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Post by terrance on May 17, 2017 21:46:02 GMT
11. Near the redoubtMartian briefing: The prey that stings is nearing our redoubt. Now they will experience our defensive weapons and be crushed. Human briefing: We are nearing the believed location of the Martian fortress. Scouts report the area is heavily fortified. We will establish a presence in this zone and use it to launch and invasion of the fortress. Terrain: There are 8 terrain pieces. Three Martian pits are required and must be placed on the Martian side of the table. The remaining pieces may be: Terrain pieces must be placed at least 4 inches away from another terrain piece.
Set-Up: The Martian sets up any static defenses he has purchased, such as heat fence or sentinels. The Martian then may place up to 1/4 of his tripods on the table, touching the Martian edge of the table. The remainder enter as reinforcements starting on turn 2. The Human player may set up up to half of his units on the table, touching the human edge of the table. Remaining units are in reserve. Objective: The human must capture and hold the three Martian pits at the end of the game. A pit is captured if there is at least one human element in it and no Martian elements. Duration: The game ends if one army breaks or after a standard game length. If neither side has broken after 6 turns roll a die. On 1-5 the game ends, on 6-10 one more turn is played. Victory: If all three pits are captured, the human wins. If no pits are captured, the Martian wins. If neither applies and one army breaks, the unbroken side is the winner. Any other result is a draw. Note that a pit with no occupants is considered Martian controlled. STOP Do not read further until after the game is played. Martian: We have greatly weakened the forces of the prey that stings. We can now hold them at tentacle length and destroy them. Human: We have a foothold in the Martian defensive line. Now we will assault the fortress itself.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 15:06:39 GMT
Units for "Near the Redoubt"
Martian 6 Heat Fence sections @10 = 60 pt. 5 Sentinels @ 25 = 125 pt. 2 Slaver tripods @ 100 = 200 pt. 6 Drone units @ 60 = 360 pt. 5 Lobototon units (2 slicer and 3 blaster) @ 20 = 100 pt. 1 Scientist tripod @80 = 80 pt. 3 Assault tripod w heat ray @ 200 = 600 pt. 3 Scout tripod w heat ray @ 150 = 450 pt. 1 Assault tripod w Green Gas @ 200 = 200 pt. 1 Assault tripod w Black Dust @ 200 = 200 pt. Total = 2375 its. Command = 11 Break = 6 (only tripods are counted for break).
Human 5 Armored Infantry @ 65 = 325 pt. 2 Armored Infantry Carriers @ 120 = 240 pt. 3 MkII Steam tanks @ 165 = 495 pt. 1 MkIII Steam tank @ 225 = 225 pt. 1 Heavy Artillery @ 160 = 160 pt. 1 MkI Steam tank artillery tow @25 = 25 pt. 1 Lightning gun @ 350 = 350 pt. 3 Infantry command @ 30 = 90 pt. 9 Dough Boys @ 30 = 270 pt. 1 MkIIc command tank @ 85 = 85 its. 6 Forlorn hope @ 15 = 90 pt. Total = 2355 pt. Command = 11 Break = 13
I decided to make this an infantry heavy fight. As you will see in the AAR this may not have been the best mix for the Humans. Next time I would replace something with a couple of machine guns and Rough Riders.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 17:43:20 GMT
Near the Redoubt AAR Turn 0 The table was set up with very little terrain. This was anticipated to make for a difficult game for the humans and that was right. The Martians started with 3 scout tripods on the table. The human started with towed heavy guns and MkII tanks.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 17:54:02 GMT
Near the Redoubt Turns 1 and 2 Turn 1; Human initiative The artillery unlimbered and tanks advanced. No damage was done to the Martians. Martians destroyed 2 of the heavy guns and a MkII tank with sentinels. Turn 2; Human initiative Tanks destroyed 3 sentinels and one heat fence.Artillery failed to hit. Martians brought on 4 tripods, including a slaver with lobototons. The last of the heavy guns was destroyed. This is not starting well for the humans. Table at the end of turn 2:
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 17:57:12 GMT
Near the Redoubt turn 3 Martian initiative All the remaining tripods except the black dust assault tripod enter the table. A MkII tank was destroyed. Human Infantry entering the side of the table double moved to assault the green gas tripod. Result; -1 armor. Last two heat fences were taken down.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 18:01:12 GMT
Near the redoubt Turn 4 Human initiative Lightning gun fired and missed. No other units hit either. Two Martian pits are occupied. Martian Last tripod comes on the table. Martians kill: Lightning gun, MkIIc, 2 MkII, and one armored infantry unit.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 18:05:15 GMT
Near the Redoubt Turn 5 Martian initiative. For Martians it was a turkey shoot. Armored Infantry Carriers, lots of infantry and tanks died and the Human army broke. Lobo slicers assaulted the armored infantry in the center Martian pit and destroyed them.
