An ASQL AAR - Alien Imperials vs Human Colonials

On Sunday my Alien Imperial forces made their debut against a Human Colonial army last Sunday at the club. The Human commander was Alex Self, the author of the Alien Squad Leader rules.

We played a 200pt game with the chosen scenario being Envelopment. As the defender, Alex had two objectives to defend and, as the attacker, I had a second deployment zone, which I decided would be behind the jungle area at the bottom of the first photo.

Alex deployed first, with the bulk of his troops in the two built-up areas which represented the objectives he would be defending. He also had two groups of civilian refugees to escort from the field of battle. He had two defence turrets in the objective areas and these worried me a fair bit.

I decided that I would have to place a threat on my right flank to tie down his tanks while assaulting the lefthand objective with waves of tribal auxiliaries, supported by droids from my flanking deployment area. The bulk of my alien infantry, supported by heavy weapons were on the right;

and I had two lines of Tribals on the left. The Beasts would be able to advance rapidly. so long as the commander and sub-commander on this flank could motivate them to advance. The second alien wave also had some Shooters.

Before long, the scary Beasts started to close in on the objective.

The droids began to deploy behind the cover of the jungle as the Beasts prepared to assault the gallant Human defenders.

This combat would go on for a number of rounds and prove to be decisive.

The Tribals and Beasts took casualties, but they also caused a lot of damage, gradually whittling down the defenders.

Elsewhere, Human Colonial Police and Defence Troops escorted the civilians away from the fighting. I ignored these. My aim was the two objectives, with most of the fighting going on around the buildings on my left. Fire support from my heavy droids kept the Human artillery pinned and this allowed the Beasts to assault them.

Finally, the breakthrough came and Aliens were inside the built-up zone. Over on my right, which was pretty much a stalemate for a long while, my heavy weapons managed to destroy the defensive turret and cause some damage to Alex's tanks. 

Below, you can see the Human Floating Platforms (with heavy weapons) advancing into firing range. These managed to cause casualties to my Alien Infantry and Elite power-armoured troops who I had deployed to threaten the Human rear.

Finally, my Tribals and Beasts destroyed the Human heavy weapons and defensive turret, which enabled me to unleash my droids without fear of being knocked out. Slowly but inexorably, the Aliens wore down the Human resistance. First, the lefthand objective fell to my forces and I ordered my right flank to advance on the righthand built-up area. Below, you can see the Humans deploy more infantry from an APC (which would later get shot to pieces by my droids).

 

The Alien troops closed in on the righthand objective. As I had already managed to destroy enough Human stands to take them to break point, all I needed to do was outnumber the Human defenders in the second objective to win the game.

And, after a few delays, this happened when my robot infantry won a combat against the Human defenders and I advanced a heavy droid into the built-up zone, together with some infantry who had managed to destroy a tank in combat..

So, as a first game with this new army, I was well-pleased with the outcome. My plan worked pretty well and the Alien Beasts proved to be amazingly effective at the task I'd set them, which was to draw fire and get into hand-to-hand combat quickly. When I started to use my Alien Infantry, they proved to be a real shooting threat with their superior energy weapons (which allows them to roll three D6 and discard the lowest scoring one). I think that using droid troops is also a good idea, as it lets you use your command stands to keep the Tribals moving forwards as much as possible.

More Alien Imperials

I've been working on getting my new Alien Imperial army finished so that I can get it into action ASAP. The thing about this army is that you have to take a mandatory five stands of Primitive troops for each 100pts in the army. That means a whopping 10 stands of Primitives in a 200pt army. When you add in the mandatory 3 stands of Alien Soldiers per 100 pts, this is a pretty large forces compared with some of the other choices in the rules.

Anyway, it is finally finished. My source for miniatures is, as usual, Ground Zero Games; Crusties for the actual Imperials and a mixture of others for the Tribal Auxiliaries, who are classed a Primitives in ASQL, i.e. members of a low technology subject race.

First, here are some GZG Xenomorphs who will represent "Trained Creatures", beasts with no shooting capabilities but who gain a +1 in hand-to-hand combat. These are clearly inspired by the creatures in a classic sci fi film series.

Next up are three stands of Imperial Soldiers plus three stands of Tribal Auxiliary Shooters (including one sub-commander stand), who are obviously nothing whatsoever to do with one of the troop types produced by a well-known company with its own set of rules, even if they are green. Any resemblance is clearly coincidental.

Here are three more stands of Imperial Soldiers, with a round character stand, representing a First Commander, plus two Imperial Soldier command stands (the ones with four minis on).

And some Imperial Heavy Weapons stands.

I'm interested in seeing how this army performs. The Imperial troops and Droids have Superior Energy Weapons and the Elites also have energy shields, so they should be pretty tough. However, that is balanced by the large number of Primitives, who are best considered as a disposable mass of irritants to get in the way while the better troops get into a strong position. The option of having a sub-commander stand means that there is always someone to command the Primitives if the other commanders are busy elsewhere. Lacking true long range primary weapons, this army is going to need to get close to make best use of those superior energy weapons. The Primitives will act as a set of non-human shields. Well that's the plan.

Anyway, however things turn out, it should be fun playing with them. I shall find out on Sunday.

I've started another army for Alien Squad Leader

Yes, I have now embarked upon a third army for Alien Squad Leader. Once again, all of the figures (with one exception) are from the excellent Ground Zero Games 15mm Stargrunt range. I've been planning this one for a while now, but couldn't decide on some aspects of the army, which is an Alien Imperial one. I always knew that the main components of the force would be made up from the Crusties minis and models, but the issue I had was how to fill the ranks of the Primitives (who are a mandatory selection). Anyway, the Primitives will be the subject of a later post. At the moment I am going to show you my Imperial Elites, who are power-armoured infantry, and the Robotic element of the army, which consists of both light and heavy Droids.

First, here are four stands of Elite troopers. The one with a figure in red is a command stand.

And here are the Heavy Droids, accompanied by a character figure, a Champion of the Elect in red power armour.

I wanted this army to look completely unlike my two Human ones, both of which have a fairly sensible camouflage/military fatigues colour scheme. It occurred to me that alien lifeforms might have eyes that have evolved under completely different circumstances to our own, being attuned to different wavelengths of the spectrum. To try and get this idea across, I decided that this army's armoured troops would follow a rather bright, not to say garish colour scheme. After undercoating them in pale grey, I gave them a wash of Windsor and Newton purple drawing ink, which I drybrushed successively with Vallejo Brass and Silver, before adding in some other colours. I also decided that commanders in power armour would be given red as their command colour. 

Although the colour scheme is pretty bright, I am happy with the results.

My Robotic Infantry are the only non-GZG figures. They are "Taranis Repulsar Drones" from The Ion Age. I originally bought these for another purpose, but I really like their quirky appearance and I reckon that they make pretty good combat droids for my Alien Imperial army.

These have a simple metallic colour scheme, the idea being that they are churned out in huge numbers by colossal automated imperial manufactories as disposable combat units so therefore they don't get a top quality paint job.

Anyway, That's where I am so far. I've got other figures almost ready, but I am waiting on a delivery of more 5cm square bases to complete the Imperial troops, before moving on to the Primitives.