Aliens! This time it's.....September

 At the last club meeting I played a game of Aliens. The rules were a close offspring of the original Leading Edge Aliens board game and it was lots of fun.  The scenario was loosely based on the movie with the Colonial Marines trying to escape to the APC.  Here are a few photos of the game:

In the end we managed to get more Marines out than they did in the movie so we decided that was a win!

Freikorps und Spartacist - Westhafen

Having enjoyed the last game of the Freikorps und Spartacist rules, I decided to expand both the table size and player count.  Of course this required the acquisition of a significant greater amount of terrain along with some additional units.

Once I had pulled all of this together I put on a game at the club meeting this weekend which saw a much larger Freikorps force including an A7V tank and a Garford-Putilov armoured car along with some Stormtroopers facing a similarly enhanced rebel force albeit with only some unarmoured transport.  

 The game started well for the rebels with the Freikorps deployment halting after the second round but they really didn't sieze the opportunity created by that advantage.  There were some hard fought street battles with some significant groups of civilians coming under fire from the Freikorp forces - perhaps too much of a concentration on the civilians meant they weren't eliminating the rebel forces.  By the end of the game neither side had reached their overall victory conditions and based on levels of army morale meant I had to call the game a draw.

Here are some photos from the game:

BOHICA 2 - Search and Destroy

Our second outing for the BOHICA rules involved an apparently straightforward search and destroy mission.  We did have some armoured support this time around (in the form of an M48) but we were in for some surprises!  Our map and the real map were different in a number of ways, the road was mined and we were facing some NVA with armoured support rather than just the VC we were expecting.

We also had some clarifications on the various elements of the rules we either were not playing correctly or we confused about in the last game.

Here are some photos from the game:

Whilst the game was fun we were still not entirely convinced as some elements remained a little clunky.  Our umpire is now keen to try a game of Force on Force with the Ambush Valley supplement to see how they compare.

Starship Troopers

At the last club meeting we played a game of Starship Troopers using 25/28mm figures and lots and lots of Bugs!.  The rules were a home-brew set that were easily picked up and allowed the game to move at a good pace. The terrain was a  great example of recycling, kit bashing and scratch building with some time being taken to try to identify the origins of the various pieces!

The impressive number of Arachnids (over 100 by the late stages) were all from the old Galoob action figure range and included Warrior Bugs, Heavy Bugs, Tanker Bugs and a Plasma Bug - we were lucky and no Hopper Bugs actually appeared in the game!

Here are some photos from the game:

BOHICA - Search and Rescue

A couple of weeks ago we played a first game of the BOHICA Vietnam rules with 28mm figures and some lovely terrain.

The scenario took place in I corps zone close to Hue. Two helicopters had gone down near a small village in an area of ongoing pacification. The helicopters were carrying a senior officer and TV film crew. A nearby team, SEAL team Zulu, had been diverted to search and rescue. The area had been fairly quiet recently; however on arrival SEAL team Zulu came under heavy mortar fire. Their boat was damaged and they requested support. The team went to ground south west of the village, but had eyes on possible location of the helicopter crew and passengers. 

Our mission was to make our way to the village from the east to distract and engage the enemy. Our platoon was supported by ACAV and M113s. There was the possibility of heavy armour support and air support. We had also been allocated a LOACH for spotting/artillery observation. The LOACH was only going to available for  around 15 minutes though. We were to assist in search and rescue, locating and securing a safe LZ for air evacuation. Usual rules apply, civilians and their dwellings were not to be targeted. The area was supposedly close to pacification. Latest intel (for what it's worth!) indicated the area was still relatively quiet so we could expect a swift and successful op.

Here are some photos from the game:

We had a post game de-brief and it was clear that we had not been getting some elements of the rules quite right.  Whilst we had some issues with them we though it would be worth trying a second game with the rules having been clarified.

Abbeville: The Somme 1940 - Blitzkrieg at Zoteux

I ran a small scenario for Chain of Command from the Abbeville: The Somme 1940 Pint Sized Campaign book using 28mm figures.

The scenario was set on 5th June 1940 and saw a platoon from the 51st Highland Division defending against a platoon from the 5th Motorised Infantry Regiment of the 2nd German Infantry Division attacking.  The British took a roadblock and a 2 pounder anti-tank gun as their support whilst the Germans chose two additional squads (one of Pioneers and one regular infantry) and a Panzer IV.

This particular scenario was based on the Blitzkrieg scenario from the Blitzkrieg 1940 Handbook for Chain of Command with some adjustments.

Here are some photos from the game:

The game ended with the Germans victorious and the blitzkrieg continuing!

I was going to provide some links to the Lardies' website but it is being reconstructed at the moment as a result of a catastrophic server outage.