Alien Invasion, Chapter 2: Hold the Line

This is the second installment of my modern alien invasion campaign, using homebrew rules that will ultimately also be used in some superhero games.  The first battle can be found here.

After-Action Report

D+9, 1722 Hours

SSG Paul Barbour

B Company, 1st Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment

3d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division

Kuwait City

It all went to hell pretty quickly once the suits and the lizards got into the city proper, trying to drive from their crash site to the oil terminals and the port.  We had trained with the Kuwaiti National Guard unit a fair amount – heck, that was our mission before the ships came and we started knocking them out of the sky.  But there weren’t enough Kuwaitis to go around.  We got plugged into a gap in the line to try and hold them.  We did, but at a cost.

Initial Setup.  US forces on the near side of the table, aliens on the far side.

View from the US right flank.  Aliens are already crossing the road to the nearest covered positions to the US line.

From the US right, able to see aliens advancing toward the middle of the human lines.

Aliens on the opposite side of the same position, using buildings for cover.

View from the alien headquarters element, with the alien section leader giving directions.

View across the lines from the alien center - Bradley Fighting Vehicle peeking around a corner.

A human Gustav Recoilless Rifle crew spots alien movement as the fight starts.

US Army HMMWV gunner spots alien forces across the field.

The onslaught began, with the lizard men advancing in front of the 'suits' - the leaders in armor that shrugged off most of our fire.

The dismounts on our right were lucky and landed both some 40mm grenade and small arms hits on the lizards in the center.

Unfortunately, the bits of lucky fire we had at the outset were soon offset by the charge of several aliens in the center - they penetrated our lines by rushing into a building that one of the fire teams and a squad leader held.  It was brutal.  They wiped out our guys to a man.  I went into the building with the mortuary affairs platoon afterward.  It was horrible.

Aliens defeat humans in a close quarters fight.

Good thing that the rest of the line was keeping up a good volume of fire.  Between grenades and small arms fire, we had some of the enemy positions in tough spots.

US grenade and small arms fire take their toll.

While this was going on, one of the alien drones was still hovering above the fray, and zapped one of the two uparmored HMMWVs that had reinforced us.

A US Army HMMWV goes up after an alien drone engages.

Things went our way as soon as I edged my Bradley around the corner and picked up several shapes on the roof of the mosque in our thermals.  We didn't mess around - I told the gunner to fire a TOW at them.

 Effects on target.

Little did they know - the US TOW missile wiped out the alien command section.

We had some other lucky strikes along the line - the Gustav crew wrecked the building opposite them that had served as a fighting position for another fire team of those lizard men.

"Johnson, good hit!'

It was a great hit, in fact.  The building partially collapsed after some secondary explosions.

"Johnson, great shot!  I'm putting you in for an award!"

Over on the right, the dismounts on the roofs were laying it on pretty thick to prevent a breakthrough like we had in the center.

Orange tokens note actions, red tokens note wounds.

The other Bradley on the right was laying down some good fire, too.

Overview of the action at the end of the first turn.

State of the battle at the end of the first turn.  Effective US fires observable at the far center and left, destroyed HMMWV on the lower right side of the picture.

View from the alien lines.  This position put some rail gun fire on the humans that caused some casualties.

As the aliens continued their advance across the lines, the right was able to hold their positions even though the lizard men continued their rampage through the center of our lines.

Alien team all wounded as they close the gap with the human right flank.

Alien team assaults from the center of the US position to the building holding the US Gustav team.

The other side of the rush across the alley to assault the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle team.  The Bradley Fighting Vehicle let loose at close range, but not quick enough to catch all of the enemy.

Outcome of the alien charge into the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle position - win for the aliens.  Johnson never gets his award.

It was pretty ugly.  The same small group of aliens that hit the middle of our lines continued its rampage and wiped out the recoilless rifle team.  Another episode with the mortuary affairs team I'd rather not dwell on.  Meanwhile, an alien element that we hadn't been tracking jumped the far wall in the compound on our left.  The dismounts in that compound laid down a hellish amount of fire, and a nearby uparmored HMMWV pitched in.

Trying to prevent another close encounter of the worst kind.

About this time, the aliens made a big push on our right.  The guys over there put down a hell of a lot of fire.

A trio of wounded alien on the human right push their luck.

It ends poorly as all three take additional wounds and go down for the count.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle on the US right pitches in with some additional fire.

End result - the aliens lay dead just as they were about to crack the US right.

At this point, it looked like our right flank was okay.  But we had some fighting to do on the left-center of our line.  The infantry position to my left was about to be outflanked and overrun, but we laid down some critical support fire that prevented that from happening.

The alien rush from the Gustav recoilless rifle position to the last US infantry on the human left failed, at least in part, as shown above - gunned down at point blank range by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

And the boys we were helping did a pretty good job themselves at not getting overrun...

The infantry on the US left successfully put down the alien close assault.

View of the field of battle from US lines as the game wraps up.

Though we hadn't really hurt them so much, the armored aliens fell back as soon as we broke the momentum of the assault.  At least for the moment, we had held the line.

The armored aliens beat feet as their momentum stalls.

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This was a much closer game than the last one, and showed the danger that the lizard men pose when they get into close combat with humans.  I'm still finishing up the vehicle rules and stats.  Look for more development in future installments.