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!

Game this week - Robotech

This week we will playing Robotech. The game will be a trial-run for the scenario we are hosting at Prairiecon in Brandon this Saturday. And at the risk of making Brian H's head explode, I'll be adapting the Lord of the Rings rules engine for the game!

We often joke about how we use Lord of the Rings to play everything. And I don't even know if we're kidding that much when we say that - we use it for Zombies, Sudan, Star Wars space combat, as well as actual Lord of the Rings games. It's a very, very versatile and simple rules set, an example of how GW rules that are not 40k are actually very good.

In the past we have played Robotech using an adaptation of "Mobile Soldier in Action", a set of free rules on the web intended for battles set in "Mobile Suit Gundam".

I like the MSIA rules a lot, but they get a bit slow with more than a few models per side. One dynamic of any Robotech/Macross encounter is that the aliens are sure to outnumber the human side - by a lot! MSIA struggles to flow in that kind of set up. Another key dynamic of Robotech/Macross is that the alien mecha, while really big and scary-looking, is actually made by some universal-lowest-price-reduced-quality-contractor, meaning they bring a quality-of-quantity type approach to a battle, and individual battle pods get mowed down like chaff by the heroes. Looks great on screen, but using the MSIA approach of worrying about whether some expendable battle pod has lost a leg or has damaged sensors etc. is not useful. The UN Spacy guys should be able to gun em' down, or hose them off with missiles, while the aliens rely on inexhaustible numbers and a few characters to try and carry the day.

I am hoping that LOTR engine can handle this a little better. There will be challenges for sure - LOTR is great for settings where close assault/hand-to-hand combat occurs. Can't say that is a regular feature of Macross, unless you count Roy Fokker's battloid putting its gun right against the sensor of a battle pod before emptying the clip as a "close assault". What kind of close attack is a giant, ostrich-legged pod going to make anyway, other than to stomp on civilians? The SDF-1 does "punch" the odd alien ship, but that is still a shooting attack of sorts too. Macross is just not a hand-to-hand combat genre.

If you are interested in scenario details, here is the blurb from Prairiecon:

Scenario: Bye Bye Mars

The SDF-1 has landed at an abandoned research base on Mars to recover supplies, only to be ambushed by Zentreadi battle pods. Can the RDF defenders hold the line while the SDF-1 prepares to escape, or will the Zentreadi overrun the thin line of Destroids and Veritechs to capture the SDF-1 while it is trapped on the surface?

See you this week! And go Blackhawks!