Contracting Trouble - Two Ways

Commonwealth has been invaded by aliens.  Commonwealth Marines rush to rescue a 'Government Agency' team caught in an ambush.  The game is straight up 'Contracting Trouble' using Prawns as alien insurgents and Marines from the AA book.

Inspired by a dodgy movie (Battle: Los Angeles) I thought I'd play Contracting Trouble with alien invaders in rubble 'city'.  The Commonwealth City of Morpeth has been bombed to bits, Spooks to rescue, on with the game...

 Two 'spooks' out 'data gathering' get caught in an ambush

 Alien invaders rush in like flies to honey

 A Marine section is scrambled to rescue the Spooks

 Aliens await

 Charlie team, Contact right, Plasma team

 Contact KO'd

 Delta Team, contact, plasma gunner

 Dead!

 Delta sprints to secure a hotspot

 Sqd leader bounds toward Spooks

 Alien mob rushes Charlie team

 Charlie coolly guns down aliens

 Aliens leaders scramble to respond to the human initiatives

 Charlie team hoses the Aliens, killing them all

 Charlie bounds forward to the Spooks

 Aliens Plasma team rushed forward to counter

 A small hoard of Aliens appear near Delta team

 Delta falls back into cover and lays down effective and accurate fire into the aliens

 Charlie dispatches the Plasma team

 Scores so far, Humans lots:Aliens nil

 Charlie falls back under cover of Delta and Sqd leader

 Its not looking good for the Aliens

 But wait! more aliens appear, they aim at Charlie

 But charlie team beat the interrupt and evade, falling back to the escape line

 Delta finish off stragglers and falls back too

 Game over Man!  The Marines rescue the Spooks (who of course, never existed in the first place...)

A fast and furious game, the insurgents never won an interrupt.  The Marines were a big squad, all that fire power with no effective interrupts was the rapid end of the aliens.

On a side bar, its probably two years or more since these Marines have seen combat, while I do like fielding new figs its fun to pull old figs out and roll some dice every now and then.

A Shanty!

Playing the basic 'Sweep and Clear' mission in a crowded shanty rather than more open terrain of the original scenario.

Mods: the MNU forces have sent a team of 'suit' to replace a fire-team, 4 figs with alien-tech handguns (+1FP), same morale/training/armour as troops though.  I'm using Prawns (GZG's Crusties) as insurgents.

 

All quite(ish) in the shanty

 

Flares pop and the troops surge in (I'm using my old camera so the lighting and pics are not so ideal)

 

Delta fire-team seize a hotspot

 

Charlie fire-team spot a crowd of prawns (they fail interrupt) and gun them down

 

The 'suits' sneak round the back

 

'Suits' spot a hoard of on-coming Prawns 

 

Charlie fire-team prepare to dash forwards

 

Advancing by bounds charlie team decimate the Prawns (another failed interrupt)

 

Prawns on the other side of the shanty hear a one-sided gun-battle.  Fortunately for them Delta team are tied up securing a hotspot

 

Badly needed reinforcements!

 

Delta team attempts to replicate Charlie's success

 

This time the interrupt does not go so well...

 

...for Delta, who lose four men.  Delta passes morale and kills one Prawn in return.  Things are not looking good on this flank

 

On the left flank the 'suits' do more sneaking round the back

 

Meanwhile reinforcements are going terribly for the Prawns.  The insurgent level is high, they are getting troops every turn but so far the last two turns have rolled secured hotspots, bummer.  Back to the action, the 'suits' make up for all the sneaking by ambushing a Prawn unit, killing most and breaking the morale of the remaining and clearing the way for Charlie team to advance

 

On the right Delta goes down in a hail of fire

 

In the center Prawns readjust to block Charlie team

 

Fire! and one member of Delta goes down.  In the return fire Delta manages to kill both leaders attached to the group.  Mmmm, time for a change of plan

 

NOT!  Fortunately reinforcements arrive and roll for the central hotspot.  The shoe is on the other foot, time for the MNU to readjust

 

Run away! Charlie team run for cover (failed interrupt) [and I forgot to move their casualty with then, DOH!]

