Fields of Smoke - All Quiet on the Martian Front AAR

As the 7th Dimension group was unable to gather for another round of our EotD campaign, Gary brought out his All Quiet collection for another game, with my own collection getting added in. This time we were joined by Russ and Carl. 

We were playing table-length again, and this time it was a meeting engagement between the American and Martian forces. No trenches for the infantry to hide in this time!

The Martians only had a 6" deployment area, meaning that they had to keep a trio of Assault tripods off the table, ready to move on in the next turn. Gary had has usual collection of Assaults, Scouts, Slavers, and hordes of drones. Carl would be the other Martian commander.

Russ and I would be controlling the humans. My force was primarily made up of militia infantry and tanks, with some regular military units joining them on the left side of the road. Russ' force were the tanks and infantry on the road, and everything to the left in the woods and beyond.

With the Army rumbling past and the impact of the tripods' movement growing louder, the civilians in the area began to flee their homes.

As the Martians had the first turn, none of their weapons were in range to fire, so most moved twice, hoping to get into heat-ray range quickly. The humans advanced as well, with their armor out front and infantry following behind. Some slight damage was done to the tripods, with the artillery focusing on the Slavers, hoping to take them out and their Drones at the same time. The two squads of Rough Riders moved out, hoping to close and entangle the Martian machines.

Turn two saw a lot of smoke markers getting placed on the table. The Martians opened up with their heat rays, slagging a bunch of the oncoming human tanks. The regular Rider platoon lost two of its three stands, but the two Rider units managed to tangle the two tripods they went after. More shots from the tanks either went wide or crumpled the armor of the tripods to little effect.

Events continued to go poorly for the humans. On the right, only a single Mk II and a command tank remained, and the infantry were forced to advanced past their burning hulks as the Martians kept coming. Russ was having slightly better luck on his side, with most of his tanks intact. 

A cheer went up from the human side as one of the Slavers blew up. It didn't injure any of the surrounding tripods, but it did destroy a number of drones. 

Russ's luck quickly ran out, however, as a line of tripods obliterated his remaining tanks, only leaving a single Mk III that took an unbelievably large amount of firepower to bring down.

With only three tanks remaining on the table, it was up to the machine guns and artillery to do some damage to the oncoming Martians. The infantry, out in the open, was getting hammered by Drones and the heat rays of the larger tripods.

With the last of the remaining tanks wiped out, the humans were getting dangerously close to the break point. Still, the infantry advanced, hoping to take out a couple more tripods in close assaults. the second Slaver did fall, however, and with it went the Drones. Another tripod on Russ' side exploded, but didn't set off any chain reactions. 

Unfortunately, the Martian heat rays swept enough of the infantry off the table to finally break the humans, who were forced to retreat once again. Victory to the Martians!

Russ and I had a rough time of it, with some exceptionally poor dice rolling. Gary and Carl took full advantage of that fact, happily stomping and melting our toy tanks with their big, mean tripods. But it was another great game, and I'm definitely glad that Gary's got more All Quiet items on the way. Hopefully we'll get to see the big town that Gary's had in the works.