Drone shot used in pre-mission briefing. |
Rules: Gruntz
House Rules: All weapon ranges doubled.
Chain of Command patrol phase used.
Table size: 6x6
Scenario: The UNSC peacekeepers had pulled out of one of their bases when the fighting had gotten hot. Intel reported that, in their haste, they had left several containers behind, one of which contained some critical intelligence. The eight containers arranged along the parade deck were the reported location of the materials. The mission is to locate, load and extract the intelligence crystals.
In order to search a container each player has to have a model in contact with it for one round. That model can perform no other actions and has to pass a skill check.
Parade deck with the shipping containers. |
View from the enemy side of the table. |
The uncompleted UNSC fortifications. |
Scout team and sniper team take up position in a barracks. |
The other two teams move into the guard tower. |
Khanate scouts move forward. The red barrels are jump off points for infantry. |
The Khanate tank takes position on the ridge line. Battle suit moving forward in the center. Marker light on the scout car to the left. |
An infantry squad moves around the left flank and takes position in some rocks. |
Al-Tharki and the 1st Squad. The grunts go on overwatch while the Lt prepares to search the containers. |
The situation begins to develop on the right. Standoff in the center. |
Khanate plasma team getting gunned down. |
The fight in the center gets serious. |
The 2nd Squad pinned the dog infantry when they hit them in the open, then sent the survivors loping for the rear. The scouts and snipers in the barracks were killed but the infantry stood strong. They even smoked a couple of missiles into the tank, though it just shrugged off their small warheads.
One of the two Khanate dropships, loaded with infantry, zoomed in to drop them behind the 2nd Squad. The infantry and APC poured everything they had into it, bringing it down between the APC and the tank.
The dropship trying to stop Al-Tharki's APC. It died in that position, on the hill. |
Back in the center the second Khanate dropship moved to the rear to kill the 1st Squad's APC. It too, was brought down, after scouring armor off of the front of the APC.
The tank, moving into position to smoke 1st Squad's APC. The Sahadeen just didn't have an answer to this monster. |
Al-Tharki got the data crystals loaded into the back of his APC and was checking the container for anything he'd missed. He heard a shrieking like the dead rising. Looking out he could see that the tank had moved into a position where it could hit his APC. The first round had torn the door off of the side and left the vehicle a tilted wreck. As the driver revved the engine to get out of there, a second round hit, destroying the APC and all of the crystals with it.
The Khan had obviously decided that if he couldn't have the crystals, neither would the Sahadeen. With that, a pause fell over the battlefield and both sides withdrew.
This was a great game. The larger table size gives the commanders room to maneuver. you can go for a flank or push into the back field. There's room to retreat and still be in the game. The Chain of Command patrol phase was fun and it led to some interesting tactical decisions. I used my jump off points to front load my scouts, snipers, one AC team and one infantry squad. The scouts and snipers then used their infiltrate move, a free 18" move forward after deployment, to get deep onto the table.
The Traveller deployed a bunch of his infantry at his jump offs and it did not pay off. Infantry in the open is meat on the table in this game. This is why we need smoke. It's the only chance you have to move infantry forward without an APC. This table had quite a bit of cover but not enough for maneuver. There's no way anyone could have gotten across that parade deck without smoke.
As before, doubling the weapons ranges really worked well. In a pure infantry fight the book ranges would be fine but with vehicles involved the double range is a must.
The tank totally dominated everything it could see. As it should. The APCs could survive one hit, but not two. It shrugged off infantry missiles, a plasma blast from a light mech and gatling fire from the drop ship. It killed the scout car with one shot, very cinematic. I'll have to get one of my tanks on the table for the next game. I'm also considering my options for tank destroyers. Both of us felt the pain of our dropships being slick troop carriers rather than gunships. I'll be modifying at least one of the Falcons into a gunship. I'll also have to pick up the gunship version of the Sabre from Rebel.
EDIT - I was asked to post the army lists as well.
Caliphate Infiltration Bn.
Khanate Raiding Force
Nice looking game, love this special terrain...
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil. The terrain makes the table, in my opinion.
DeleteVery nice Base Camp. Everything is right place. Trees Planet
ReplyDelete