Friday, June 1, 2012

A Chain Reaction 3: Final Version Helvetica Campaign Side-game

I decided that the last campaign battle was merely the end of the day since Sauvignon-Blanc held both their fort and the town with nearly two full strength imperial units and their mechanized steam walker providing artillery support.

When night had fallen, the Riesling steam tractor was abandoned on the field. Dietrich, rather than allow the technology fall into enemy hands, ordered that a squad, under cover of darkness (which was difficult given the full moon and fires blazing around the battle field and town - a narrative justification for forgetting to implement any limits on LOS), make their way to the steam tractor and destroy it.
A team was assembled, consisting of 2 soldiers - Pvt. Otto (Rep 5), 2nd Lt. Neuman, (Leader, Rep 5), 2 lizard warriors (Rep 3 and Rep 5), Engineer (Rep 4). The Pvt has a rifle, the 2nd lt and Engineer each have pistols, and the lizard warriors are armed w/melee weapons.

Objective: Reach the tractor, set up explosives (it takes two turns), blow up the tractor (it goes off two turns after the explosives are set) and get out.

I decided I would run the Sauvignon-Blanc side using the Possible Enemy Force (PEF) rules.

I rolled an Enemy Activity Level (EAL) of 4 and diced for PEF placement.


Arrows are my friends.
The figures in the above picture show the initial PEF placement, while the arrows show the overall direction of movement for the PEFs and my Riesling squad. 

The first PEF to resolve was the one coming through the woods in the middle of the board. I rolled against the EAL and ended up facing a force the same size as my own - only they were four REP 4s and one REP 5. I had been worried about the REP 3 lizard warrior being a weak spot, and I was right. He was dead after in-sights had been resolved.

Fortunately, my REP 5 leader, REP 5 Pvt. and REP 5 lizard man made fast work of the enemy - 2 out of fight, 1 OD and 2 run aways resulting from failed cohesion tests resulting from their leader's Out of Fight.




I won activation on the next turn, and sent my team dashing across the gap between the wooded areas which forced a LOS resolution of the next PEF. Once again, party equal to mine in size - which resulted in four REP 4s on the table.


The dash across the gap - exposing my squad like a naked flesh eating man on the side of a freeway.
The in-sights resolved favorably for Sauvignon-Blanc - two of the three with LOS would resolve before my first would.


In the open, without an ounce of cover, even fast moving targets are easy kills:


Remember kids, if you gamble, you can lose.

The second shooter knocked down my leader! (stunned thankfully):


Reaper=of-His-Enemies-Souls just shakes his head and thinks "Seriously guys?" (roughly translated from lizard speak)


This was not going how I planned.

I finished the engineer's activation with him setting the first charge.

The enemy activated and I used the NP Force Movement Table. Since they don't quite yet outnumber my side 2-to-1, I roll on the Otherwise column and get "Remain in cover or move to nearest cover. May fire at enemy if in range after reaching cover." Interesting choice, but I dutifully moved them towards the woods.

The next activation, they rolled a 6 - which meant they were going to stand still. My lizard warrior made the dash across the gap to join the engineer, who set the 2nd charge.


Those silvery things are to show that two explosive charges have been set and not that the tractor has laid eggs.
I rolled activation again and they got another 6! The engineer and lizard warrior took off running and the 2nd Lt. got up and started moving too.



Rolling again, I won activation 3 to 2, and I sent my guys running towards their base edge entry point. The Sauvignon-Blanc squad rolled again on the NP Force Movement table, and scored the same result as before. They advanced through the cover, but they didn't make it all the way out when on the next turn:


How very Batman.






Objective accomplished!


****
In addition to removing the disabled steam tractor from the battlefield,  the results of this encounter will cause Sauvignon-Blanc to lose one figure from one of their two imperial units (I'm planning on using G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for the next big battle).


All statuses, in-sight scores, and reactions forced by in-sight were tracked using my custom CR3:FV player aid (seen at the bottom of this post) with the help of some counters I downloaded from the THW Yahoo! group.


From start to finish this game took an hour - primarily because I had to read the PEF rules as I went, and I had to re-read how to do melee. I think next time it will go faster - provided I play before I forget the PEF rules again.


The only issue I had was deciding which cover was nearer to the 2nd Sauvignon-Blanc group. At the time, I didn't think of the tractor as cover properly speaking, and so chose the woods.  Had they moved to the tractor, the second roll that indicated they would move to nearest cover or stay in cover might have either left them right next to the exploding tractor or at best maybe getting off a shot at the running Riesling squad before being hit by debris.


Overall, a fun game and totally appropriate to post it today - the last day to enter the Two Hour Wargames Give-Away Contest!





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