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.