Starship Troopers Campaign Round 4 - Hold the line.

Last Sunday saw the forth outing in the Wyvern Wargamers Starship Troopers Campaign the beauty of this type of game is that it can be boxed away and reappear based on the players available and new players can be dropped in as they appear at the club such as this week with the appearance of Henriks Heroes.

Scenario.

Not long after military forces from Earth think they've defeated an alien Bug infestation on Pluto, the insects return and threaten our  scientific outposts. Mobile Infantry forces are sent back to Pluto for  what is believed to be a little mop-up mission. Henrik's Heroes, Baldwins B*stards and Wyvern Warriors soon discover that this is not just a simple "hit and run" mission ... but the first battle of what's to become the First Interstellar War.

Sunday nights objective - Protect the O2 Purification plant or worse case extract the technical crew if the bug activity is to hot.

Northing but dirt and rock as far as the eye can see at the far end of the table the O2 plant can been seen, sensors are on but nothing appears to be moving out there.

 

 The O2 plant, Henrik's Heroes are given the honour of defending the plant, with a healthy 500 points to spend, he must await the rescue part of Baldwin's B*stards and the Wyvern Warriors.

Techies run for cover as the alarm sounds - "Bugs....."

Baldwins B*stards the most numerous of units, two squads of Mobile Infantry and a newly acquired CHAS with it's two chain guns.

 HH have chosen wisely with two Mobile Infantry squads and a couple of armoured pill boxes to keep the Bugs at bay, things get stickly straight away as a big hole opens up a few meters from the defence line.

The mobile Infantry dig in and pour fire into the advancing bugs but dispite taking casualties the bugs close with the infantry and half a squad are ripped apart as their comrades in the pill box look on in horror..... Welcome to the Bug Wars HH.

 Meanwhile as the relief column march towards the O2 Plant, flyers zip in heading straight for the Wyverns a squad of fresh recruits.

 Back at the O2 plant things are getting rather sticky, hordes of bugs are crest the high ground and head straight for the defenders, Cliff mites crawl from the rock faces and scammper for the defenders who are left with no option but to fire at everything with more than two legs.

The column is making slow progress, with a number of fresh recruits carried off, but help is coming in the shape of the CHAS who has reached the high ground.

 

The Bugs close in for the kill but a string of poor command rolls and concentrated fire leaves them so close to their human prey, no telling blow.

Finally they reach the Mobile Infantry lines but struggle to breach the pill box and it's armoured shell, as razor sharp claws puncher the roof, the infantry continue to fire, chopping down a number of bugs and slowing their advance.

 Back at the column a horde of bugs pour of the ridge line, but BB is awaiting supporting by the CHAS unit, who takes chunks out of the charging bugs wiping out whole units in a single round.

 

A view from on high, WW fight for their lives against the fliers, whilst the Infantry and CHAS Units beat off wave after wave of bugs.

 

To little to late, the bugs send in a Tanker to strike the final blow, but with the clock ticking down the game draws to a close with a victory for mankind.

The toll on the defenders had been high with several killed and wounded, but Henrik's Heroes held the O2 plant. The Wyverns had been mauled but had beaten off the Fliers, meanwhile Baldwin's B*stards had once again come out on top, not losing a single man and destroying numerous bug units.... With a little help from CHAS and Dave his handler :-)

 

They will certainly take some catching on the leader board.

 

Another fun outing, the Swatter Rules worked really well with mulitple players and everyone was kept active, the bugs were lethal if they got in but were vunerable to the mass fire of the CHAS unit.

 

Tune in next time as the settlement of New Disney stands in the way of the Bug horde, will Victory once again come to the Mobile Infantry. 

Starship Troopers - Swatter Rules first outing.

A few months back a picked up a set of the Swatter Rules, but never quite found the time to give them a run out.

I like the mechanisms for the the Songs of Blades rules and  Swatter is no different. Each unit has a Quality Rating and a Combat Rating with fire fights and Hand to Hand conducted on an opposed D6 dice roll.

Swatter is slightly different moving figures on CD's in effect squad fire, with the added mix of a pool of command dice which each side can draw upon to add to to your combat or shooting results or to generate reinforcements if you are the bugs..

So time to give them a proper run out, before next weeks club game.

A simple scenario the Human forces must cross the table with the majority of their forces intact to win the game, the bugs must stop them.

A short walk in the desert what could go wrong?

After a couple of moves both of us got a grasp of the rules finer details, the Marines going on over watch mindful of the advancing bugs and various bug holes.

Sweeping right the Recon section run into Two bug units. Stopping to read the rules in detail as the first round of fire made no impact, the second attempt when you have the bug numbers and concentrated fire cuts the bugs down before they can close.

You need to be massed if you are bugs so I unleash the Tanker which clustering my remaining forces, trying to tempt the troopers to make a false move.

At the foot of a small rise the marines wait each side looking for the other to fail a quality test.

The Marines crest the hill and pour fire into the bugs below.

He's a big bugger - but nothing that several hundred rounds from the Moria Assault Rifle can't fix.

With the tanker down, the victorious humans clear the table, having lost 3 of their number to over 50 bugs. Touch and go in parts but concentrated fire control wins the day.

Plenty to learn for next weeks game.

The movement by CD is not needed so I am thinking of switching to a short stick for command range. Thus allowing the humans to cluster more figures together if required. but also allowing individuals to fire into bug groups, but risking the loss of initiative.

The cost of the bugs needs to be reduced and perhaps allowing them to move in larger herds instead of groups of 5 as the initiative rolls on a 3 makes it hard to keep a significant number moving.

All in all a satisfying first outing and nice to get the toys back on the table.

Swatter rules review - Starship Troopers

Hot on the heels of the Songs of Blades and Heroes outing at Hammerhead thoughts turn to some of the other projects which have been hibernation for a while.

I have been on the look out for a CHAS proxy for some time the original model from the Starship Trooper game looked a little too futuristic for my tastes.

I came across the Firestorm Heavy mech from Albinoraven in the US.
http://www.albinoravenmini.com/
Now that's more like it..... Now just for the postie to deliver.
   

In the past I have used the Two Hour Wargames rules for the club campaign games, but in larger multiplayer games some of the mechanisms creak a little, I came across the swatter rules on the Ganesha Games site designed for bug hunting.

I missed these these the first time around, as a fan of the SBH rule mechanism I figured I would give them a try for the Starship Troopers Project and at a mere $8 a steal.

A ‘standard game’ contains between 20-50 figures a side, in fire teams of 2-5 figures based on CD's for movement purposes, I don't plan on adopting this element of the rules but to use a command radius forcing all to remain within "medium" of one another which should work just as well.

 

The basic rules are similar to all SBH games.

You pick a unit choose to roll one to three dice to activate and each pass gives you an Action. If you roll two fails, then your turn ends. Easy to follow, difficult to master.

 

Each unit has a Quality Rating and a Combat Rating. Combat is an opposed D6 dice roll where you add your Combat Rating rating plus modifiers (Weapon range, Support weapons, etc.). The difference between results proves you with the damage to your unit.

A nice feature of these rules is a dice pool which is issued to the opposing forces at the start of the game. You can dip into the pool of dice at any time during the game to add to your combat or shooting results or to generate reinforcements if you are the bugs..

Be careful because once the dice are gone, they are gone. 

The rules contain a section detailing the points needed to build various units so I should be able to convert the current points to allocations to the Swatter rules.

Time to go bug hunting real soon.