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Wednesday 21 August 2024

Moon Wars Campaign Part 3

 This is the third post in a narrative campaign between Space X and Blue Origin to control the moon's resources. 

Campaign Background

Space X has built a base on the moon to support the establishment of a colony on Mars. Blue Origin has built a base to support the establishment of its O'Neil Space Habitats. Both have found that their dreams are larger than the capital and resources they have available.

Space X has decided on a hostile take over of Blue Origin's assets on the moon and has launched a surprise attack in an extension of their corporate competition for the moon's scarce resources. Luckily Blue Origin has had time to prepare some defenses but they will still always be out numbered by Space X.


Battle Three    Scenario 22 Ambush (from the OHW scenario book)

A Space X force of 6 units is besieging a Blue Origin base. While outnumbered,  a Blue Origin relieving force of 4 units needs to destroy the larger Space X force to break the siege.

Space X has been caught by surprise and their squads cannot move or fire until turn 3.

To win the game Blue Origin need to destroy all of the Space X squads by turn 15.

Rules used:   FFOL Bigger Battles

The vehicles accompanying the Space X squads are purely decoration. They represent the squads' supplies as they besiege the Blue Origin base. From turn 3 I have added red and yellow rods to indicate who is firing at who. Red for Blue Origin and Yellow for Space X.

In addition to the terrain specified by the scenario I have added three large solar collector arrays for Space X to hide behind. Without these the scenario seems a bit silly considering the weapon ranges.

Some of my older readers may recognise the Blue Origin base being the Airfix D-day gun emplacement  repurposed from Normandy to the south polar region of the moon.


Start of Game. Blue Origin relieving force has reached the edge of the craters from where they will launch their relief effort. The Space X force has one squad guarding the craters, one squad near the base and their remaining four squads at the top of the table hiding behind the solar arrays. My plan for Space X was to use the two squads in the open to hold the Blue Origin force until Space X could activate in turn three.

End of turn 1 - Blue Origin has destroyed the first Space X squad and moved out from the craters to fire at the second Space X squad. The Blue Origin squad in the base has moved out to flank the main Space X force.

End of turn 2 - Blue Origin has killed three squad members of the Space X holding squad and a complete squad from the main force.

End of turn 3 - Only two Space X squads remain. The Blue Origin flanking force decimated another Space X squad sending it remaining two members fleeing from the battle field. Space X has managed to kill three members of one Blue Origin force but they are still outnumbered.

At this point of the game you would expect the remaining Space X forces to flee or surrender. But as my little metal men know no fear they battled on!

End of turn 4 - Space X manage to win the activations and can destroy one Blue Origin squad and finish off another. Unfortunately this leaves one squad in the open for Blue Origin return fire and this Space X squad is destroyed.

End of turn 5 - Space X needed to activate first, destroy one Blue Origin squad and then hide from any return fire. Unfortunately they activated second and were decimated with just one survivor running off to tell HQ the bad news.


Final Thoughts.      As mentioned in the last game, if one side gets the balance of the activations and moves or shoots first they get an enormous advantage, especially if they out number their opposition. Anyway a fun scenario to play out.

Now it is one win for Space X and two wins for Blue Origin. Will Space X be able to claw back a win to tie the campaign? Or will this go down as one of Elon Musk's business missteps. As bad as buying Twitter.

Figures

Astronauts with Guns and the vehicles are from Pendraken. I forgot to add the small craters for additional table decoration. I have corrected this in the next battle.

6 comments:

  1. Oh I love the solar panels, If the squads get wiped out really easily maybe increase the number of men in each? It's been awhile since I've read FFoL Bigger Battles so I need to do that again. I have my first game of FFoL BB in about 2 weeks so after that could provide more feedback if desired.
    I also like the space station with the cute green dome and that retro looking rocket. 😁

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    1. Thanks Stew for your comments on the terrain.
      I thought about increasing the squad size but then you also increase their firepower so probably end the same way.
      I wonder if adding the Quar rules going prone rule would help. Or even using the entire Quar rule set instead of FFOL.
      I don't use the leaders or any of the traits. I am not sure that it would make much of a difference.

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  2. Great repurposing of the Airfix gun emplacement and the solar arrays look good too. Will you stick with FFoL given the randomness with activations?

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    1. Thanks Peter.
      I will stick with the FFOL for the last battle. But am considering using the Quar rules that Stew went through on his blog.
      Or maybe go in a completely different direction and use some WW2 or WW3 rules. Even One Page 40k rules. 😂

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  3. Great stuff Ben - somehow, I missed the start of this campaign but am all caught up now! One thing I like about the home brew rules we have been using occasionally recently is that you fire, then move AND that the target automatically returns fire - so, regardless of who goes first, there is less likelihood of one sided combat results like you have experienced here - I guess it depends what you like - some gamers probably love the ability to wipe out the enemy with two or three turns of "going first" - but you have to be prepared for it happening back at you at some point!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Keith. I think the firing back sounds good.
      Sometimes if the activations go perfectly for one side it seems like the other side is just standing still.
      I am going to look around for a better set of rules or maybe make my own.

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