Game #4 of 2011- Wessex Games/Brigade Models' Land Ironclads and a general line 'em up and hit the heck out of the enemy sort of game to try out the rules.
As appears to be traditional whenever I play a new ruleset for the first time, I missed out a particularly important rule. More of which later. The set-up (such as it was) was a force of Olympian Martian War Machines (Doc Neodynium, who else?) looking to mete out punishment to the hairless monkeys of Earth, namely a combined scratch force of German, Russian and British Land Ironclads (potential new AWC member Jamie). The points value differed by 50 points in the end, to the favour of the hairless monkeys, but curiously enough the breaking point for both sides turned out to be the loss of six units.
With the Doc and myself having played Aeronef before, the system was very quick to pick up- essentially Land Ironclads act in order of their Command value, highest to lowest. Once activated, it's basically a case of move and shoot. Land Ironclads however are unreliable beasts, and cannot move if a D6 roll exceeds their Speed value. A nice unpredictable touch, as was the fact that as certain damage levels are reached, players roll to see which Land Ironclad stat values change, unlike the more 'vanilla' reduction of all stats found in Aeronef.
So laughing at their lumbering compatriots, the various contraptions (think WWI tanks) on both sides scuttled and (relatively speaking) whizzed forward. Unfortunately, they were rapidly wiped out by the gun-heavy behemoths of both sides. Chastened by this, the Martian and Terran commanders looked to their Land Ironclads. The Martians managed to ramble forward for the most part, whilst the overall Terran commander was soon concerned by the national characteristics being displayed by the three nations under his command. The Germans advanced in typical efficient teutonic style, the Russians barely coughed along on 1" and the British realsied they were so far the rear and right flank that they'd might not make the fight!
Despite this, the Martians were clearly having a bad day, as all players agreed they'd never seen someone roll so many dice so often and yet consistently avoid 6s. In desperation, the marauders from Mars resorted to stomping on the leading German Land Ironclads, and this proved to be a most effective tactic. Unfortunately, the Martians engaged in this made it rather hard for their compatriots to fire at the other Terran Land Ironclads nearby. This was not a problem for the Terrans who eventually got their guns in range and opened up, much to the chagrin of the Martians.
So what was the key rule that I missed? I forgot that Martians didn't need to roll before attempting to move, and thus effectively hamstrung their ability to nip about the battlefield like things posessed. Nonetheless, they held their own for much of the battle, only crumbling when the unreliable Brits and Russians *eventually* got into range. In an effort to hide my shame, the Doc kindly pointed that perhaps these Martians had already come into contact with those pesky Earth germs that Wells mentioned...
In other news, the arrival of Jamie and the request of a certain junior member means next Friday will see *another* run at The Great Rice Hunt for Charlie Don't Surf. That scenario's certainly doing its part to garner interest in gaming that particular conflict here at AWC...
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