Happy Tanks-Giving! (part one)

Mike (and his wife) kindly hosted a game day at his place yesterday which was rather well-attended and a lot of fun! He had two tables set up which became battlefields for All Quiet on the Martian Front and Flames of War. I rode down to Waycross (a two hour drive) with Zig and we both game AQMF a go first, which was a good thing because there were at least eight people clustered around the FOW table. I'm not sure I understand that.

Mark supplied the minis and rules and took command of part of the Martian army. Ziggy commanded the other half of the Martians while I took on the role of general of the Ohio National Guard.

My steamers deployed. That's a fancy name for "tanks." Infantry is in hidden deployment. I had five platoons and ten markers. The odd-numbered markers were actual troops. There are three standard Tripods to my right side - the silver ones. Ziggy's three darker Armored 'Pods are on the left. Their mission was to get past my force and on to Cleveland! President Taft needed us to halt their advance here in Canaan.

Martians roll out!

It didn't take long for one of my turrets to get melted.

Mark's middle 'Pod takes some early damage, fouling its control mechanisms.

One of the great many nasty tricks the Martians have is to sweep their heat-rays, hitting multiple units. Here, a turret and infantry unit get warmed up. Both managed to survive!

Z in his most natural pose.

An early success! The damaged Tripod falls to the ground after being pounded by a hail of gunfire.

My left side, the center of Canaan, is in heap-big trouble. The Armored Tripods are deflecting all incoming shots. Nothing will stick!

An Armored Walker and Mk.III face off. This didn't go too well for my steamer.

 The face of evil. Model's-eye-view.
Two more steamers fall under a heat-ray-sweep. The Martians were always quick to clip a house with their sweep attacks. Scum!









A overview of the situation. My heavies on the left have been wiped. My command vehicle has failed its morale and is retreating. The two standing 'Pods on the right however have been immobilized by bikers with tow-cables. (Think snow-speeders v AT-ATs). I'm still unable to do any damage to the heavy walkers.

The thing with the tennis ball launcher starts dropping green goo on my bikers.

Feh.

More steamers are destroyed by a sweep attack.

Stupid dice. I'd been struggling all game trying to damage the Tripods, primarily because after they'd been hit (the easy part, generally 6+ on a d10), I needed 9's and 10's to damage them. Then I roll this for a to-hit-roll with a trio of 4-inch guns! WHHHHHYYYYYYYY! Can I save that for a damage roll?

A Mk. 3 rolls up and blasts away at a Tripod. The 4-inch guns don't make an impression but a lucky hit from the machine-gun kills the 'Pod commander and it stumbles, crashing down. Hurrah!

The National Guard commander is ecstatic.

The last walker on the right side is surrounded and everything fires at it. Another lucky hit from a machine-gun is what does it in.

But this time the reactor is also hit! A massive explosion! I was lucky to only lose one infantry stand in the conflagration.

The game was over. Ziggy's unstoppable Armored Tripods made it past my units and on to Cleveland. I hope they've started getting in those boats and heading to Canada!

All Quiet is a nice game. It's nothing ground-breaking, being a descendant of the GW method. There was only one game mechanic that I really liked that I hadn't seen previously - each unit lost to a side results in a -1 to that side's initiative. Once a side starts getting pounded, the other side can get some real momentum going.

The game itself was a great time. Even though I got run over roughshod, I was able to take out half of the enemy units. To take the low road, my dice were crap and Ziggy's were unbelievably good. I'd play AQMF again in a minute but the pricey rulebook and minis are enough to keep me away.

Next on the agenda was Flames of War... that'll be the next post.

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