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Post by terrance on Jun 16, 2017 16:15:50 GMT
This campaign will proceed through the years from 1908 to probably 1915. In each game, only equipment available according to the timeline will be available for the game. I expect to do 2 or 3 scenarios for each year, but that may change.
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Post by terrance on Jun 16, 2017 16:17:07 GMT
1908-Contact with the enemy
The rumors that the Martians have returned are proving true. Verified reports have come in that the horrible silver tripods are here again and loose on nearly every continent, including North America. The army is sent to locate the Martians and assess the threat.
Terrain: The table gets lots of terrain in the form of dry riverbeds, rocky hills, low hills, and rocky areas.
Dry rivers, rocky hills, and rocky areas provide cover and count “as boulder strewn or rocky, craggy, steep, heavily cratered or pitted ground”. This gives infantry Def +3 and Arm +1. Artillery gets Def +2 and Arm +0.
Set-up: Martian: All Martian tripods start the game on the table, touching the Martian baseline.
Human: Half the human units start the game on the table, touching the human baseline. Remaining units enter the table as reserves starting the second turn. Remember that reserves held until the third turn may enter the table on the side, up to half way across.
Objective: Both sides are trying to destroy the opposing force. Armies will break at 50% unit loss. Artillery limber losses are not counted for army break.
Game length: The game is standard length. It ends when one army breaks. If neither army breaks by the end of the 6th turn, a die is rolled and on a result of 1-5 the game ends. On a result of 6-10 one more turn is played.
Victory: The player that breaks the opposing army is the winner. Army break effects do not occur until the end of the turn. This makes it possible that both armies could be broken. In this case the outcome is a draw. If neither army is broken by the end of the game it is a draw.
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Post by terrance on Jun 16, 2017 16:19:20 GMT
Here is the terrain for the table. The dry riverbeds and rocky areas all give the infantry cover, so hopefully they will not die quite as fast.
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Post by terrance on Jun 16, 2017 16:27:10 GMT
1908- Contact with the enemy; TOE
Human 5 Cavalry @ 35 = 175 points 2 Field artillery @ 80 = 160 points 7 Doughboys @ 30 = 210 points 2 Infantry command @ 30 = 60 points 2 Machine guns @ 40 = 80 points 2 Artillery limbers (horse drawn) @ 10 = 20 points Total = 705 points 3 command chits Break 9
The cost for the artillery horse limbers is my own best guess. Note they do not count against army break point.
Martian 2 Assault tripods with heat rays @ 200 = 400 points 1 Assault tripod with heat ray and black dust @ 250 = 250 points Total 650 points 3 command chits Break 2
I gave the Martians 55 fewer points because the humans are infantry heavy and infantry dies really fast. But with the cover terrain the humans can use they may be able to hold on better than I expect.
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Post by terrance on Jun 17, 2017 20:45:34 GMT
Set up Martians kept their three tripods close together at one end of the board, hoping to be able to concentrate fire and destroy human units as fast as possible. Humans start the game with both artillery units, 4 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 MG, and 2 infantry command. The plan was to hold some of the infantry until the 3rd turn when they could enter the side edge and hopefully be close to assaulting a tripod.
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Post by terrance on Jun 17, 2017 20:53:09 GMT
Turn 1; human initiative. Humans advance as much as possible without using any command tokens for double move. The plan is to move the infantry up the dry riverbeds to use the cover while getting close enough to assault. The artillery is to move into the rocky terrain so as to get some cover benefit. The cavalry is to loop to the sides and rear of the tripods and harass or assault if possible. (Pictures got reversed. The one just below is after the Martian turn.)
The Martians advance without using double movement and fire heat rays but miss. The Martian plan was to close with the humans and use black dust to destroy the units in cover.
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Post by terrance on Jun 17, 2017 21:00:07 GMT
Turn 2; human initiative. The field guns unlimber and fire on separate tripods. The BD tripod explodes. One armor point is taken off the other. The Martians may not be demoralized yet but the Martian player is. The Martians advance the remaining tripods and sweep the artillery and machine guns. One element of each is destroyed but they pass morale.
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Post by terrance on Jun 17, 2017 21:05:54 GMT
Turn 3; Martian initiative.
Martian tripods do not move, but sweep the artillery and machine guns again. Both sweeps miss.
Human turn: Two infantry units enter the board from the side and assault the tripod there. The tripod on the rubble mound gets targeted with nearly everything else on the table.
The assault puts one armor hit on the tripod and the infantry are forced to retreat.
The second tripod gets hit with both artillery units, both MG units, an infantry unit and two cavalry units. The results peck away at the armor until the last attack does d10 armor damage and the tripod collapses.
Martians break for human win.
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Post by terrance on Jun 17, 2017 21:14:05 GMT
Discussion afterward pointed out the win was mostly luck. The Martians only succeeded in killing two elements (one field gun and one MG) while the humans did damage with 90% of their attacks. Likewise, having the black dust tripod explode on the first hit was just unfortunate.
However some of us also thought the tripods made a mistake by closing with the humans. They should have held back and used their weapon range advantage to damage as many human units as possible while the only human weapons that could reach them were the field guns. Also the Martian player targeted units in cover when there were units that could have been targeted that were in the open and thus much more vulnerable.
Over all we had a good time, but it was a really short game! We may have to run the scenario again to see if the outcome is different.
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gunnyhighway
Scout Tripod
Just because your from Mars doesn't mean we can take warm showers in the wee hours of the morning...
Posts: 195
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Post by gunnyhighway on Jun 17, 2017 21:43:19 GMT
terrance: Source of horse limbers and stats please? Respectfully, Gunny
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Post by Quendil on Jun 18, 2017 0:12:49 GMT
Good game, those shock results are always interesting
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Post by mikedski on Jun 18, 2017 11:38:28 GMT
Make it more interesting and have humans arrive a blips. Did you make the dry rivers beds?
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Post by mikedski on Jun 18, 2017 11:46:27 GMT
Discussion afterward pointed out the win was mostly luck. The Martians only succeeded in killing two elements (one field gun and one MG) while the humans did damage with 90% of their attacks. Likewise, having the black dust tripod explode on the first hit was just unfortunate. However some of us also thought the tripods made a mistake by closing with the humans. They should have held back and used their weapon range advantage to damage as many human units as possible while the only human weapons that could reach them were the field guns. Also the Martian player targeted units in cover when there were units that could have been targeted that were in the open and thus much more vulnerable. Over all we had a good time, but it was a really short game! We may have to run the scenario again to see if the outcome is different. Yes. Play again. Qetjnegartis demands results.
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Post by boxholder on Jun 18, 2017 16:50:16 GMT
Per Brother hardlec: "Technology is no substitute for Valor." There is no substitute for hot dice rolling for you side!!
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Post by scottwashburn on Jun 18, 2017 19:38:11 GMT
Nice looking game!
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