Tomorrow's War Campaign Game 1: Hover Craft Rescue

This is the first game in my Tomorrow's War Campaign.  The campaign follows 2d Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Squadron, United Nations Legionnaires, deployed to the world Sanctuary.  As part of the United Nations Expeditionary Force-Sanctuary, they have been tasked with peacekeeping in the restive Chinese colony prefecture also named Sanctuary.  The Sanctuary Prefecture remains restive because the Chinese government moved large portions of its Uighur population to this planet.  The Uighurs enjoy being geographically far from the CCP's center of government, and are trying to establish political separation as well.  An insurgency ensued.

While pulling static security at a local prefecture security site, a hover craft moving supplies into town and toward the platoon's security site was hit with an IED.  The platoon moved to rescue the hover craft driver who was stranded in a hostile Uighur neighborhood outside the security site.

The platoon, divided into Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta Lances, was supposed to be reinforced with combat mechs or ground drones.  They didn't have that, so four lances, with five men each, set off to go save the stranded hover craft driver.

The hover craft driver fleeing his stricken vehicle.

The platoon was set up in it security site a few blocks away from the portion of the old city where the hover craft was disabled.

The landing pad inside the UN security site.  An ornithopter sits on it above the front gate security shack and an air processer.  The platoon is assembled at top right.

The platoon gathered and checked weapons.  They got an earful from the UN political advisor and the UN military coordinator at the security site.

The UN military coordinator tells the platoon to get moving and rescue the stranded hover craft driver.

While the platoon was getting yelled at by the UN military coordinator, the platoon was really wishing that they would get reinforced by the ground drones at the compound, pictured at bottom right.  Because of political sensitivities, this didn't happen.

The platoon set off to get the stranded hover craft driver.

Right outside the UN compound, the district commissioner's compound overlooks the IED site.  The Legionnaires grumbled amongst each other about how unlikely it is that he didn't know anything about the attack.

The district commissioner and his head of security watch the IED strike site from the compound rooftop.

Two lances advance toward the IED strike site.

A lance leader always leads from the front.

Two insurgents appear from behind a corner and try to get the drop on the UN platoon.

The insurgents don't win initiative and pay the price.  Unfortunately, an old man walking down the street wandered into the line of fire and went down as well.

The district commissioner watches the carnage develop below.  Is he upset?  Or is collateral damage part of a plan to separate the UN from the population?

The UN Legionnaires advance and secure the old man to render first aid.  

A lance of Legionnaires clears the corner where the insurgents appeared and secures a hot spot to shut it down.

The Legionnaires who helped the old man render first aid.  Luckily, they roll a '6' and he's not hurt at all, saving the UN a bunch of lost Victory Points.

As two Legion lances advance down the dirt road to secure the hovercraft site, one breaks off into a compound to secure a potential insurgent hotspot.

Legionnaires in action.

Unfortunately, pushing that lance of Legionnaires to secure the hotspot took them off of Overwatch, and a cell of insurgents try to exploit it by opening fire on the Legion fire team moving in the open without support.

Unfortunately for the insurgents, they draw a Fog of War card and suffer a morale failure … call it a total eclipse of the heart.

… and take two casualties.

With a firefight breaking out, the district commissioner gets off of his roof and meets up with his security detail.

One UN Legionnaire goes down to enemy fire. Buddy aid would put him back in the fight.

The insurgent team under fire decides to break contact after taking casualties.

Meanwhile, on the southern road, another lance of Legionnaires advances to try to flank the insurgent position.

An insurgent team emerges from cover to fire on the flanking UN lance, but loses initiative and one man.

The fleeing insurgents make good their escape.

The forward-most lance of Legionnaires makes contact with the stranded hover craft driver.

"Man, am I glad to see you guys!"

Another lance of Legionnaires secures the area.

Legionnaires in action.

In the post-game phase, all UN casualties recovered and one lance gained the ability to look at the top of the Fog of War card deck and decide whether or not to shuffle those cards to the bottom of the deck.

This was a successful first outing with the Tomorrow's War rules. As with Force on Force, the game flowed well and the outcomes met the common sense test. Looking forward to the next game in the campaign!

Modern Warfare: Alien Invasion, Chapter 3 - Milk Run

Milk Run
Carthage, Missouri
D + 9

In the early days, before they were openly raiding cities and leveling towns, the aliens emerged cautiously.  At first, much of their activity was to gather food.  Apparently, their crashed ships didn’t have sufficient food stores on board. 

They also like beef.  This raised a lot of questions about whether the stories of cows being mysteriously eviscerated before the invasion were from advance parties or not.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter.

There I was, getting some gas on the way back in town.  This was at the station across from the Parsons farm.

Then things got weird.  Like call 911 weird.

***Operator:  911, what’s your emergency?

Me:  Hey, you should get some cops out here.  There are – I’m not crazy or making this up – aliens trying to take a cow from the Parsons place.  Route 93.

***Operator:  We already have city and county units on the way, and we think the National Guard is coming, too.  Please stay on the line.  Some of our radio connections have been jammed, we may need you to provide an update.

