Droid! Droid! Who's got the Droid?

Played another game of FFoL: Galactic Heroes at The Launchpad Game day February 9th.  This was the scenario from the rule book where the rebels have one droid with half the plans for the Death Star.  The other half is with one of the four droids roaming around the town.   The rebel pair of two five man teams starts in one corner and must make it to the starship at the port in the opposite corner.  The Imperials have two five man teams.  One in each of the other four corners with the mission of stopping the rebels and capturing the tow droids with the plans.  The rebel objective was to get both droids to the waiting spaceship at the port.   The imperials was to prevent this and capture both droids.

My plan was to send the majority of my teams to my right  and angle towards the spaceport.   A small covering force would try to pin down the imperial team coming from the left corner.   Gary commanded the two imperial teams.   Gary was able to get to all four droids before I could.   He found the other half of the plans with the third droid he reached near the fuel depot and crawler.

While my delaying team was able to hold off four of the imperial troopers from the team they were facing.  My main force was held up engaging the other team in a firefight.   The fifth member other team had worked his way around behind the tavern to get to the fourth droid, keeping him out of action.-

Gary had back luck with most of his shooting die rolls, getting out of ammo at least three times during the game.   My shooting die rolls were a bit better.   Eventually my two guys engaging the left imperial team took out two of them and the other two headed towards the spaceport.

On the right I was eventually able to prevail taking out two of the right hand imperial team and the fifth one from the left who had moved up to the port along the main street in hand-to-hand combat.   Another two imperial troopers were also shot down leaving Gary with only three men left to try and prevent my remaining eight guys from getting to the ship with the two droids.   I had managed to shoot the imperial soldier who had captured the other droid and had two of my men move to it and take control.  

In all it was a fun game that took a little over two hours to play.  I took a few pictures at the start of the game.   There was so much happening during the game that I forgot to take more.

 view from my starting corner.   about half of my guys have moved.   the droid I started with is the white object just below the lab with the cards on top of it.   The tavern is just above the lab.   The playing area was three by four feet.   I started by sending one team leader and two of the regulars towards the left team. and initially positioned the heavy weapons specialist near the fence by the lab to support them.   On turn three I moved the leader to the right hand group along with the specialist.  One of the wandering droids is the grey object just above the building to the left of the lab.   Another was at the back corner of the tavern.   A third was at the spaceport near the landing pad and buildings.   The fourth, which turned out to have the other half of the Death Star plans, was wandering along the main street near the crawler and the fuel depot.

 The container yard with the other imperial team moving towards the port.  towards the end of the game I took out this team leader with a to hit roll of nine and followed that with a to wound roll of nine.  The crawler and the fuel depot are out of the picture at the bottom left.

The waiting spaceship at the port.   This was a two deck plan that I printed and glued to artist mat board.  

More pictures of the spaceport buildings can be seen at East Mosley spaceport

East Mosley Spaceport

My last project for January was to assemble a batch of buildings to use with Galactic heroes.   The buildings are from two different suppliers.  The blue buildings are available on WargamesVault and are the blue Babylon set.   The set is also available in red, yellow, and green.  I used them for the spaceport offices because they could be printed with signs like security, administration, and habitat.  The set also included a transmitter tower.

The other buildings are from the Mars Station set made by WorldWorks Games  They make western, medieval, and other sets in addition to scifi.  The building components can be assembled in different sizes ranging from 2 inch by two inch up to 7 inch by 7 inch or even larger if desired.   They can also be single or multi story.   I am going to be adding some additional buildings from this set.   The set also includes barriers, some interior items and various other props, along with cargo robots and a crawler.   It also includes a spaceship landing pad.

 Spaceport buildings on left, cargo containers on right.  Transmitter at lower center

 Taxi at lower left.   Crawler at lower right.   Large two story building on right is the lab.   One in the center is the tavern.   Fueling station to left of tavern.   

 Other shops and residences 

Another view of the spaceport facilities.

The buildings from both sets are in PDF form and as many buildings as desired can be printed.

The Epedition, A Game of Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes.

I ran a game of Galactic Heroes at the South Bay Game Club's February meeting.   The scenario was a scientific expedition was investigating a mysterious abandoned alien site.   Word had come that teams from other star nations had been dispatched to capture the scientists and the site.   The scientist had to gather as much data as possible plus any artifacts and make it back to their ship.  There were four teams of varying strength and capabilities arriving from different directions with the objective of capturing the scientists and data and preventing the others from doing so.

Greg had the expedition and on the first turn he was able to remove the device next to the large circular metal platform using two of the scientists while the third was inside one of the buildings gathering equipment and data.   Meanwhile Scott, Curtis, Manny, and Frank were advancing as quickly as they could.

Removal of the device next to the platform was to have am unexpected consequence.   At the end of the second turn the platform energized and eight strange creatures appeared in the middle of it.  Greg was already moving the device towards the ship, moving at a crawl.

I had included the jokers as additional wild cards for the game.  If one or both of them were played the creatures would move after all cards of that type had been played.  That is, if a joker was played as a king, then once everyone had finished with their kings the creatures would then move and attack anyone in sight.

During the first two turns Greg had moved some of his men to positions to try and cover the directions that the other teams were coming from.  On the third turn his third scientist bolted from the building carrying the data he had gathered and ran for the ship.   Two of the creatures went chasing after the scientists and caught them while others attacked the buildings and a couple of guards that were nearby.   Surprisingly the creatures were only able to stun the scientists while another was immediately dispatched by the guard that it attacked.   Manny opened up with his missile launcher firing at the group of creatures that were attacking the buildings.   Both shots were accurate stunning and wounding four of them and killing a fifth.  Two more creatures arrived at the end of the third turn.

