Star Wars Campaign Game 23 – Kashyyk Endgame

Wookies on a balloon!

Scenario

During the previous ground action, the Imperials managed to keep the shield generator in action long enough to allow the cloning materials to be evacuated out-system. 

Shin Hati occupies a Command Post, coordinating the retreat of the last Imperial Remnants off planet. Wookies lead the Rebel Assault on Shin's position. How long can she hold out?

Set Up

The table is 3’ x 3’, on Kashyyk. The Imperials set up first, with Shin and at least the Scout Sniper inside the Command Post, and the rest within the semi-circle marked off the western table edge. The Rebels set up second, within 6” of the eastern table edge. The Wookie balloon is at Low Altitude.

Special Rules

Reinforcements:

·       Baylan Skoll starts in reserve. Starting at the beginning of the 2^nd turn, the Imperial side rolls a D6; on a 4+ he comes on at the centre of then western table edge.

·       If Baylan does not appear, add 1 to the die roll each subsequent turn. At the beginning of Turn 5, if not already in play, Baylan automatically appears.

Capture:

·       Instead of rolling To Wound an opponent in Close Combat, you may Capture instead. 

Victory Conditions 

The Imperials receive 1 Renown point for every full turn they occupy the Command Post.

                  Baylan Skoll receives 5 Renown points for rescuing Shin Hati.

The Rebel Alliance receives 1 Renown point for every Imperial Stormtrooper or Scout Trooper OOA.

Rebels gain 3 Renown points for capturing the mercenary Shin Hati.

Ending the Game

The game ends when Shin Hati exits the western table edge, or at any rate by the end of Turn 6

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Last Thursday we played the latest game of the ongoing Star Wars Galactic Rebellion Campaign, using Wiley Games' Galactic Heroes 2nd Ed. I confess that I have been lax updating the blog regarding these campaign games. I plan to "fill in the gaps" for those earlier games over the next few weeks.

The Rebels had two squads of Wookies (one riding in a hot air balloon controlled by an astromech droid), a squad of Veteran Troopers (including a flamethrower), a captured AT-PT walker, and leadership provided by Sabine Wren and Ahsoka Tano.

The Imperials were represented by a wounded Shin Hati leading a squad of Scout Troopers, a squad of Stormtroopers with a rocket launcher, with mercenary Force user Baylan Skoll in reserve, coming on to try and rescue his apprentice.

The Command Post was coordinating the final evacuation of Imperial forces off of Kashyyk, the Wookie homeworld. Below, some views of the table looking towards the west.

As seen in the scenario description above, the scenario was asymmetric, with differing goals for the two sides. The Rebels realized early on that though one of their goals was to capture Shin, if she was put Out of Action those Renown Points would be denied the Imperials. Conversely, the Imperials had a bit of a dilemma: they could try to exfiltrate the wounded Shin early, but she provided protection and stiffening for the defence of the Command Post.

Rebel setup, north to south: Wookies and Sabine in a balloon, more Wookies, Veterans, Ahsoka, and the walker. 

The Imperials had Shin and a Scout Sniper in the CP, with the remainder of the troopers set up behind scatter terrain.

The game started fast and furious. There was a general advance by the Rebels across their entire line. The Sniper, who reigned supreme in the previous ground action, managed to go Out of Ammo with his first action. A missile hit the Wookies in the balloon, putting OOA or wounding a couple. For his trouble, the Imperial missile went OOA after taking fire from the survivors in the balloon.  The walker ran deep, into the southwest corner, setting up future action. Sabine jump packed onto a large tree in the northwest, threading the Imperial northern flank. With only two models inside the CP, a couple of Scouts ran toward it, to help ensure the CP remained in action. 

For his trouble, the Imperial missile went OOA after taking fire from the survivors in the balloon.  Sabine leaped down amongst the Imperials, into close combat, putting an Imperial Stormtrooper Officer OOA. Baylan rolled well and came on from reserve, jumping and running into close combat with Sabine. Baylan, armed with a Deadly lightsaber, rolled a natural "10"; Sabine in turn only rolled a "9", resulting in Sabine going OOA, thrown down into the forest floor. Baylan then put up a Shield. The Walker started its southern flank attack by flaming a couple of Stormtroopers. The Wookies on the ground started to hit the Imperial line, putting another Scout OOA. A Rebel with a Flamer managed to get a stream of fire into the CP, Wounding our putting OOA some of the Scouts inside, and Shocking Shin, who in turn Pushed the Rebel away from cover. 

Next Turn, the Walker finished off a couple of Stormtroopers, stomping them into the ground. Shin Jumped out of the Command post and ran to the relative safety of a large tree. Baylan moved in front of Shin to cover his apprentice, daring anyone to attack him. A surviving Stormtrooper also moved, to cover the north side of the same large tree. Another Wookie was shot out from the balloon's basket. Concentrated Rebel fire left only one Scout Trooper on their feet inside the CP, enough to score another Renown point. Meanwhile, due to horrible Jump rolls, Ahsoka managed to make it to mid-table.

