Robofire! again

I wanted to try Robofire again with the new suppression rules. Besides, Duke Milo needed to try and stop those dirty rebels. We also borrowed the objective rules from the old, original Space Marine epic rules. Each objective has a point value, higher in the middle. Each turn you hold them, you get points. The crashed spaceship and the oasis were worth 5 points. The buildings, 10 each, while the bridge was 15 points.

Crashed ship

I made the forces start in opposite corners. The infantry got to ride in style thanks to the purchase of some APCs (6 inch moves on a 6 x 8 table has left Infantry out of some fights).
Also brought command vehicles. They had Electronic Counter Measures that would help troops around them in defense. I came up with a new system: "Advanced Communications" that allowed the CO to give a re-roll to any troops within a short move of him.

APCs move up under the wing of the Command vehicle

The game itself played great, although with 8 guys alternating single vehicles it slowed down. We need some sort of group move ala Future War Commander. We ended up having to group move the APCs to keep the infantry as a group.

Infantry take the building (a work in progress)

Still to do for 6mm SciFi/Robofire: I need some more urban terrain, which I'll probably build in geomorphic blocks. Also need to flesh out some troops so I have at least 3 of each thing. And tons more infantry...

Battle of Tarsis IX

Sitrep:
Forces of the Pangellaic League have made planetfall on Tarsis IX, fiefdom of Duke Milo, House Morai. The Duke is engaging quickly to prevent a beachhead, while Union warships attempt to cut of League ships from their jump points. 
Tonight we played another round of playtests for Robofire!, a set of SciFi rules by Scott Pyle. Scott was kind enough to listen to our suggestions in the past about the role of infantry and various other rules. Tonight I wanted try some more ideas our group came up with.
As the game turn involves alternating unit activation between players, sometimes the tactics become more "Gamey" and less tactical. We tried a new idea of, for lack of a better word, "suppression". This isn't new. Future War Commander uses it, and what it does is allow a side to temporarily pin down an opponents units long enough to move up his own.

"Suppressed" Tankhunter

As with all Goalsystem games, there is an opposed roll based on the damage inflicted by the attacker, vs the quality of the troops.  If the defender fails to make enough saves the unit is suppressed (we used some handy-dandy smoke markers fro Litko). Remove markers before rolling for initiative.
Worked great. Didn't slow it down. But, what we found was that it wasn't necessary to check units that had already moved. Why bother keeping a unit from activating if it already had?
Then, INSPIRATU!. At the beginning of each turn, sides roll for initiative. What if you got a bonus +1 to your die roll for every suppression on the enemy (or you could do a minus for each you have)? Suddenly, it was worth rolling, even for those already activated units. This, for us, simulated getting that tactical advantage over the other side.
Needs another round of playtests, but I think we're on to something. Also treating infantry units like henchman groups in Goalsystem worked without a hitch, too. Those little buggers are are sneaky and have to be dug out. Just as it should be. But, I need to get some transports. Right now, they're too slow foot slogging it.

Union mega tanks and power infantry move up.

Another house rule. Normally you buy "Tactical Dice" for each unit, a sort of re-roll pool. Instead. We gave each side X number of dice each turn to distribute as they wanted around the field as need arose. You just had to commit them before the roll was made.
Overall, this was the best playtest yet. I've always loved Scott's rules, and this is up there with Super System. I'm thinking of adopting for other periods....

The Tokugawa tank. A favorite of our group. Finding more has become a personal quest.

League Heavy Infantry brings down the Duke's VTOL.

Holiday painting

Here's what I painted over the Thanksgiving break:

Inarr Redhand and his bodyguard, for SAGA.

reverse

Inarr's Hirsir

15mm Bugbears from Splintered Light, a pleasure to paint.

Some troops and tanks for Robofire! or another SciFi rules set

Tanks are Mechwarrior repaints

Finally, Dystopian Wars Prussian flyers.

