A River Runs Through It

A quick game to refamiliarise myself with the rules for Hammer's Slammers The Crucible

A simple 'meeting' engagement of two equal forces: 2 Med tanks, 2 Light Tanks, 3 APCs (2xTU infantry per) and 1x Command (1TU infantry). 

The objective is to capture a commanding fire position to cover the river.  Once side has terrain obstacles, the other has more ground to cover.
(an aside, I got tired of all the shaky camera shots so I just bought myself a small tripod - I'm trying it out for the first time in this game)

 The Plains

 With the river running through it

 View along the farm track

 Commonwealth (CW) group of two detachments (Brigade Models kit)

 The Free Foreign Legion (FFL) Group of Two detachments (GZG kit)

 CW deploy from the fields, hampered by needing to cross hedges

 While FFL have a lot of ground to cover

 ACVs on patrol

 Ready and...

 Dash forwards

 FFL reach the river, tanks in the lead

 CW has a slower time (failing terrain rolls)

 Tanks lead for the CW

 FFL MICVs on a flank run

 CW charge straight intending to debus infantry as close to the river as possible

 View from the other side

 FFL score hits, immobilizing a CW tank

 In return the CW brew up FFL armour

 And closer

 CW tanks surge forwards, FFL infantry react

 Getting into Buzzbomb range

 Closer...

 CW pound the FFL armour

 Knocking out a MBT

 In return the FFL disable a MICV and kill a TU of infantry

 Meanwhile the FFL infantry unleash a highly effective barrage of buzzbombs, wiping out the light CW tanks

 Mmm, game in the balance

 FFL take a daring leap and go for the CW command vehicle, hoping to decapitate the unit and end their resistance

 The FFL tank ends up staring down the barrel at the immobilized CW tank

 CW MICVs deploy infantry and retreat (almost, the command vehicle fails to clear the hedge)

 FFL MICVs advance to engage

 CW armour falls back to cover the command unit

 FFL infantry advance on the river

 The FFL fare badly, with poor shooting and damage rolls, only knocking out the weapon on the command MICV

 The light FFL tank does nothing, however, all the massed MICV fire first knocks out the CW gun, then disables the tank

 The CW infantry unleash buzzbombs, destroying the FFL tank  (Mmm, perhaps a 'lessons learned' here...)

 Carnage!

 With the loss of their main armour the FFL fall back to regroup

 The CW move up to consolidate their posiiton

FFL infantry move back for pick-up by MICVs

Conclusion, the Commonwealth sneaked a minor win here, just.   Its been a while since I played these rules and TBH, the last time I did it I felt I was making a lot of mistakes.  This time I tried a simpler game and it was a lot of fun.  It was fast, decisive and easily handled a coupe of platoons plus infantry.  I think I'll be playing more of this soon.

On a photographic note, I'm not sure about the tripod.  Its better for low-light, but I think it would be better for close in action rather then these distance shots.  Maybe its the difference between infantry skirmishes and tanks that's throwing me off; I guess the answer is  to practice more.

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.