Friday night battle

Hey

Last night, me and my friend had our first Tommorrow's War battle that incorporated vehicles.
We had some issues such as: Can I ram something with my vehicle (it isn't described in the rules) and what happens if my troops crawl from the burning wreck: Do they have a reaction or not.
In the end we decided to not ram things and work things out in a realistic way.

Anyway, we had fun and that's what counts. Altough my friend felt that the rules for morale are to heavy. Perhaps we played 40K for too long :). It is true that once you start taking casualties there is a downward spiral. Personally I like this gritty aspect and find it quite realistic, where my friend thinks it is too rulesheavy and limits the forces too much.

Here's the rapport:
We both had 800 points (using the beta rules for armybuilding) worth of troops and rolled for the mission. I had to exit at least half my force from my opponents edge of the table. My friend had to stop me from leaving and cross the middle of the board by turn 4.

We both failed, I can tell you that.

Turn 1: My friend had initiative and moved forward. Two units were riding in his APC's while one had to slug it out on foot. I had a shot with a guided missile but failed to penetrate his thick deck armour (4D8ATGM versus 3D8 Deck Armour). It also meant I now had to start rolling to see if I got a missile.

Turn 2: Initiative was mine! My vehicles and Mobile suits crossed the open field very fast and I shot at his only vulnerable unit, making 3 casualties. Another shot with my guided missile was another failure. I started to worry.

Turn 3: My friend had Initiative again and moved his vehicles forward. His main gun from the first vehicle easily rendered my scout car with the missiles out of action. Luckily only the crew was killed and since it didn't brew up, I could still use it as cover for my fireteam inside. His other APC unloaded the fireteam inside and shot at other scout car. It brew up in a ball of flame, killing almost everyone, except 2 members of my second fireteam. His Fireteam also shot at my mobile suits and flattened all.

Turn 4: With only one vehicle left, things looked very bad and I almost lost hope. When my friend won initiative again and blew up my last vehicle I thought everything was lost. With a stroke of luck all my Mobile suits stood up, unscarred and where ready to return fire. He fired at them with his vehicle, but my armour saved me. When his Fireteam whot at me I mowed them down in return. Then another lucky shot destroyed my friends hope to win the battle. At the bottom of the table a lucky RPG shot penetrated his vehicles armour and brew it up. Only four of the passengers managed to crawl from the wreck. I shot at them with my other weapons and caused three casualties, pinning them down.

Turn 4: The missions were already lost, but I knew then that I could still win if I could only destroy his remaining APC. The dice gods were kind and I won Initiative. First things first, I shot again at his pinned fireteam, but this time no casualty was caused, his return fire also did nothing. Especially since I was still using the scout car as cover.
Then I moved on to my mobile suits, firing my grenade launcher and assault gun at the vehicle, since these have AT capabilities. With only one die I caused a hit and brew it up in another ball of flame. My leader with his SAW then shot at his fireteam at his table-edge, but he won the reaction and left the table.
The battle was mine!

It was a very exciting to see how it could easily have gone the  other way. Me losing my vehicles left me with almost no AT capabilities. My mobile suits are tough, but as infantry gets an extra die against them and they don't gain a cover bonus they are kind of fragile as well. I've got some infantry and another tank that I'm very busy converting/painting. Perhaps I'll try them out next time.
This was also a battle with two regular forces, I'm curious to see what happens when I field my irregulars.

Enough for now!

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