Greg had also been trading fire with Curtis and Manny's teams While Scott and Frank continued to advance towards the ship.   Greg moved the guard team leaders to help fight the creatures attacking the scientists.

The fourth turn saw more action everywhere.   Greg was able to eliminate the creature attacking the scientists with the device and stunned the other one attacking the third scientist.  The two with the device headed towards the ship while Scott and Frank   The two scientist were almost to the ship and both Scott and Frank had men in position to possibly intercept them.    It was not to be though as the two scientists were able to board the ship before they were caught.   The third one had recovered and was desperately trying to get to the ship when Frank's man attacked and knocked him out.

Rumbling noises were heard from the ship as the engines were being warmed up.   Frank fired a missile at the ship attempting to disable it, but the missile bounced off and landed on his man and the scientist.   The explosion took out both of them.

Curtis had blown a hole in the side of one of the buildings sending a pair of men inside to see if they could find anything, but it was empty.   Manny landed another pair of missiles on the eight creatures that had arrived the explosions left five of them wounded and/or stunned and killed two.   The last one went after one of Greg's men who turned out to be the one who had already slain two of them.   He added a third kill.

The game ended as the ship took off with the surviving scientists .leaving the remaining guards behind.  Manny's team had gained entry to the other round building finding a large batch of data that had been left, while Curtis entered the pyramid and found some also.

At the end of the game five out of nine of Greg's guards had been lost.   Both Curtis and Frank had lost a couple of men.   Both Manny's and Scotts forces were intact.   Greg placed first, having escaped with the device, Manny was second with the most data collected. and Curtis was third.

Scott started the game with twelve men including a leader two specialists and nine regulars.  All of them armored with laser rifles  Manny had seven with two of them being the missile team along with a leader and a specialist.   Curtis and Frank had a leader, a specialists with a heavy weapon, a regular and six grunts.  Curtis had Jump packs and Frank had armor.  Greg had two team leaders, a specialist and six regulars along with the three man science team (grunts)   The table was six by five with low hills and scattered woods.  

I was so involved with the game that I only took a few pictures.   These are from after the third turn of the game.

 The alien site with the platform activated.

 Scotts force in two groups at the left (Strike Team 13.  Mannys at the top center

 Curtis' team at the left center in the woods.  Difficult to see due to matching combat suits.    Franks are at the center of the picture.   

Greg is still trying to rescue the third scientist at the center of the picture.  Frank's team is at the center right, Scotts is at the lower left.  Curtis is at the top center.   Manny is at left edge of picture.

The Gauntlet gaming convention

On the weekend of January 19th and 20th I attended the first Gauntlet gaming convention.   This was a historical only gaming convention for miniatures and board games.   It was held at what was once the officers club at former McClellan Airforce Base.

In addition to open gaming there was a Flames of War tournament on Saturday and a DBA tournament on Sunday.  Both had at least ten participants.   About 50 to 60 participants showed up for the two days, There were more present on Saturday than Sunday, though  there were a few new arrivals for Sunday only.

I ran the battle of Trebia on Saturday using Scutarii.  The game followed history with the Romans flanks being overwhelmed and the infantry being surrounded.  It was somewhat questionable as to whether the infantry would be able to cut its way through the center before being broken.

Saturday evening I took part in the battle of Trafalgar as the French commander using Form on the Admiral's Wake rules.  My first broadside scored a critical hit causing a magazine explosion, eliminating one British 74.  Wind was to be a major factor for the game causing both first the Franco-Spanish fleet to end up in Irons.  Then after most of the fleet was able to tack out of irons the wind shifted again putting everyone in irons except for one British ship.  Half of us had to leave before the game ended in a draw.

Sunday I participated in a WW2 eastern front game as commanding the Russians.   The rules were Blitzkrieg Commander 2nd edition.The scenario began with the Russians having broken through the German lines with the lead tank brigade attempting to exploit the breakthrough and a hastily assembled German kampfgruppe attempting to stop them.  It was a close game with the Germans eventually halting the Russian advance after crossing 2/3 to 3/4 of the table.

The afternoon game was a small French and Indian War frontier skirmish using A Fistful of Lead: Horse and Musket rules.  I had a settler, his wife, and four frontiersmen attempting to protect his cabin and fields from a raiding force of nine Indians.   The Indians eventually overwhelmed the defenders, losing only a couple of braves.

Other games of note were Rorke's Drift on Saturday and Islandwahla on Sunday.   In addition to the miniature games there were a couple of board games played on Saturday and Sunday.  Photos of the games follow.

 Zulus at Rorkes Drift

 Napoleonic naval game, homemade rules.

 Rorke's Drift being set up.

 The Trafalgar game using Form on the Admiral\s Wake

 Flames of War tournament tables

 The Roman army deployed for battle

 The Carthaginian army.

 Jim the Roman consul watches as the Carthaginian army advances

 Greg in front and Bud in back.  Commanding the Carthaginians.

Roman left wing cavalry hard pressed by elephants and Gallic Cav.

Left wing of the Legions breaks. 

 Roman right wing cavalry and Triarii desperately attempt to hold back Elephants, Spanish and Numidian cavalry

Hanno's flanking force has arrived and advanced towards rear of Roman lines.

SUNDAY GAMES

 The Blitzkrieg Commander Game

 DBA tournament about to start.  Mike, in red shirt, pondering his army list.  Mike managed the convention, making sure the games had the tables they needed.

The Islandwala game.