From: Los <los@c...>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 22:06:40 -0400
Subject: [FAM&SG2] Incident at North Haven Part 3 (AAR)
SO now I set about preparing for what I thought would be the most interesting scenario. AN assault on an underground base pitting a small group of power armor against a larger group of security men (in combat armor and autorifles) I had two goals. 1. Make sure Zack won one game so he would be excited about continuing on in SG (His enthusiasm had been barely dampened by the two defeats). 2. Test out the FMA rule sin this type of setting. To prepare I grabbed the box top to my Formula De game (our late night family entertainment), some other cardboard boxes, scissors and tape. I then constructed walls and hallways with the cardboard and scissors and set them all inside the formula de box top. There was one way in, a central hallway then another hallway going down one wall. ALl together there were about 12-15 rooms. I made some partitions and closets within some rooms, and desks, consoles etc. It came out rather nicely in about 2 hours worth of work. A whole exciting FMA game would now be played in an area the size of 2' by 1 or 1.5'. I was pretty psyched with my handiwork. SO the mission is this a squad of 6 PA guys (all elites with 4 2s a 1 ldr and a 3) against 12 CSF guys. The CSF player was given 28 chits (12 live 12 dummies, 1 objective chit and three booby traps). He set these about in all the rooms. It would be the PA player's job to scan or search each room (If he was smart) before he entered. Character stats for the CSF men (they were all vets) would be genned up as they appeared for the first time. All were armed with combat rifles and grenades. The CSF player could also move his counters dummy or real as he saw fit as if they were normal troops. For this game all movement was 1d6. SO here we go. The 6 PA (one with a PPG) guys get through the airlock (It was assumed they ahd stealthily taken down the up top access.) Zack of course rushes the first guy out does a scan and uncovers 3 guys in a wide main hallway. The fight is on. Essentially, the power armor guys would never even get into that main hallway for the whole game. All action would take place in the access room, security control hallway (right outside the access chamber room) and the security office adjacent. Though lots of firing and grenading would go on in that main hallway also. This was through no fault of the system, which works great for this kind of scenario, but due to the inexperience/ineptitude of the two players. A few key points to be made. Especially in this room to room type of scenario. A figure blocks all access by him if he's in a doorway. Player models also black firing unless you want to kill your own guy. Over watch is important. Per the rules we allowed overwatch as the one action and then in an enemies action the overwatch player can fire. But what I did is I made it so the overwatching player HAS to pass a quality die roll to shoot. This is important in this short range split second type of action here you are not sitting there tracking the guy for two minutes before you pick him off. In real life even sitting in a room aimed at the door, in a porperly executed breach against quality shooters, you will most likely be shot before you get a shot off. It just takes your brain a second or two to process what's going on and pull eh trigger. Now if the other side is noisy or screws up you may get the drop. It's way we've always noted that it is the SECOND guy through the door that's apt to get shot. ANyway I digress, but that's the reason for enforcing a quality dr check before executing an overwatch. If you fail, then the guy who just came in will get off his shot with his second action. What I'm toying with is if you still survive, then you can shoot if you pass a second quality roll? I'll toy with it. But this kind of thing is essential to captured the dynamics of a split second room entry. Also of course you have several guys on overwatch or in the room you are in better shape. Of course if the other player has several models so is he. WHich brings me to another point. Grenades rule. Both player rapidly realized that any movement into a room had to be started off with grenades. Adding the extra quality roll to put the thing through the narrow openings was important. We also allowed a hook shot around a corner while keeping covered. Another mistake made (I mentioned this already) was there was a lot of freezing in the door frame (We call this the fatal funnel). This automatically blocks any further movement into the room unless the guy gets hit and falls down or is physically dragged out of the way costing an action (can't be done unless the guy was hit). Also re: wounded power armor. I made a two-step process out of this. First off anything other than a hit is no effect. If you get a hit and fail to penetrate then you suppress (I believe it mentions this in the rules). Once wounded The model does nothing till the end of the turn. We had a wounded phase where all wounded on both sides then rolled to see if they died, were stabilized or returned to service. A returned to service guy has to pass a quality dr.If he fails he does down ONE QUALITY LEVEL for the rest of the game. (Note: This is all done by the PA suits med kit.) On the next turn there is a subsequent wound roll and anyone stabilized. 1d6. 1-3 the suit immobilizes them and they can't move for the rest of the game. 4-6 return to service. Automatic one level quality loss. (Look anything power enough to penetrate that suit is gonna fuckin' hurt!) Also 1d4 move instead of 1d6. Anyway back to the game. This kind of fighting is very savage. Our PA trooper rapidly learned that just because he has a suit on doesn't make him invulnerable. The CSF player, eventually activating all his guys and running them to the vicinity of the fire fight, used a gpood combo of overwatch fire (even if mostly masked!) and grenading to slowly force the PA trooper back into the initial access chamber room. (Interestingly enough about 4 of his casualties were due to friendly fire and frags!) SO the remaining PA guy (all others were dead as were half the CSF) had been frantically shouting for help turn after turn. I relented and sent down four more PA guys. They arrived to find all their mates dead. They toss a grenade out into the security control hallway that kills two CSF. The remaining CSF set up is like this: Oustide the access chamber in the security control hallway he has a guy in one corner on overwatch. Somehow he survived. In the doorway to the main hallway is another with a grenade on overwatch. The first PA guys does what? Stops in the doorway. He's shot in the back. But it's no effect. Rather than concentrate on the other guy with grenade who is the next threat, cletus here spins around and fires at the first guy! He second guy now tosses the grenade but only succeeds in making noise and suppressing everyone.There now continues a period of about three turns where both guys are shooting at cletus at damn near pointblank range. CLetus is still in the doorway so everyone behind him is useless. He keeps spinning back and forth firing at the last guy that shot at him instead of the next threat. No one is hurt of killed though suppressions pop up and a quickly removed. Finally cletus goes berserk, attacks the guy in the corner and is promptly wounded. At least the next guy can move up but as he does he's rewarded with a grenade in the access room and kills him. Now the next PA guys says screw this, and fires off his rocket launcher (don't ask me why he brought that down) at point blank, hits the grenade thrower in the chest and redecorates the walls. He then steps out and finally kills our hero in a close assault. That leaves 2 PA guys standing vs one wounded CSF guy a few halls down who surrenders. There's one or two other wounded CSF guys who were dragged out of the way too. ANyway, it was a game marred by bungling of tactics and I was glad to see the incorrect tactics rewarded in the exact way the y would have in real life. Likewise, properly executed room clearing (it happened once or twice in the sway of battle) were rewarded with success. Everyone had GREAT FUN, and we played for about 4 hours. ALl on that little piece of board. Would probably make a fun con event. Plus it's so small fer chrissakes you could hall it down to a pub and play on some corner table and noone would be the wiser. Zack got a win (even though I told him he would be cour- martialed by incompetence) and the whoel three scenario event will probably have him riding on a sci-Fi and miniatures war gaming hi until I see him gain at Christmas so I've done my job to "further the cause" if you will. I know we weren't playing strict FMA rules but everything I implemented was learned quickly and kept the game going rather rapidly so there was no bog down and for me at least this last scenario had the right feel to it. So FMA gets a big thumbs up I'm going to keep playing it and I'm always printing off what people are suggesting here and will try them. Cheers...