A New Hope

Stick a fork in me, I'm done!  This afternoon my oldest boy asked to play soldiers with me.  He set up terrain and made up the scenario...  ...Woot!

The game:  The Droid army has set up two ray shield generators.  The Jedi team has to destroy the generators.   The droids must protect them.

Rules are v.simple fast play, heavily biased to the Jedi.  In all cases a '6' is a success.  Jedi or Sith roll 4d6 to test, droid 1D6.  Move 6" ( a short ruler).  Shoot (droid) =  no of droids in D6, any Jedi can try to 'reflect' hits back, any 6 on D6 test and hits go back to Droids.  Close combat is max 3 Droids per Jedi, most 6 rolled win, Jedi win ties.  End of turn new Droid reinforcements on 2D6, only if dice match (i.e. two 3s) = no of droids.  Sith Lord appears on roll of 6 1st turn, 5 next and so on down to 2.

Now the game (a small one, we played on my desk with toys in the painting queue):

 A nice industrial zone, before the Droid army moved in.  Jedi safe area to the LHS

 Game designer mugging for the camera

 Droids set up shield generators

Obi-Wan moves in to the first generator

 Furious light saber slashing later, damaged but not destroyed

 Blue Girl (designers names, not mine), joins Obi-Wan.  She too damages the generator

 Droids move up

 And shoot at the Jedi, who easily reflect the shots back at the Droids

 Cal-Vin moves in (with his trusty droid side kick 7-8-9)

 Cal-Vin destroys the generators with a slash of his light saber

 More Droids, more shooting, more reflected shots

 Droid reinforcements - 10!

 These are the standard infantry droids

 Cal-Vin dashes forwards into cover, 7-8-9 close behind

 Obi-Wan and Blue Girl attack droids

 SLASH, droids are down

 More appear (some superb reinforcement rolls, but alas no Sith)

 Cal-Vin attacks the droids in the center

 Its a fake to cover 7-8-9's advance on the second genrator

 Droid reinforcements ignore 7-8-9 and rush to battle Jedi

 After mopping up droids the Jedi use the force to leap into cover  (really all of these tactics were Calvin and not me, but to be fair, he loves to watch the Clone Wars...)

 Droids pour forward searching for Jedi

 7-8-9 makes it to the generator

Cal-Vin mops up

 And keeps going

 And going

 7-8-9 manages to cripple the generator

 Droids waste their time shooting at Jedi, who reflect all shots back

 Jedi leap over the droids to attack the generator

 Battle field is strewn with chopped up droids

 Dum Dum Dum, the Sith Lord appears.  7-8-9 is in trouble now

 Obi-Wan and Blue Girl attack the Sith Lord

 Uh OH, Obi-Wan goes down, the Blue Girl chops the Sith in return

 Meanwhile Cal-Vin is laying waste to all droids in his path

 Now we have a crisis.  Calvin gets upset that Ob-Wan is out of the game (is he dead?).  No says I, just hurt, fortunately in the painting pile is a GZG casualty fig who is sitting up, a quick swop and we are OK.  Turns out he didn't like the splat marker for Ob-Wan

 Now back to the action, Cal-Vin is chopping droids

 but takes time out for a jedi force-leap towards the generator

 He and 7-8-9 work to destroy it

 Cal-Vin slashes with his light saber and the generator is down

 Clones appear in reinforcement, droids begin to flee and a Medevac swoops in

 Obi-Wan is Medevac-ed to a medical ship for recovery

Aside from the joy of playing wargames with my boy, this was actually a fun game.  It was cinematically biased towards the Jedi, despite that, Calvin played them in a fun way.  He was bold and really went for the objective, good for him!

I can't wait to see what he wants to play next.

Work Life Balance - fixing it

Work, Life Balance, or what I've not got much of these days... ...hence a wargame, the first in a while.

"Get To Tha Dropship!"

An Imperial deep space monitor on Deathworld Hudson needed repair.  A team of technicians were escorted in by Marines,  they need escorting out for pick-up.

Objective: Marines must escort more than 50% of technicians to the other side of the board for pick-up by Imperial Navy Dropship.

Problem, this is a man-eating plant and  creepy-crawly infested Death-World.

Marines and technicians must cross the infested valley to get to the dropship

Marines surround their delicate charge, 6 technicians

Why won't the the armoured Imperial Navy Dropship get closer for pick-up?

Deathworld creepy-crawlies (Ambuls) and Creeper vines

 

A Catachan Devil, a nasty bug, more Ambuls and Creepers

Whoosh, Marines open up on flora

Burnt to a crisp, but the dice are rolled every separate firing event, if its a 6 then the local denizens are attracted to the firing

Cautious advancing

Marines fan out to protect the techs

A Spiker next to a Man-trap is engaged by Marines

Out in front Marines pour fire on a Spiker, to no effect

Other than managing to wake something up...

Ambuls move towards the noise

Power armour deflects spikes

The Spiker's head moves, fires and

Down goes the flamer-equipped Marine

More Uglies aware

The Catachan devil sniffs out Marines

And moves in close

Shooty time, the Devil soaks up hits, it takes a lot to stop one of these

Uh OH...

The Devil closes in

Elsewhere everything else moves closer

A vicious close assault, the Devil is dealt with, at the cost of two Marines

 A tech strays too close to a Creeper and is snagged

The other techs look on in terror as Ambuls surround the Creeper-snagged Tech.  Techs now have FEAR

 Marines circle their charges while Ambuls close in

 Good Shooting!  One down

 Another down

 Squish, the tech captured by the Creeper expires

 Spikers move slowly in

 Ambuls charge into the mob

 A tough melee

 One Down!

 Ouch!

 Two down, Ambuls lose the melee

 Marines regroup to fire

 And completely miss everything on one flank

 Same on the other - worst round of firing EVER

 See this guy, He's got a heavy Bolter that can't hit anything.  Not one hit all game

 Ambul charges back into melee

 This time Marines go down, they lose and retreat, Techs flee in FEAR (Psych effect not crazy caps)

 Ambul follows up

 Marines have no choice, they must fire into the melee

 Oh Great, now they hit and kill what they aim at.  Pity its the techs (random target roll for hits)

 Heavy Bolter finally beads on a target

 And it takes down the Ambul

 Marines take advantage of a lull in Deathworld reinforcements (no 6's rolled on response to firing) to advance, clearing the way as they go

 Still no 6's, Marines near their objective

 Got to the Dropship.  Marines deliver the traumatized survivors to the dropship

Marines board the ship.

The lull in reinforcements enabled the Marines and techs to escape, but the Marines fail in their objective.  Only two Techs got out, if the Marines hadn't gunned them down themselves, 5 techs could have got out.  Its just as well the Techs are too traumatized with Fear to write the AAR.

Conclusion: Deathworld Hudson, aptly named.  Visit only with extreme prejudiced, and a squad of Marines in escort.

A decent tick in the WLB fun category, and another enjoyable 40K Rogue trader game with some twists and turns in the action.  I forgot how much Marines morphed from their beginnings as OK human troops in decent armour into the uber elites they became.  I also forgot how relatively simple this game was.  Sure it has flaws as a competition game, but as a pick-up game it is fun.

Next 40K game, perhaps some Eldar action?