Me:  Sure, whatever…  Okay, there’s a bunch of cops pulling up. 

Me:  Oh, man, things just got sporty.  Old man Parsons and his kids are taking shots at the aliens from their barn!

***Operator:  What’s going on?  I can’t reach any of our units?

Me:  Well, never mind about old man Parsons.  The aliens didn’t care for that at all…

***Operator:  Okay, I’ll dispatch EMS.  We’ll have medics there in a few minutes, hopefully.

Me:  Oh, man, a helicopter just flew over and fired at the aliens!  Are you doing this?  Please tell them to keep it up!

***Operator:  No, sir.  Like I said, communications are tough.  I’m surprised I can talk to you.

Me:  Oh, one of the cops is down.  Definitely send the ambulance.

***Operator:  Thank you, sir.  I’ll make sure EMS is on the way.

Me: Better hurry up with the ambulance , things are getting nasty out here.

*** Operator:  I'll see what I can do...

Me: Thank goodness that cop is okay.  And the State Troopers arrived with the National Guard.

*** Operator:  Good, the ambulance is on the way.

Me: The aliens are on the move, but our boys are too. 

It turned into a mad rush at that point.  Our boys were spoiling for a fight.  And the aliens were trying to abscond with Old Man Parsons' cows.

Me:  The aliens are dropping!  We've got 'em on the run!

Me:  There's just a few of them left!  Our boys are winning!

Me:  Hooray! The boys did it!

**********

This was the third game in the Modern Warfare:  Alien Invasion series - here's posts one and two.  This is the first using Tomorrow's War, the Ambush Alley sci-fi wargame.

If you browse this blog at all, you'll note that I've probably played and posted more Force on Force AARs than anyone else on the internet.  The commonality between the two systems is strong - Tomorrow's War is basically Force on Force with some technology-specific tweaks to account for a sci-fi setting.

We'll be sticking with Tomorrow's War.  The game flowed well and we were all used to how the Ambush Alley system is supposed to play.

As for the gameplay, the Tech Level advantage of the aliens worked for them until it didn't, and then they were overwhelmed by numbers and some bad rolls.  A good time was had by all, and we plan to get some non-40k aliens and start a campaign using the Tomorrow's War campaign system.

Special Ops Extraction

We tried a new mission type for our latest Force on Force game, a special operations team extracting an enemy VIP in the Middle East.  In this case, it's a scientist with deadly WMD knowledge who the terrorists would rather kill than surrender to the Americans who came to retrieve him forcibly.

This game took place at night, with visibility limited to 18 inches for the terrorists, who lack night vision goggles (NVGs).  The eleven operators are d10 Troop Quality, d12 Morale, and the terrorists are d6 TQ and d10 Morale.  The four-man team moving with the scientist, the transport team, suffered the Dependent penalty and could not make a Rapid Move.  The overwatch team was set up outside the compound ready to move back to the extraction vehicles at the far end of the board.  The vehicles were being guarded by three female operators that eldest daughter wanted to paint while her brothers were painting.  Eventually, she'll have five of them, so they'll be Fem Force Five, but until she finishes a couple more they'll just be the Fem Force Three. 

The chances of the terrorists sounding the alarm increased with each turn - roll a d6 and get a 6 on turn 2, get a 5 on turn 3, and so on.

Here is the compound where we had just liberated the scientist over the dead bodies of his two guards. 

The plan was to take the back road and avoid detection.  The overwatch team began to move, but a unit on the roadside saw them, and we knew we were in for a long night. 

The overwatch team exchanged a round of fire with the enemy fire team that had identified them, and the whole neighborhood was alerted.  We shot all but the leader of the squad, but took a casualty of our own - one of our men was wounded but living.

That brought their reinforcements moving toward us.

The ensuing round of fire gave the overwatch team another casualty.

The overwatch team pulled back behind the corner of the objective building and made successful wound checks at the beginning of the next turn – no wound for one casualty, a light wound for the other.

The overwatch team quickly recovered and went on the offensive, laying low the enemy fire team blocking the transport team’s movement.

And both teams moved out of the target compound and into the street…

Another group of terrorists emerged to confront the assembled fire teams, but got shot down in short order.

Of course, this just brought more terrorists out of the woodwork…

Another terrorist cell encountered the firepower of the two fireteams, dropping a number of fresh casualties on the ground.

More importantly, however, we had to worry about enemies lying in wait on the rooftops along the extraction route.

The terrorists also got their act together and called in a technical that came barreling down the road.

The technical, however, didn’t last very long.

After picking their way through the neighborhood and several more exchanges of fire, they reached the extraction vehicles being guarded by Fox Force Three.

Post-script:  This was a closer game than the above report really shows.  On several occasions the advanced first aid chart that elite troops use in Force on Force saved the operators.  Both fire teams were slugging along with wounded troops and were a bad roll away from mission failure on several occasions.  I feel like this was about the limit for Troop Quality d10 regulars versus TQ d6 irregulars.  The game system really does balance differing troop types well.