 

Next turn: Game over! both charlie team and 'suits' get off board.  Time for the victory calculation.

MNU: 3 hotspots, troops off north end= 20 points

Prawns: 4 marines killed, 2 hotspots remain, 2 POWs = 28

Win for the Prawns.  Things went well for MNU early but losing Delta team was a blow they could not recover from, especially as the Prawns gained POWs and with the massing forces across the other hotspots these became unrecoverable.

Ah well, next time MNU are just going to have to bring in bigger guns...

Making wargamers; one at a time

The newest 'miniature' in our house arrived yesterday:

Wishful thinking I know, but I'm hoping that one day I'll have a wargaming club at home!

I'll be back to gaming blogging soon...

Hush, be very quiet, we're hunting miniatures

A quick FYI

The Ambush is v.v. quite right now as playing soldiers is on-hold due to the imminent arrival of a miniature... ...a mini-Me and Mrs.Ambush is due any time now. 

Making opponents one-by-one: No.1 son already likes Daddy's toys,  hopefully No.2 will too (at least until they discover video games).

Sometimes an ambush is just an ambush

On the surface Ryan's world is a peaceful place, lots of healthy outdoorsy-kind of activity.  underneath, however, its a different story (at least it is an a excuse to start a mercenary war...).

The Goverment has hired the Red-Banner Corps to exercise its will, the rebels and their banker-backers have hired Henry's Legion.  The Red-Banner corps is a mid-tech infantry-heavy unit (Hindi's) supported by defense platforms (towed powerguns) and heavy tanks (Zaporoskiye's Sabres), Henry's Legions are a mid-tech mostly mechanized infantry force (Waldheim Dragoons).

What's this, its not Ambush Alley, OK, I've got the tank-bug from re-reading too much Hammer's Slammers over Xmas.  I picked up an early version of the rules and liked them so...   ...read on

Scouts nose forward

 Quickly followed by an infantry company supported by heavy tanks

 View from tank hill, heavy tanks lurk on the reverse slope

 They don't have to wait long

 Infantry wait for the trap to spring

 These are Micropanzer's figs, he painted them too.

 Heavy tanks nose through the underbrush and BOOM! A crushing opening volley destroys both lead tanks

The GEV MICVs surge against the central infantry decimating them with effective fire, destroying a tribarrel platform in the process

 The infantry flub it in return, only knocking out one weapon turret

The support detachment moves up and kills more infantry, while not even scratching the heavy tanks on the hill

 New turn, MICV detachment surges forward and debusses most of its infantry

 Infantry and MICVs kill more TUs

 The heavy tanks respond, knocking out another tank

 Support detachment moves up and concentrates fire on the heavies, achieving one kill

As this is a mercenary war I played it like the books and call a ceasefire.  The Red-banner group is pretty cut-up with only one heavy tank and one weapons platform plus two partial infantry groups.  They cannot mount an effective ambush so they surrender.  A side effect is that they actually destroyed most of the Henry's Legion detachment's armour and prevented them from continuing their patrol, so in a way their mission was a partial success

Henry's Legion call in the Red-Cross and guard the remaining Red-Banner forces

Game over.  A fast, fun set of rules, they are easy to learn and relatively simple.  They readily handled a company a side during solo-play, a big bonus for me as these days its mostly solo play in whatever time I can cram.  I have a couple more forces in prep so watch out for more!

THEY are comming! RUN! - or not...

Sorry folks, pics got deleted off the camera before I could get them on the computer.

A quick summary.  The Garn ran rampant through the base until the remotes arrived, after losing a couple of casualties the Garn retired in good order.  AA really highlights asymettric warfare, if one side gets a strong upper hand it really can roll-up for the other side fast.