Weird how I kept getting progressively smaller, huh?

Gaming Weekend Pt II

"I, Dolpheus Thewd, do hereby take pen in hand, to give a right and true account of the battle of Volgen, Unkerlant. Open war has been upon this tiny kingdom for more than a year after the death of their beloved monarch Karl Franz III. Borogravia has gained the upper hand in this conflict and has, over the winter, through shrewd negotiation and  calculated threats amassed a large army from its conquered lands.
After learning of Unkerlant through my contacts at the Geographical Society, I travelled to Greater Germania to find this illusive and barely known kingdom. I was able to "tag along" as they say, with expedition from Cavendaria, sent as allies to Zloebnia, one of Unkerlant many fractious provinces.

Cavendarian troops cross the Blut

A harrowing crossing through the mountains, and terrifying crossing of the river Blut we entered Zlobenia. My Cavendarian compatriots were surprised to find Zlobenia's Duke Sigmund was already on the road with his famed Ducal Horse Grenadiers, sprinting to a battle in the east. Though exhausted, we quickly followed.
I must say, Unkerlantian roads are ay best, awful. There were holes that could have swallowed a man, but we were able to reach the town of Volgen along with two regiments from Franistover, also sent to aid the Duchy of Volborg in it's last stand against Borogravia.

We entered Volgen at dawn, a pious town full of churches beside a dark, deep river. General Wolfe, commander of Volborg's forces ordered our regiment to guard the northern most river crossing. After passing a few "witches" trussed up in their gibbets outside of town we made for our little part of the battlefield.
Across the wide river sat flat country. A large forest dominated the center of the battlefield. Behind it, rolling forward like some great storm front, the forces of Borogravia marched forward. Their great line split at the forest with the Borogravian regular army heading towards us on the left. Our right would see a mass of Borogravian cavalry and allied forces.
The plan, as I understand it, was to hold the river and slaughter the hated Borogravians as they attempted a crossing. But then, we watched in dismay as the entire Volborgian massed cavalry of the left, galloped across the bridge to meet the enemy.

The Borogravian cavalry rode out to meet them, leaving their own infantry behind. There was a great clash! Unkerlant is poor country for horses, and so breeds poor horsemen. What Unkerlantians lack in skill they make up for in sheer bloodthirstyness. It was an ugly affair, costly to both sides, but Volborg eventually got the upper hand, and forced the Borogravian horse back. Volborg attempted to follow up their gains, but the Borogravian infantry was able to deploy and slowly push our cavalry back towards the river.

The Borogravian infantry, including all their guard units, marched steadily toward us. Our forces stood stalwart, ready to defend the river. As the sky grew dark, the Borogravian cannon deployed directly opposite our position. Cannonballs began thumping into the wet ground around us.

I was to find out later, that hardly anything had occurred on our opposite flank. It seems the Borogravian commander on the that flank had trouble motivating the allied troops. A small cavalry skirmish had occurred, but little else.

As night drew near, the battle ended. Borogravian forces withdrew during the night, to find a better crossing point. The Duchy of Volborg was safe, for now".

As is our way, the battlefield was generated randomly. It turned out very benefitial for Volborg, being the home team got to choose which side to hold. Borogravia had a slim chance at victory, which became even slimmer as our deployment was stalled by a combination of bad rolls and a brilliant move by Lead Addict in sending his cav out to meet us. My vaunted Borogravian cavalry was slaughtered, as is norm for me.

Our evening game was Robofire! Scott Pyle had added Overwatch rules for us to try, but no one ended up using it. Sorry, Scott. Two of our generals dropped out during play (my daughter fell asleep, and Lead Addict's son was sick). When enough objectives were conquered we stopped with a tie.

Good time, but we were exhausted. A good exhausted, though.

Thursday Robofire!

