2017 6x6 Challenge - May

Games Played in May

Ambush! - SAGA AAR

Flames of War - SAGA AAR

Barn Storming - Fistful of Lead AAR

2:10 to Jaeger City - Fistful of Lead AAR

2:10 to Jaeger City - Fistful of Lead AAR

For our second game, Carl and I decided to use the "3:10 to Yucca" scenario from the  Fistful of Lead rulebook.

The roughs would need to get the captured bandidos leader to the coach to secure victory. Meanwhile, the sister of the bandidos leader had shown up, hoping to free her captured sibling and escape.

 With the rough's leader providing covering fire from the old fort's battlements, the roughs moved out.

The bandidos didn't waste any time, opening fire on the roughs who were stuck out in the open.

Fighters on both sides were taking hits and diving to the ground. As both sides continued to fire at each other, the sister fell in combat against the ex-Army officer

The roughs were bogged down, unable to recover from their wounds or being pinned down. One bandido rushed the downed hostage-holder, hoping to free the captured leader.

That combat didn't go in favor of the bandido, who was killed by a lucky shot from the prone rough's pistol. But that distracted the rough long enough for another bandido to sneak up behind and put a bullet in his back. Now free, the bandido leader took off running without a second glance. On reflection, she had never really like her older sister all that much.

This was a fun, action-packed game with plenty of back and forth on both sides. If Carl's shooting hadn't stopped the rough escorting the hostage, I might've had a chance to get her onboard the coach and secure victory. Instead, I suppose the roughs will need to watch their backs for some time.

Barn Storming - Fistful of Lead AAR

Carl and I got together these weekend with the intent to put on our spurs, don our ten gallon hats, and head out into the West with a couple games of Fistful of Lead. 

The first game was fairly simple - a head-on clash between our two gangs of roughs. While I had an advantage in numbers, Carl's bandidos were equipped with rifles, out-ranging my pistol-wielding men.

After all the cards had fell on the first turn, both gangs had advanced towards the center of town.

The air was soon filled with lead. Brazenly, my gang attempted to surround the bandidos, who were hoping to get into the cover of the barn after their leader had kicked the door open.

Both sides took casualties, as a pinned rough in my gang ran for the hills, while a bandido fell, blood staining the front of his shirt.

Led by an Army officer gone rogue, the roughs continued to poor lead into the barn, with the bandido leader falling to the ground.

Two of the roughs tried rushing the barn door, hoping to get at the remaining bandido. One caught a bullet in the stomach and was killed. The other took advantage of the situation to unload his pistol into the prone enemy.

The last remaining bandido was dispatched from a distance.

As it turned out, the rifles weren't much help when the fighting was so close against the weight of fire and advantage in numbers of the roughs,

It was only after the dirt and blood had settled, however, that the roughs realized that the bandido leader was still alive. They recognized her from a wanted poster in the nearby saloon, and after securing her with some rope, the gang retreated to the abandoned fort to decide on what to do next...

Bowing Out - Shadow War: Armageddon AAR

The group gathered on Wednesday for more games on the war-torn world of Armageddon. 

The first game was against Mike and his Grey Knights in the Raid scenario. The Grey Knights would be defending against Harlequins, who would need to destroy the entrance to a bunker before reinforcements could arrive. 

The Harlequins rushed the two Grey Knights that had deployed, with both falling in close combat to the xenos. The bunker entrance fell soon after. The Grey Knight reinforcements didn't arrive until late in the game, but were unable to stop the Harlequins from retreating off the table and winning the game. 

The second game was against Pat and his Imperial Guard, who had managed to Ambush the Harlequins.

Unfortunately, the guard had split up, leaving a convenient group of three troopers vulnerable to the Harlequin's speed. The xenos ran out of cover, their prismatic blur keeping the worse of the enemy's fire at bay. A single round of close combat was enough to down all three of the guardsmen, forcing a bottle check and ending the game.

Finally, I faced off against John and his Chaos. This was a straight Kill Team Fight, as John wanted to see just how nasty a full force of Harlequins could be.

The answer? Very, very nasty. Despite the Chaos Marines essentially hunkering down at the opposite end of the table, that didn't prevent at least two of the Harlequins from getting into close combat. The final tally end the end of the game saw three Harlequins and seven Chaos Space Marines taken out of the game, with Chaos bottling.

So, I've decided to drop the Harlequins. They're simply too powerful for the league, and even increasing their invulnerable save to 5+ doesn't change the fact that they're difficult to hit at range, and are absolute monsters in both shooting and close combat. I picked up a couple boxes of Ork boyz to make a new, hopefully fairer, kill team.

Arachnophobia - Gruntz AAR

While I'm still waiting for my VTOLs to arrive, Gary was kind enough to let me borrow his DEVGRU and USA forces to use in Gruntz against his Prang. 

Our game once again on the eye-searing Prang homeworld. We used a scenario in which the humans would need to defend three objectives as reinforcements came onto the board, while the Prang would need to destroy those objectives in six turns. As the defender, I placed two objectives on both flanks of my table side, while Gary placed his objective behind the rocky formation in the center.

The humans started with their infantry and snipers prone, and three spider tanks. The Prang had their entire force on the table - a collection of slow, heavily armored tanks and APCs, and a massive dropship.

The Prang started by double-timing across the table. 

The humans got a single ATM armored car to arrive. Then the spider tanks emerged out of cover and opened fire, scoring solid hits against the lead Prang vehicles.

The Prang returned fire, scoring some hits. An APC speed towards the objective on the human's left side of the table, disgorging a Prang infantry squad into cover.

The humans received another reinforcement as a heavy wheeled APC rolled onto the table. Their second salvo ripped into the Prang forces, destroying a tank and two APCs.

The Prang pushed on, using their dropship full of warbots to get behind one of the humans' spider tanks and let rip with its weaponry. The humans tried to focus fire on the dropship, but between the damaged systems on the spider tanks and the dropship's micro-CIWS, most of the fire was ineffective. 

With the clock counting down on the scenario, Gary raced his dropship further into the human lines, approaching the objective on the right side of the table. The spider tank in the middle of the table finally fell to Prang plasma weaponry.

Unfortunately, further reinforcements and concentrated fire brought the dropship down, along with the warbots. Another APC was destroyed, and the armored wheeled APC used its Gatling gun to mow down the remaining Prang infantry by the left objective.

The Prang moved in for one last push, with their infantry mortars decimating one of the defending human infantry squads. But there simply weren't enough Prang units remaining to make much of  a difference. The humans finished the game by taking out the Prang mobile artillery unit.

The VP count at the end of the game gave the humans a solid win, thanks in large part to the spider tanks. They're extremely mobile, relatively hard to damage, and pack enough firepower to do some major damage on their own. The Prang vehicles might have been more heavily armored, but enough concentrated fire from the humans was usually enough to get through the aliens' defenses.