Letters from the Front: Bill's "Crossroads" Report

I was excited to receive some pictures from Bill (of AQMF forum fame) and a write up of his play-through of the Battle at the Crossroads 4-player Scenario out in Indianapolis. It's great to see other people playing these scenarios, and I'm always happy to post pictures here.  Here's Bill's report on the action in this four player game.

Enjoy!

"Here is our battle report of the crossroads game we played here in Indianapolis. We had about 2400 points per side and played on an 8 x 6 table. The zones were upper right zone 1, upper middle zone 2, upper left zone 3, lower left zone 4, lower middle zone 5, and lower right zone 6. The humans placed their objectives in the warehouse in zone 5 and in the cornfield in zone 1. The martians placed theirs by the brewery in zone 2 and out in the open in zone 4."

"On turn one the martians moved on to the table in zone 3 and headed for the brewery and the objective in the open.
The humans came on in zone 5 and headed for the town. No losses were caused on turn one.

The humans win the initiative on turn two. The rest of their forces arrive in zone 4. Infantry move into the warehouse to control that objective. Human artillery pounds an assault tripod which takes 1 point of damage. The main guns on the monitors fire, but miss.
The rest of the martians come on in zone 3. The martians continue to move forward and spread out. Fire from a grenadier tripod kills an infantry command stand and heat rays kill 2 tanks."

"The martians go first on turn 3. A horde of drones and slavers move on the town.
They take control of the objective by the brewery. Martian fire kills 3 more tanks.
The humans move up. More infantry heads for the town. Human artillery misses, but the tanks pound a black dust tripod and an assault tripod. The BD tripod ignores the fire. The assault tripod is damaged several times and explodes.

Martians go first again on turn 4. A slaver and drones head for the objective in the cornfield. The rest close up. Martian fire kills an artillery piece, 2 tanks, and an infantry stand.
More human infantry reaches the town. The tanks let fly but only cause 2 damage to the scout. Human artillery misses again."

"The martians go first again. The slaver and drones close in on the cornfield. Marvin and his snipers advance on the objective in zone 4. Other tripods come with him. A slaver and 3 units of drones rush the coal factory, The scout sweeps a unit of mk 2's , killing 2. The martians concentrate the rest of their fire on the mk 4's but only take out the left sponsons of one of them.
The mk 3's return under industrial might.
The mk 2's in town hammer the slaver and do 7 points of damage. The hmgs shoot at drones, but do nothing. The artillery misses again and so do the mk 4's. The scout is hit again and blows up."

"It is now turn 6. The humans hold the objective in the warehouse. The martians hold the one by the brewery and the one in the cornfield. The other is contested. The martians go first again. The cornfield is now a sea of drones. More drones swarm out of the coal factory and assault a mk 4 and mk 2's. The mk 4 and one mk 2 are ripped apart.
The slaver kills an hmg stand.
The rough riders abandoned the idea of going to the cornfield and headed for the church. Infantry comes out of the warehouse to attack the drones. The hmgs shoot the slaver and it blows up to a chorus of " oh no, oops, oh my god ".
A total of 5 drones, 2 tanks, and 10 infantry stands are in the blast zone. 1 tank, 3 drones, and 7 infantry stands go away. The BD tripod is hit and explodes. The artillery finally hits a slaver and it blows up too. What a turn of events.

Turns 7 & 8 are mostly anticlimactic. Other than trading fire only the rough riders cause any activity. The humans lose most of their artillery and more tanks. The martians take a bit more damage. The rough riders zoom out and grab a destroyed drone. Before they can get away, the martians use their last orders to catch them with scorpion drones and regular drones. Poor rough riders.

The game ends with the martians holding 2 objectives, the humans holding 1 objective, and the last one is contested. The martians had tank kill and artillery superiority for their secret objectives and did not achieve either. The humans had drone sample and cut off the head of the snake. They almost got drone sample. Marvin the martian scores a narrow 2-1 victory."

Bill's MKIV House Rule:

"We have house ruled the MK 4 tanks. They are just too big to be killed by one hit all the time. We allow them to be damaged twice before they are destroyed. On the first damage result we roll a die:

1 or 2 - lose the machine gun
3 or 4 - left sponsons destroyed
5 or 6 - front guns destroyed
7 or 8 - right sponsons destroyed
9 - tank is immobilized
10 - tank explodes - same as an
exploding tripod

This gives them a little more staying power, but there is still that chance it could make a big boom on the first hit.
Give it a try and see what you think."

