"The Company Rules": #2 Fauna Encounter

... Or "Get to tha' Dropship"

A trooper team is stranded in bug country, they must fight their way out to a waiting dropship, meanwhile the bugs aint happy!

Trooper team on RHS, dropship LHS.  The mounds are bug-holes.  Bugs arrival is based on dice roll, with location roll for mound of arrival (D6 1-3 bottom R to L, 4-6 top L to R)

 This is going to be a walk in the park!

 Ulp,maybe not.  Worker bugs boil out of a hole nearby

 Blam, Blam, Blam, dead bugs

 Watch out, they're behind you...

 Nah, we aint bothered (troopers trying to advance forwards)

 Hey, they are close, maybe we should stop and shoot

 Zoink! Whirl! Bleep!, one of them got through

 Don't worry we'll get it

The workers gnaw at the leg of a trooper (a single wound in combat)

 Meanwhile,  Warriors (bigger, tougher, more combat-focused) appear in front of the troopers

Its looking a mighty long way to the dropship, especially with more bugs appearing in the way

Help! Troopers opt to to shoot it out, staying put, enabling the Bugs to swarm

 Y-Racks, expand all missiles boys!

 Missiles out (markers by Peter Pig)

 Boom, Crack, Splat!  Some wounds and one dead bug

 Om Nom Nom Nom.  Warriors crunch up a couple of troopers

 Last Stand!  Remaing Troopers opt to shoot it out

 More bugs appear on the horizon

 Shooting not too bad, combat not too bad either

 Last Stand, again!  More Warriors appear, this time right on top of the remaining troopers

 Full Auto, troopers shoot with everything

 To no avail, they are swarmed by warriors

 CHOMP!  Game over man

The tropers started out OK, but I kept them static too long, allowing the bug numbers to build up.  I should have kept them moving, running and gunning instead of trying to be too cute with tactics.

Some not great shots here, I'm using my old camera and between trying to capture in-game shots and not good enough light for no-flash photos the resolution is suffering.

So, on to the next game: Fauna Assault

In which we find out why the bugs fought so hard...  ...a bug nest right around the corner

Revisiting old rules: RFCM's The Company Rules

Ambush!

A scenario from an old set of rules -  the rules which got me back into scifi skirmishing: The Company Rules from RFCM (Peter Pig).  Years ago a friend was clearing out his un-played collection and I thought I'd give these rules a once-over.  It turned out that they got more than a once-over,  I was playing a lot of historicals and my scifi was going nowhere, after reading these rules my scifi turned around and again became my major focus.  These are deceptively simple skirmish rules with a number of great looking scenarios.

So here for your (and my) delight are the scenarios from "The Company Rules"

1. Ambush

Two trooper teams assault a base defended by two security teams.  Troopers win by destroying machinery (nominated in advance).  Defenders have a once-per-game chance of reinforcements, a friendly trooper team.

Attackers deploy from board edge, defenders start in buildings.

 The Attacking Garn Troopers

 Stinking Hoomies at the Security building trying to get a message through - HELP US!

 To heck with that plan, let's have a beer instead...

 Garn waste no time in attacking!

 Wait, maybe not.  The Hoomies put up a pretty stiff resistance

 Ah, Aimed Fire (before movement - so that's the Hoomie's game)

 The other Garn team advance and decide to dish it out, same as the Hoomies (AF+ = Lots of fire!)

 AAARGH!, dead Hoomies

 AAAAARGH, more dead Garn...

 Facing down the remaining Garn

 Uh Oh!  The Stinking Hoomies got their reinforcements, the wussies!

 A Last Stand, facing down a Garn terror team

 Last chance to open up with all they have

 While reinforcements rush in

 The Garn decide to get out of Dodge

 After taking more casualties, that is.

 The Garn reach one of their targets

 The Hoomie reinforcements rush to intervene

 The Security troops decide to follow-up too

 The Garn opt to blaze away while the Hoomies advance to contact

 Zonk! Whirl! Bleep!  Lots of firing, none of it goes well for the Garn who end up with hits

 Grrrrr

 Advance!

 Set demo charges (the yellow drone), and retreat. The Hoomies opt to blaze way in the open

 SPLAT!  Dead Garn

 

Game over, a fun, quick and deadly game.  

The Security troops scored well early, but only really got the edge once they got reinforcements.  If the trooper team had not arrived the Garn would probably have got a couple more objectives and the game would have been closer.  This is one of those scenarios where the attacker really has to hustle to achieve their objective, the defenders initially have the advantage, but once on the move they would have struggled later in the game.  The reinforcement are semi-random (event rolled on a dice), next time I may mix it up with robots or Law Troopers and see what happens.

Anyway, on to the next scenario...