Last Thursday was the opening of the new gaming room. Haven't built the new table, so three 6 x 2 folding tables had to do for now.
I also still have most of my horde in boxes so I needed a game I could throw up fast, and everyone who hadn't played before could pick up quickly. So Robofire! fit the bill.
I haven't painted any new troops and I decided to mix it up a bit. I borrowed an idea from AK-47 Republic and added objectives. Each side got 5 markers (0,5,10,15,20). They placed them anywhere on the board, as long as they were 12' from each other or a table edge. Then, they diced for which side they came in. Ooops! Suddenly that 20 point marker you put on your side is going to get snatched by the other side.
I also made it so you had to hold on an objective for 3 turns to claim it. My mech spent a lot of the game just doing that.

This Saxon APC is actively jamming (defensive manuevers), plus a shot of the objective marker on the right.

There was the occasional loss due to long range sniping, but most of damage was done close up. Sometimes very close up. We haven't had the occasion yet to use close combat. A giant mech seems to be especially good at this. Stomp! Stomp! Squish, squish.

A heavy tank killer supports the advance.

Robofire! Wednesday

We gave Robofire another whirl. Scott Pyle has been refining his rules and taken some of our suggestions.

Case in point, infantry. They work much better now. Not so weak.
This time it was a battle of an ancient shrine in the ever changing territories of Cambis Prime. Again, we had relatively equal forces, and had relatively equal losses, we tells me the balance is right. This would be a great game to run at RECRUITS, along with whatever game I use the cave for. Bad news is, I probably can't go again this spring due to soccer tournaments. Oh, well.
I really need to get some air forces to try out the flyer rules.

Robofire! test drive

Having been a Super System fan for a long time, I was excited to find out Scott Pyle was working on some giant robot/mecha rules along the same lines as his Goalsystem rules. With Wednesday game called off because of weather, I called Lead Addict, to come over and try Robofire out.
I was already familiar with Goalsystem mechanics, so that part was easy. I spent about a 1/2 hour doing some quick and dirty stats for the old Mechwarrior figs I ordered (all units involved cost me about $15). I haven't rebased or repainted anything, because I really wanted to try the rules before diving in too crazy in miniatures.
I also didn't bother to try and balance the forces point-wise, I just went on looks as to what systems each miniature should have. Basically, each size unit has a number of Attack dice, and a number of Defense dice. Attacker rolls, adding up his successes. defender rolls and does the same. If the attacker scores more, the defender takes the difference in hits. Simple?
The battle started with my Anti-tank gun taking out, you guessed it, an enemy tank. There was some long range skirmishing to little effect. Defenders get bonuses to their Defense dice and longer ranges, the attacker gets dice at closer ranges. Again, a simple mechanic that gives the player a reason to risk getting in close.

The fight raged back and forth and went really quick, which I liked. This would be an excellent convention game, which is essentially what I have every week with 6-8 players. Eventually I had knocked out most of Leady's tanks, and it was over. Over all, a great game. But, then again, I'm bias for Goalsystem.
Liked: Speed and easy to teach the rules. I think with some more added "fluff" to differentiate all the myriad vehicles available, it would be even more fun.
Disliked: No rules for morale yet, I'm sure Scott is working on it. Biggest beef though, is with the infantry. Horribly slow (yes, I could get transport, but what fun driving around trucks?). Also too vulnerable. Even in today's warfare combined arms is still the core. Tanks are very vulnerable without infantry support. Any militia unit with a rocket launcher could take out a giant robot with a shot to the legs. I could make the infantry "Tough" giving them more than one hit, "Jump" capable, and "Anti-Tank" capable, but then they cost as much as a tank. Also ranges are the the same. Infantry can shoot just as far as the Mega-tank using a particle accelerator.
But, for a work in progress I am impressed. We both decided these rules might be the cure for all those Heavy Gear mechs we have (can you say "hundreds?"). Now there;s a company that put out great figs and turd rules. But, I digress.
I'm definitely buying more, rebasing and repainting to play again, both with "Robofire!" and Future war Commander.

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