OOB:
Martian force #1

Marvin the Martian - veteran assault tripod
Assault tripod with green gas
Grenadier tripod
Scientist tripod
2 Slaver tripods
4 units of drones
1 unit of sniper drones

Martian force #2

Assault tripod with 40" heat ray
Assault tripod with black dust
Scout tripod with targetter
Grenadier tripod
Scientist tripod
Slaver tripod
4 units of drones
1 unit of scorpion drones

Human force #1

Mk 4 tank
Mk 2 command tank
2 units of Mk 2 tanks
1 unit of Mk 3 tanks
1 unit of mobile artillery
1 infantry command
3 units of infantry
1 unit of hmgs

Human force #2

Custer' s Mk 4 tank
1 Mk 4 tank
1 Mk 2 command tsnk
2 units of Mk 2 tanks
1 unit of mobile artillery
2 infantry units
1 unit of hmgs
1 unit of rough riders

2410 points for the Martians

2405 points for the Humans

Satisfaction - A Completed Bolt Action Game

Nate and I finally got a decent chunk of time free to (hopefully) finish a game of Bolt Action. Since we had more than 5 hours this time, Nate upped the size of the forces, and ran a scenario. He showed me the lists and gave me the choice of sides. I decided to try and actually complete a game as the Germans before trying out the Americans.

The object of the game was for the Germans to defend three points on the board, using some little collections of oil drums, etc as representations. All three were in my deployment zone, and the Germans would only win if all three remained just in my hands. The Americans win if they take at least two of them, and if they take only one it is a draw. The game would last six turns, whatever happened.

The Germans:  4 Infantry squads (A veteran assault team and grenadier team with Panzerfaust AT weapons, and two regular grenadier squads both with AT weapons,)  with a Panzer tank, a Martyr Self-propelled AT Gun, and a sniper team in support).  Commanding the bunch was a 1st and 2nd Lt with assistants.

The Americans: 3 infantry teams, one as veteran, two medium machine guns, a mortar teams with a spotter, two jeeps (one with MMG), a sniper, A self-propelled AT gun, and an armored car.

The way the scenario went, I could deploy at least half my units on turn one, then take the rest as reserves one turn two.  As the Americans get a pre-game bombardment, I kept exactly half my force back. I deployed as close to the markers as I could get. The left:

 And the middle.

I also got my snipers up into the center building.

I deployed the third team on the right, actually a bit ahead of the objective.  I was hedging my bets to see how Nate would deploy. Would he go heavy on one side, or spread out? I held my assault team in reserve to deploy where it was needed after the Americans were in.

It begins!  Nate runs his sniper up into cover, and my sniper immediately puts a bullet in his head.  Without the sniper, the spotter flees.

Nate's jeep deploys on the road and rushes forward to take shots at my infantry. It misses and assault rifle fire tears holes in the engine block, destroying it.

The armored car and the second jeep deploy together. The jeep contains a bazooka team, ready to rush up close to my panzer when I deploy it. My infantry take cover in the ruins, amid heavy fire.

The armored car's machine gun bore down on them.

Killing a rifleman, and keeping everyone else's head down.

The American infantry approach the left, with a mortar team hiding in the rear.  I'm starting to get an idea that Nate intends to go for the left objective first.

Another infantry team fires into the building at center, killing four of my men. Ouch, this is starting to hurt.

The armored car, meanwhile, continues to tear up the squad on the right.

My panzer deploys, taking a shot at the jeep with the bazooka team on board, but it misses. The bazooka team charges into the road and fires at the tank. It strikes the front armor, but at a bad angle and the tank emerges unscathed.

The assault team deploys on the right to counter the threat, gunning the whole team down.

With my Tank on the board, I wanted to finish off the only other thing that could hurt it - the American's self-propelled AT gun.  I moved up my infantry at center to just behind a hill. I needed to get close to use the panzerfaust. The infantry fired, but missed, and the tanks and opposing infantry cut most of them down.

Meanwhile, my own AT gun came on and just barely had enough speed to get into the road and line up a shot against the American AT gun.

And sends its shell into the enemy's crew compartment, sending up a plume of smoke as the vehicle burned. At this point, Nate no longer had any anti-tank weapons. 

While things were looking good for the Germans, the Americans were tenacious, and shots rang back and forth from the two ruined buildings on either side of the road.