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Post by terrance on May 22, 2017 18:09:34 GMT
Not a great game for the humans. They were unable to hit anything after the first couple of turns when they took out sentinels and heat fence. Loosing the artillery and lightning gun without doing any damage was a big setback. The plan was for the armored infantry to occupy the pits since they should have a slightly better chance of survival, but for the most part they never arrived at the pits. More machine guns and some rough riders would have helped.
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Post by mikedski on May 22, 2017 19:26:42 GMT
Can you provide a close up shot of the sentinel and heat fencing?
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Post by Quendil on May 23, 2017 7:32:22 GMT
Great game poor humans. Is the heatray fencing from Conqueror models?
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Post by madmorgan on May 23, 2017 9:39:54 GMT
As always a nice write-up and pics. Love the use of Conquerors heat-ray fences and the very elegant solution for Sentinels! Using a heat ray piece on top of a grey 'stick' is a great solution for those on a budget & I fully plan to do that for my 'hardware' setups (using Scotts great towers for 'soft'/all paper setups). Was that a dowel or something else you used for the pole? I think I'd make them taller as well, good show! As far as the battle(?), I think the infantry wave has been proved as futile in AQMF as was the case in WW1. Poor bloody infantry. Thanks again for the workup
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Post by terrance on May 24, 2017 15:17:36 GMT
Great game poor humans. Is the heatray fencing from Conqueror models? Yes, it is the fencing from Conqueror Models. The sentinels are scratch built. I'll post a closeup and description of how I built them later today.
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Post by terrance on May 24, 2017 15:49:45 GMT
Heat fence pic Here a section of heat fence. It is the Conquer model. I did not glue the red rods into the "posts" because I wanted to be able to remove destroyed sections. But I found it really hard to set the fence up. Trying to get everything aligned and in place and then keeping it in place while adding the next section was more than frustrating. Any movement or jostle caused the already set up part to fall apart. When I build the models I drilled out the sockets for the red rod. I think I should have made the holes 1/32 inch smaller in diameter or drilled them a little deeper and maybe that would not be such a problem. In the end I used putty to hold the rod in place on one end so it stayed together while I inserted the other ends. This is a putty sold for mounting pictures etc on boards that is removable and will not damage the article being use on. A brand is Blue Tac, but I don't recall what this brand is as it is white. You can see a bit of the putty showing on the left end. Not very noticeable on the table, but it really shows up in the pic.
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Post by terrance on May 24, 2017 15:58:43 GMT
Sentinel Pic I built these at least a year and a half ago. I agree with MadMorgan that they are shorter than I would make them today. The next and final scenario of the Story Arc Campaign is an assault on the Martian redoubt and these will line the top of the redoubt rim. That will make them taller. So these will work for that situation but I think I am going to buy a set of Scott's Martian defense towers for use on flatter terrain. The base is a 1 inch round wooden base (1/16 inch thick) from Litko. The post is 3/16 inch diameter dowel, 3/4 inch long. The heat ray body is balsa strip wood. I think it is from a model railroad supplier as scale lumber and is 1/8 inch thick (wide, I guess in the orientation of the heat ray body), half inch long, and 9/32 inch tall. That makes it roughly the size of the heat ray on an assault tripod. The cable is a bit of brass wire. I glued the post to the base and heat ray body to the post. The cable was bent to shape and holes drilled to glue the ends into. The heat ray sense is a blob of white glue. But the lens effect is not very pronounced. I should have added several more layers of glue until I got a bigger rounded lump that still showed after the glue dried. Then it is on to painting and finishing the base.
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Post by madmorgan on May 26, 2017 9:12:51 GMT
All in all a great job. As I said, I plan on using Scott's towers for 'soft' terrain setups (e.i. all Scott's buildings and paper cut-out contours, woods, etc.) and these for the 'hard' terrain setups (e.i. those with HO railroad tracks, buildings, Woodland Scenic trees, etc.).
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