eastern building.

The End

Due to the late hour, we stopped the game there and went to panel decision. Both teams had effectively lost two squads, (the Jury wings and the Nakamuran centre). The Nakamura force had  dominant position watching the access routes to the two unsearched buildings and the remaining veteran was crouching next to one of these ( the eastern one). Any southern advance by the Jury was also complicated by the presence of the Nakamuran Mech. So the Nakamuran forces controlled access to the two buildings where the scientist could possibly be.

Outcome (by Panel Decision)

A win for Nakamura security Incorporated.

Welcome to the Jungle

A couple of weeks ago we played a small, three-player game of Gruntz. We used the jungle terrain I finished making a week earlier.

Each player could make a force of up to 50 points with no vehicles, jump packs or the like - the aim was get a "traipsing through the jungle" feel. For those unfamiliar with the Gruntz army builders, 50 points equates to maybe a couple of 5-man fire teams or a single powered armour team.

The scenario background was deliberately vague as it fits into a loose, mystery narrative arc I'm using for some of our games. Each player had to place two objectives away from their deployment zones (which were the three corners of a 4 x 4 table). The aim was to collect as many of the objectives as possible and carry them off the respective deployment corners. No alliances were allowed.

My GoR forces are nearest the camera. James' Blitzkreig AG scum troops are opposite. Ant's New Commonwealth Gurkhas are in the left corner (by the empty chair).

Plan showing the six blue objectives. The river can be traversed on foot but halves movement.

 My plan was to send one team left to capture that lower objective as well as denying it to Ant. The other team were to cross the river and take the objectives at the base of the hill and on top of it.

Ant's men have beaten me to the first objective but I take a short cut through the terrain to ambush him. This triggers an opposed skill check....

....against these fellas. Since I fail the check, a pack of "things" appear nearby. Luckily, they are out of charge range.

Although I managed to kill the monsters, doing so tied my chaps up leaving the Gurkhas to escape with one of the mysterious missiles. They looped round this copse and annihilated my men!

From the hill, my second fire team spot the BlitzKreig troops are using bounding overwatch to advance.

With the New Commonwealth already retreating with one objective, my remaining team crossed the river and collected the easy target from the base of the hill. They proceeded to climb the slope, entering terrain again and drawing the attention of another pack of creatures some distance away.

What I should have done is retreated with two objectives and let Ant and James fight it out. What I actually did was press on, deliberately entering terrain and choosing not to test for stealth! With one team gone I suppose I saw the writing on the wall and hoped I'd get lucky and have BlitzKrieg set upon by the pink things.

Omnomnom

It sort of worked. BlitzKrieg were attacked but their overwatch fire was successful and put paid to the creatures. Unfortunately for me, more monsters piled in and finished my force.

Even in hand to claw combat, the Gurkhas make light work of these monsters with their energy-kukris. These beasts had regenerated after my earlier encounter with them.

Battle for the Hill

As the Gurkhas close on the hill, their colleagues (off camera) are ready to leave the table with two objectives. James' BlitzKrieg AG have collected two of their own McGuffins so whoever secures the two missiles I dropped will be the winner.

It looks dicey for James as he is caught between a pack of pinkies and the Gurkhas. His overwatch takes care of the humans and...

...he wins initiative against the beasts, easily finishing them off.

The other Gurkhas leave the area for final scores of:

BlitzKrieg AG: 4
New Commonwealth: 2
Guardians of the Revolution: 0 (and a poor one at that!)

Ultimately, James' choice to keep his fire teams together and use overwatch properly won him the game.

Other stuff:

We used card based activation for the first time. This was great fun for representing the hack through the jungle. Since the creatures were assigned cards too, it made interaction with them that bit more tense.

I should probably have clustered the terrain pieces into larger areas so there was more emphasis on choosing to go round the long way or risk summoning monsters by taking short cuts through the undergrowth.

There was some other stuff too but...well...you know how it is writing these things...

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.