After shooting up my infantry at center, Nate took a gamble and moved his own infantry forward to try to take the building on my side of the road. I moved my tank straight up the road and unloaded my machine guns on them. As they were in the open, it went rather well.

With the right seeming well under control I moved my assault team towards the center, planning to use them to reinforce the left eventually. Nate had two squads looking to rush in and assault the building my infantry were using for cover. If they succeeded, they would easily take the left objective.

Nate makes his move. His infantry charge out of their cover and advance up the road, shooting as they move. They kill another man, and pin down the rest.

After the tank slaughtered the infantry at the center, one man remained. My 1st Lt put him out of his misery.

My men manage to activate thanks to my 2nd Lt sharing the building with them, and fire into the Americans in the road, killing four of them. They make their morale check, and Nate's going to keep them coming.

But he has a second force of riflemen rushing around the building from the other direction, backed up by their own officer. My assault team, now at the center of the board, claim several casualties, but American machine gun fire causes some of their own.

And with a tragic series of random German activations, more of the team is cut down. Two squads remain, but they only have 3 and 4 men respectively to assault with.

On yet another German dice draw, the men in the house activate and add to the American casualties.

On the right, the last American vehicle, the armored car, is destroyed by Panzerschrecks.

With the right secure, Nate is fighting for a draw at best, throwing everything at the left. The American infantry rush the building, killing several Germans before being killed to a man.

Only one American soldier remains on the left in reach of the objective. It's the American Lieutenant. It's the sixth turn, and if he can rush the objective he can get a draw.  Unfortunately for Nate, the Germans activate first and he's gunned down.

A German victory! And a satisfying one as we finally finished a game conclusively. Bolt Action is fun, I'd definitely play it again next time Nate comes by.

AQMF: Knock Down, Drag Out Fight

Every once in a while, I'm just in the mood for some serious carnage. So for my weekly game of AQMF with Fritz, I brought out every single model I own for a knock down, drag out fight.  Since I have some new Martian additions this week, I took a turn playing the invaders.  (Full OOB at bottom).

With everything on the table, the Martians have 500 more points than the humans, so we made the scenario favor the home team.  The humans win if they break the Martians force (killing 9 units), and the Martians win if they hold a bit of ruined ground in the corner of the board near the human deployment zone (which the humans also get to choose) at the end of turn 5.  The Martian objective the ruined mound in the back near the church.

Each side got one long edge and one short edge, the humans getting the short edge near the "city". We rolled off and I won, forcing Fritz to deploy first. He went heavy into the corner, castling up near the good cover and the Martian objective. He more or less abandoned half of his long edge, choosing to make his stand near the best terrain.  However, his artillery was pointed towards my table edge, out in the open for optimal line of sight, and heavily guarded by tanks.

I deployed the Slavers and infantry into the city, keeping them out of sight of the artillery and allowing the drones to also make use of the ruins as cover.  The majority of the tripods were evenly spaced down the board edge (so the artillery's barrage weapons would have to hit them one at a time), with the black dust and green gas tripods closest to the city. I separated the grenadiers, placing them in good cover on opposite ends of my deployment zone, both out of the firing arch of the enemy artillery. Then, I placed my newest toy, a Veteran Assault Tripod...

Beautiful isn't it?  A marvel of Martian engineering and adaptability. With a 12 armor, a tank can only hurt it on the roll of a 10, and it is more or less immune to lesser fire. I put it all the way to the left in the ruins, keeping it far away from the artillery which would have the best chance to crack it. It was facing down with what I judged to be the next biggest threat, the MKIV, which also had a number of tanks behind it.

Tripods deployed and preparing to move out.  Fritz was looking pretty nervous as I deployed. He made a comment about how if I won initiative it would be a very short game. Lots of his infantry was just outside of cover, easy to slaughter if I got the drop on him.  Deploying 6" from the edge limited how much we could force into cover.

His worries were for naught. The humans won initiative, and were able to move quickly into solid cover. Even the tanks were using it when possible, although those outside the city itself were very vulnerable (but out of range that first turn).

Fritz's first move was one I expected but figured I could survive. A unit of rough riders rushed forward and immobilized the Veteran Assault tripod.

With the tripod straining against the steel cables wrapping around it's legs, the MKIV and a backup unit of MKIIs opened up on the suddenly stationary tripod. Lots of hits, but only one shot, from the MKIV, got through.

