Dawn Burns over Tennessee - All Quiet on the Martian Front AAR

Autumn has arrived and Halloween has passed, which means it's time for Fall In!

I signed up for four games over Friday and Saturday, and picked up a few items here and there from the exhibitor hall. 

My first game of the convention was a personal favorite: All Quiet on the Martian Front!

Set up as a "classic" brawl between Americans and Martians that would have been typical during the Second Martian Invasion, both sides consisted of relatively straightforward forces. 

The Martians had three Assault Tripods (one armed with Black Dust, another with Green Gas) and six Scout Tripods. 

The Americans had a reinforced infantry company (with three infantry squads and a machine gun squad per platoon), two platoons of Mk. III Steamers, three platoons of Mk. II Steamers, and a platoon of Steamer Artillery. 

The American infantry was deployed hidden, scattered across the battlefield, with some false "blips" thrown in to keep the Martians guessing.

The game would last six turns, with both sides attempting to break the other (I believe the Martians needed to lose 9 units, while the Americans needed to lose 15). 

As the attackers, the Martians came surging forward, revealing infantry and MG pickets hidden in the woods and buildings. 

Another MG squad was revealed by the Scout tripods. 

The Martian advanced was checked by concentrated steamer firepower, combining the mobile artillery's barrage and the steamers' 4" guns. Scratch one tripod!

One the flank in front of me, the Martians were using the move-fight-move turn order to sweep in, burn out the infantry with their lasers, and then fall back outside of the infantry's range. 

I did forget that the MG's had a 20" instead of 15" like the infantry squads, so I lost two MGs before I was able to fire with them. 

The second Assault tripod went down to the massed 4" guns of the Americans...

As did a Scout tripod on my flank...

And another Scout was taken out! Along with a squad on infantry, but that's a pretty worthwhile trade. 

Confident with their hot dice and the sudden lack of tripods in front of them, the Americans began to advance and press their advantage. 

Two squads of Rough Riders also managed to entangle the single remaining Assault tripod with their tow cables, before speeding off to try and avoid the patrolling Scouts.

Of course, that put the American tanks in the perfect position to be ambushed! Two steamer tanks were destroyed.

The Rough Riders were also slain, with their retreat suddenly cut off by Martian reinforcements.  

My platoon of Mk. III Steamers, which I hadn't been able to get into the fight, were routed and wiped out by the new Assault tripod. 

The American advanced was suddenly checked, with three rampaging tripods in their flank. 

I pulled my steamers back, concentrating fire on the Assault tripod. I managed to damage it's armor, but the Martian war machine kept coming. 

In the center and on the American right, the humans were able to better maintain their lines. 

American infantry attempted to launch assaults against one of the Scout tripods with their Forlorn Hope squads, but the explosive packages turn out to be duds, and the infantry were forced to retreat back to their cover. 

The Assault tripod was felled, but at the cost of one of the American command steamers and 2/3rds of a Mk. II platoon. 

A second infantry assault against a Scout tripod was launched...

With much better results!

The other Mk. III platoon was having much better luck, destroying a Scout platoon in the last turn of the game. 

And here's the table at the end! You can see that the American left flank (my command) had pretty much collapsed, and I had another steamer platoon were routing. However, the Americans had a good command of the center and their right flank. 

Having lost most of their attacking force, the Martians were forced to retreat. The Americans had suffered quite a lot in return, but were in overall better shape. 

This was a fun game overall, and a great start to the weekend!

The Nuclear Option - All Quiet on the Martian Front AAR

Gary, Carl, Bob and I decided to end the month with a big All Quiet bash, with the usual Martians-attacking-humans-in-trenches game. 

The Martians were a collection of Assaults, Scouts, Grenadiers, Slavers and Drones. The U.S. Army featured a wide range of steam tanks, infantry and artillery. Debuting for this game were Gary's defense towers, which acted as an immobile tank platoon.

Winning the initiative, the Martians used their command counters to shove as many Assault tripods up the table as possible. Their heat rays managed to destroy a tower and a single tank.

The humans responded with a roaring salvo. Two tripods went down, and the resulting explosions killed four more!

The destroyed Martian units helped the humans win the initiative. Another two tripods fell to the incoming fire.

Fearing the game would end too quickly, the Martians were allowed a reserves roll. So on came too more Assault tripods and a Scout to spot for the Grenadiers.

The remaining tripods advanced, with one out-of-control machine careening towards the human trenches. Heat rays lanced out and melted several more tanks, along with a second tower.