In the fourth turn, a Wookie managed to close with and put OOA the last Stormtrooper. The Imperials then drew the next highest card and Shin made her way off the western table edge, ending the game.

The Imperials scored 3 Renown for holding the Command Post for 3 full Turns, and an additional 5 Renown for Shin's rescue, for a total of 8 Renown. The Rebels scored 8 Renown for putting OOA 8 Imperial Troopers. It was a tie!

This was a very close, tense game, whose outcome was far from certain until the last played card. With neither side having an advantage, the stage is set for the Fourth Season Finale Episode.

Thanks again to Elliot, Michal, Hugh, Dallas, and Rob for joining me for fellowship, beer, and Twinkies.

Rings Around the Moon - Battle Report

In a development that may be unprecedented in modern times, we had consecutive Thursday games. Conscript Dave V. ran an excellent Star Wars game last week and this past Thursday, I hosted the first game with my new 15mm lunar combat forces. 

My first quandary when setting up the game was what rules to use. I had originally thought about Bolt Action, and found an article with some thoughts and mods for fighting battles on the Moon. But the forces I could field are kind of small for a Bolt Action game - only 24 infantry and one vehicle per side. So something a bit more granular and individual-model (rather than unit) based would be better.

Enter the Conscripts' perennial favourite, the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game from good ol' GW. It's a pretty basic skirmish ruleset but everybody understand how it works and it's very amenable to period- and genre-specific modifications. We've used LotR for everything from Dark Ages skirmishes, to World War I, to zombies and modern/Cold War combat. It really does it all.

So I did a bit of work on rules mods, inspired by David Burden's article. The main point to address was the low-gravity environment - easier to move fast, but this carries the potential for faceplants and wipeouts which can be hazardous given the regolith and lack of atmosphere. I addressed this by allowing models that didn't shoot to move a random distance in the Shoot phase, but with a chance of falling down or even puncturing their own suit and going out of action. David made an excellent point that smoke and dust, once raised, will not drift away or dissipate easily, so hits from the rocket launchers create permanent LOS-blocking smoke. Shooting and HTH are deadlier with no atmo so wounding rolls are at +1, which made combat very deadly and cover essential. I also had to create rules for the vehicles. 

I also came up with a new stat - Training (T). Courage is great in the LotR ruleset but there needs to be a stat that reflects a model's general proficiency, so T it is. Also as you can see I've called the rules "Moongrunt" for now (with apologies to Jon Tuffley of GZG) but I think I'd better come up with something original. Suggestions in the comments please, right now I'm leaning towards "World War Moon" or "Moonfront".

Anyway with that work done and the record sheets printed, I was ready to lay out the terrain and set up a scenario. The structures are from Brigade (I just did a post about them), craters are 3D prints from various places, and the very nice new mat is mousepad material from Deep Cut Studio. Somewhat confusingly, it's called the "Asteroid v2." "Ya got Asteroids?" "No, but my dad does. Cain't even sit on the toilet some days."

Like I said, we had 24 models a side and one transport. The Chinese had more special weapons and a fast sled, while NASA had fewer special weapons and a buggy, but both sides had three squads of seven men and a command section with the lieutenant and two assistants. It worked great to have seven-man squads because the transports accommodate seven men and a driver/pilot.

I set up a pretty standard three objectives game, with the winner being the side that held the most. To hold an objective you had to have an infantry model within 1" of it with no enemy infantry around. The objectives were spread evenly across the middle of the table - I was scrambling to find suitable objective models (ended up using some the standard crates and barrels) until Conscript John noted that the fuel waste containers on my Dinky Toys Space:1999 Eagle Freighter on my coffee table would make perfect objectives. So we made that happen, you'll see them in some of the photos.

 

Both sides sent a squad to each objective. NASA sent their buggy to their left and the Chinese rocket sled went to the middle one.

The Chinese (Conscripts Brian and Rob) got a bit out in front and were hot-rolling in their shooting, which was a bit demoralizing for NASA Conscripts Hugh and Frederick.

But NASA started to get their own back and the game really see-sawed back and forth.

Then PLA Space Force Lieutenant Chung jumped in a crater with his two assistants and drew a lot of fire, finally being killed after using his Fate, Will, and making a LOT of cover saving throws. As Brian noted, he will be awarded the Moon Medal for his part.

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Although the squad it was carrying was wiped out the rocket sled still made a nuisance of itself. Note the lone NASA astronaut holding the objective.

 

Over on the NASA left the last taikonaut was killed, leaving the objective to the Americans. The Chinese had killed the driver of the NASA buggy after it tried to run them over!

On the Chinese left flank the taikonauts had control of the radioactive waste barrels (!)

