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Post by terrance on Jun 13, 2016 19:41:49 GMT
My players have wondered how a Martian against Martian game would play. So I put this scenario together to test it.
Defender starts with: - 2 Scout tripods with heat ray(300 Pt)
- 1 Assault tripod with heat ray (200 Pt)
500 points at start.
Attacker starts with: - 1 Scout tripod with targeter and heat ray (155 Pt)
- 1 Grenadier tripod (100 Pt)
- 2 Assault tripods with heat ray (400 Pt)
655 points at start.
Each side has reinforcements they can start trying to bring in on turn 2. Defender: - 2 Assault tripods with heat ray (400 Pt) [In the pictures you will see some had BD or GG launchers, but since they do not affect Martians I did not pay the cost for them.]
- 2 Scout tripods with heat ray (300 Pt)
- 1 Veteran assault tripod (250 Pt)
950 points of reinforcements for 1450 points total.
Attacker: - 3 Assault tripods with heat ray (600 pt)
- 1 Scout tripod with targeter and heat ray (155 Pt)
- 1 Grenadier tripod (100 Pt)
855 points of reinforcements for 1510 points total.
No command tokens were given. Break for the defender was 4 and for the attacker 5.
I'll post the pictures in a couple of days.
We agreed that a Martian on Martian game is 1) faster to play because there are so few models on the table. 2) It felt a bit monochrome and flat. The tactical options were somewhat limited to stand there and pound the crap out of each other until a tripod blew up and then move on to the next tripod. It ended up feeling like the game mostly came down to luck of the dice. You never got adds to the tripod damage table because only one weapon could fire at a time. I am thinking that if we try this again I would give out command tokens and allow the Martain to use them to combine fire with tripods. So 3 tripods could fire at the same time on a target by spending 2 command tokens. I.e., one token for each additional tripod in the attack. However, I am not certain even that would reduce the luck of the dice feel.
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Post by mikedski on Jun 13, 2016 23:50:54 GMT
Why are they fighting? What's the objective? Maybe the attacker is raiding the human captives of the defenders? Or hijacking a loaded harvester returning from the front?
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Post by terrance on Jun 14, 2016 20:00:55 GMT
I didn't write this up with the same detail as the Story Arc Campaign. If you can find the write-up I did on Martian physiology I talk about the telepathic communication used by the Martians and if they are not closely related the telepathic link does not work. Consequently, such "alien" pods that have territory that abuts tend to fight because they cannot talk. That was the case behind this scenario. The objective was to grab territory from those evil, mute, sub-martian enemies.
Interesting that you would mention hijacking a loaded harvester. The second scenario for Martian vs. Martian I had planned is called Rustlers and involves one side trying to grab human prey from a heat fence holding pen.
Here is a link to the Martian physiology and culture piece: aqmf.freeforums.net/thread/360/martians
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 21:35:39 GMT
Here is the table for the Martian border raid scenario. The dry stream bed is difficult ground for crossing (half speed). The wooded hills and mesa completely block line of sight. The other hills count as intervening terrain.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 21:39:52 GMT
Turn 1. The Attackers won the initiative. They advanced and fired heat rays at the tripod on the hill to the attacker's right and fired the grenadier on the tripod on the attacker's left. No damage. The defender shifted the center scout tripod to his left. Everybody fired and missed.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 21:42:16 GMT
Turn 2, Initiative won by attackers. A reinforcing grenadier comes in but cannot fire. The defending scout is hit for 1 point of damage. An attacking assault tripod gets across the dry river. The defenders fail to do damage.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 21:49:22 GMT
Turn 3. Defenders win the initiative. Defender reinforcements start to arrive: a scout, and assault and a vet tripod move on the table. Defenders destroy the attacker scout, eliminating the targeter (not in the picture). Another assault tripod comes in as reinforcements. All the attacker firing fails to damage. At this point the attackers are down 1 break point to 0 breakpoints for the defenders.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 21:57:41 GMT
Turn 4. Defender gets the initiative. The last of the reinforcements come on. Only minor damage is done by the attacks. The Attacker manages to blow up the Defender tripod on the hill on their left, which takes out a second damaged defending tripod.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 22:00:21 GMT
Turn 5. Attacker wins the initiative. The attacker throws everything it has at the defenders on the attacker's right. One tripod goes down and it is attacker with 4 of 5 break points and defender with 3 of 4 breakpoints.
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Post by terrance on Jun 18, 2016 22:03:29 GMT
Turn 5 continued. More shots are fired at the damaged scout seen just to the right in the previous picture and it blows up. Defender breakpoint. The fact that of the 8 tripods destroyed, 7 blew up that made this game feel like it was the luck of the dice. There were few tactics that could be applied except stand there and shoot it out, a bit like high noon in Dodge City. And the winner was the one lucky enough to roll lots of 10s.
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Post by mikedski on Jun 18, 2016 23:37:57 GMT
Thanks for posting. I'd like to think a heat ray would most likely result in catastrophic damage to another tripod and the dice gods (both old and new) agreed. Now please for my viewing pleasure continue the campaign with the attackers making for the objective of their raid in the next game!
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Post by madmorgan on Jun 20, 2016 11:08:23 GMT
Good stuff. Back some time ago I had a pod wipe out another pod for its failure to eliminate the Red Brigade. I think I even did the OOB for that one, I've have to look. If not, this has inspired me to do the OOB for that destruction. TY.
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Post by terrance on Jun 20, 2016 20:13:22 GMT
Glad you liked it. I have been debating if it is worth doing the next game in this series, but I may go ahead and run it and call it play-testing. The next scenario would be an attack on the defender's prey-that-stings processing area. The attacker's objective will be to steal or kill as many stands of prey as possible, both denying their use to the defenders and collecting this valuable resource for themselves. It will probably be a couple of months as I have stand-in harvester/gather tripods and heat fencing on order. Also I will put more terrain out and try the use of order chits for Martian combined fire.
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Post by hardlec on Jun 26, 2016 1:58:24 GMT
It would seem the best way to kill a tripod is with a tripod.
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Post by madmorgan on Jun 27, 2016 12:09:51 GMT
Yes. Interesting idea - if the humans could capture an intact tripod, would they be able to rig it so they could use it?? How that might happen is almost a story in itself; can a martian have a 'heart attack'?? A scenario similar to the Rescue with the objective a downed, intact assault or scout tripod. Then a scenario with the 'mad martian' machine leading an attack on its own - fantastic possibilities.
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