With the main tank battlegroup out in front of the trenches, the humans opened fire again for a devastating results - to both sides! Three more tripods fell, but the resulting explosions wiped most of the tanks and the remaining defensive tower.

After most of the human's firepower wiped out, the Martians continued their advance, melting most of the surviving tanks.

With so many units destroyed, the Martians won the initiative for the turn. Their long strides took them up to the trenches, but the fortifications allowed most of the infantry to survive.

Defensive fire from the remaining artillery units was unable to do much damage.

A lucky roll let the Martians go first again, and then tripods cleared the trenches, wiping out the unarmored artillery and remaining human command units.

Determined to not go down without a fight, the humans managed to take out two more damaged tripods before sounding the retreat. The Martians managed a victory, but at a steep cost. Out of the 23 tripods that took part in the assault, only 6 remained.

All Quiet continues to prove fun, especially when a Tripod goes nuclear and wipes out nearby units, both friend and foe. Gary's still working on putting together materials for future games, so expect to see some pretty impressive scenarios at some point.

Painting Update - All Quiet on the Martian Front

Today's update is a quick look at the last units for my All Quiet miniatures. 

These units are the last for the humans, and get them up to 700 points (to match the 700 points of Martians that come in the starter set).

The Rough Riders are a pretty awesome unit, reminiscent of the snowspeeders from the Battle of Hoth. They speed around the battlefield, firing grappling hooks and wires at tripods, either slowing them down or tripping them for massive damage. This is the second unit in the human force, added to the first that came in the starter set.

The other two units are commanders. The infantry command squad allows units to rally if infantry units fail a morale check. The command tank is another tank, but can act as a field commander, allowing the player to spend command points during the game.

Unfortunately, as AQotMF is currently dead, this project is probably going right into the "To Sell" pile, and I'll hope its general rarity will increase the price that buyers are willing to pay.

Next, I'm moving onto the Loch Rysk Warhawks, the human Blood Bowl team that'll be the counterpart to the Baltimork Reavers.

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.

Painting Update - All Quiet on the Martian Front

The work on my All Quiet minis continues! Gary's game last week really got me back into painting, and I've finally finished starter set.

Machine guns can be deceptively deadly in All Quiet. Sure, you need a 10 on a d10 to actually hurt a tripod, but a unit of machine guns throws out 3 dice for every stand, so the odds are pretty good. And then every hit scored makes the tripods easier to injure. Plus, they're useful against the hordes of Drones and Lobotons Martians can field, although it may just be easier to target the Slaver tripod that controls them.

While the infantry in the game I had with Gary didn't do much, they're still hard to hit and semi-defensible when they're in trenches or behind fortifications. 

I really like how the blue coats and helmets work with the khaki webbing, masks and backpacks, with the olive drab paints keeping the infantry from looking too much like ACW soldiers. 

And the last of the humans, a unit of MK III Baldwin steam tanks. With three guns apiece, these guys can put out enough shots that are actually capable of injuring tripods at full armor! 

So that's the human forces from the starter box - easy to clean and assemble, and fairly simple to paint. The two units of infantry took the longest, but only because they're much more labor intensive to paint than the tanks. 

In the future, I'd like to get some decals - probably ones from Battlefront for WWII U.S. tanks - to add a little detail to the tanks, in order to break up the somewhat monotonous blue scheme.

Now, onto the Martians!

I decided to go with a bronze/brass color with my Tripods. The one above is a little lighter in the picture than it is on the table. This was also after the very coat of paint, and the brush strokes are still fairly obvious.

I'm happy that the final result looks pretty good. A brown wash and a dullcote spray varnish took a lot of the shininess away from the paint, and made the brush strokes much less obvious.  

One side affect is some 'crackling' of the paint along the upper side of the rim of the tripod's head. It's a little annoying, and I don't know what caused it. but it isn't very noticeable at arm's length. 

I followed some other examples that converted a Black Dust cannon into a Green Gas launcher, and I think it turned out well.

So that's the Martians! Wow, that took a lot less time than the humans. While the tripods are very, very large compared to their opponents, they don't have as much detail as the infantry. I would advise anyone painting tripods to avoid doing what I did - actually painting the main color on over a black primer - and simply chose a colored spray and use that as a base coat.

So now it's on to other projects. I'm working on a Kingdoms of Men army for the newest edition of Kings of War that just released, as its causing a bit of a buzz with the guys at 7th Dimension Games. I've also got some Litko bases coming from Noble Knight Games, and with those in hand I can start working on some Early Imperial Romans and Ancient British for DBA.