And that was how the game ended, NASA holding two objectives and the Chinese, one. Both sides had lost over half of their number as the game neared its end, with a couple of taikonauts failing their Courage checks and fleeing the table. That wasn't great for the Chinese as these were the soldiers giving support with rocket launchers, but that's what happens when you stay close to your own table edge. 

Although there was plenty of running in the Shooting phase there weren't a lot of accidents or faceplants, and nobody died, which is good I guess, but next time maybe we'll reduce the Training scores to make that stuff a little riskier. Of course Training represents how skilled a soldier is in moving around in a spacesuit, in low-G. So dodging a buggy trying to run you over should be hard. As you can see from the sheets, there was also +1 to the wounding dice for shooting and close combat, but I think that can be eliminated as it wasn't really necessary to the game. I also need to expand the vehicle rules a little bit - can passengers shoot from a sled or buggy? (I said no). What happens when a buggy tries to run over a taikonaut? (Taikonaut makes a Training check and if passed, jumps out of the way. If failed, takes a hit of some kind - everybody passed their checks so no need to figure that out this time). I gave the transports three wounds, but I also want shooting to have a chance to "one-shot" them. In this game I ruled that each wound has a 1-in-6 cumulative chance to destroy the vehicle, but I might also have the AP rocket cause d3 wounds, that would also work. I really like the "persistent smoke" rule for rocket hits too.

Anyway we had a pretty fun game with the new toys and I think it looked pretty cool too. Jon Tuffley of GZG says that crew-served heavy weapons are coming in the next while and I can't wait. In the meantime maybe I should get some more astro/taikonauts and buggies/sleds. But that's for future Dallas to worry about!

"Seven Days to the River Rhine" Cold War Battle Report!

                                         

On the occasion of a recent visit by Conscript Greg I hosted a game of Seven Days to the River Rhine, a Cold War game that Greg has taken a shine to (our usual go-to rules for the period is Team Yankee and I was curious to see how these compare). And when I say "I hosted" that's what I mean - Greg supplied the scenario, ran the rules, and brought his lovely Canadian and Soviet forces here all the way from Toronto!

We set up a table located "somewhere in West Germany"... there's a secondary highway and railway lie running across it and a Shell service station (at top) and an Aldi convenience store (at bottom) along with several abandoned cars and trucks. We had to include the big electrical pylons too of course! Anyway the Soviets entered from the short table edge at right and had to push through and off the opposite short edge. The Canadians deployed within 12" of that short edge and had to stop the Soviets. Easy-peasy!

 

Conscripts Bill, Frederick, and I played on the Canadian side. We had four Leopard C1s, five M113s filled with infantrymen, two M113 TOWs and two Lynx recce vehicles. We split these assets pretty evenly across our zone, taking care not to occupy the open ground along the highway, as we were warned by Greg that vehicle weapon ranges are unlimited and "if you can see it, you can kill it." Duly noted!

The Soviets had a platoon of T-80s, a bunch of BMP-2s full of infantry, and a BRDM recce vehicle. They lined up across from us ready to come at the Canucks.

Here is the Canadian left flank.

                                        

And here's the right side.

                                        

Soviet deployment across their start line.

The Soviets moved some of their BMPs and their BRDM up the middle with the tanks coming up their left flank. You can see some of their vehicles on the road.

 

The T-80s hooked around beside the Aldi... you can see a flaming Leopard in the Shell parking lot... this is the result of an aggressive move by yours truly... I pushed one of the tanks up to put some pressure on the Soviet right and knocked out a light vehicle or two, but I wasn't mindful enough of the "dismounts"... one of whom knocked out the tank with an RPG :-(

While the T-80s seemed fairly impervious to our 105mm guns and TOWs, the Tornado airstrike did the trick!

Here's Bill surveying the scene. While the Soviets made a late push with the T-80s and the Canadians lost a couple M113s, a Lynx, and one or two Leopards (can't recall), as Greg predicted it came down to army break points. In SDttRR each model taken out contributes to army morale loss, basically the owning player rolls a die and the result is subtracted from your army morale . If your army morale total gores below 40, your force bugs out and you lose the game. On (what turned out to be) the last turn, we had some order tokens left and I decided to unload everyone within LOS on a Soviet infantry squad cowering in the Aldi parking lot. We ended up destroying the squad, which was the only loss on either side that turn. The Soviets rolled for the morale loss and it came up big, taking their army morale below 40 and losing them the game. We were lucky we hadn't lost anything that turn as our army morale was only at 42! It is entirely possible for both sides to lose, of course...!  

Here's the gang of combatants, L to R me (and Keke), Dave V., Bill, Mike F., Hugh, Greg and Frederick. A great time was had by all, both in the game and in generally catching up. My thanks to Greg for running the game and supplying the models, it all looked very good indeed and the game was great fun!