I almost laughed out loud. In a single shot, the Veteran Tripod crumpled into a burning heap.  Fritz smiled and shrugged his shoulders. The fact is, I was expecting just that. Fritz is no fool, and I knew he'd be gunning for it first. I was banking on good luck to keep the tough tripod on the table.  Not the best start to a game for the Martians...

Artillery fire against the mass of tripods was largely ineffectual however, and the loss of one tripod didn't overly worry me. Sucks that I didn't get to shoot with it first though!

The Martians move out, looking for revenge.

I spend about half of my move orders getting the bulk of my forces into range of the human center. My plan was to keep the drones and grenadiers dropping dust into the city while the assault tripods cleaned up everything outside it, especially the ample American artillery.

Inside the city, there was bloody fighting in the ruins, but the human numbers worked to their advantage. It was very difficult to kill enough of them to make much of a difference. The veteran tripod had been placed there as the main heavy support, and to draw fire away from the slavers. However, one slaver now had it's movement systems damaged, and was left at the table edge the rest of the game, firing ineffectually with it's heat ray at long range.

At least I was able to kill the damned rough riders that had tied up my veteran tripod!

Things went well at the center, with two whole groups of tanks destroyed in the initial onslaught.

...as well as the MKII mine layer, which didn't have a chance to drop a mine.

A black-dust deploying Assault Tripod moves in to support the slavers...

At the end of the first round, the Martians control about 2/3 of the board, and Fritz is expressing his doubts of being able to win this given he still needs 8 more kills to win.

He wins initiative again, and doughboys pour out of buildings to attack the drones. I'd left them in the open only because they'd rushed up to finish off a routing unit. In hindsight, I probably should have protected them more than I did.

More rough riders immobilize my other slaver. Not too upset about that actually, I moved it far forward enough that the were plenty of targets for the drones. Small arms fire failed to damage it.

Fritz, hoping to rack up as many easy points as possible, starts gunning for the scouts. One tripod is killed quickly, and another one is brought all the way down to one armor point with a series of hits.

And one more takes it out...

The Martians move again, and start fighting their way into the city on the human flank.

The MKIV, emerging last turn to line up a shot at the slaver, is destroyed by the immobilized Slaver's heat ray. The human center is starting to crumple, but while Fritz may be sweating, there's plenty of HMGs and mortar teams hiding in the back along with both human commanders.

The city center is looking tidier without all those humans cluttering it up...

Turn 3 - the Martians take the initiative. The last remaining scout gets line of sight on the mortar teams, using its targeter to direct fire from both grenadiers, doing some serious damage and killing one human commander.

By the end of the Martian turn, they've broken through the human lines and are flooding into the city.

On the way in, they completely destroy all of the human artillery. There's not much left but a few tanks and a bunch of doughboys to shoot back with.

On the Americans turn, the US Army shows what happens when they get desperate - they charge and throw hand grenades!

The remaining tanks severely damage a green gas assault tripod, including messing up it's targeting systems.

Two undamaged HMG units are in range of the damaged tripod, and they unload in a mass of dice.  The tripod, overwhelmed by the fire, explodes, killing friend and foe alike. A series of exposions rock the ruined city, as an undamaged assault tripod gets unlucky and follows its compatriot to oblivion, taking out even more of the human defenders.

In all, the explosion took out the second assault tripod, the entire unit of shock drones, lobototons, and a two or three units of human infantry.  The Martian force, as unlikely as it seemed to both of us, was broken. Another victory for the US Armed Forces!

A close, fun game with lots of explosions and reversals. I'm pretty sure the humans would have broken the turn before they won if we'd been playing with a break point for them, but we didn't keep track of their casualties.

My wife was very disappointed when she learned about the loss of the Veteran Assault Tripod and the loss of the game. She assures me that she'll show me how it's done sometime soon.

OOB:
US Army: 7 Infantry (210), 3 HMGs (120), 2 Commanders (60), 2 Mortar Teams (90), 2 Rough Riders (90), 4 MKIIs (660), 2 MKIIIs (450), 1 MK IV (190), 1 Minelayer (150) 1 Heavy Artillery (160), 1 field guns (80), 1 AT Gun (80).  2340pts.

Martians: 6 Assault Tripods (2 with gas, 2 with dust) (1400), 3 scout tripods (465), 2 grenadier tripods (200), 1 veteran assault tripod (250), 2 slavers (200), 1 shock drone (65), 1 drones (60), 1 scorpion drones (100), 1 sniper drones (75), 1 lobototon blasters (20). 2835.