All Quiet on the Martian Front - First Club Game

Last week we played out first game (hopefully of many) of All Quiet on the Martian Front. The game was a small(ish) game that was based on the Bunker scenario from the main rule book.  There were three bunkers and trench systems in front of a small town that the Martians were trying to overrun and that the Human forces had to defend.

The Martian force was made up of just 6 models:

• 3 Assault Tripods 
• 1 with a Black Dust Launcher 
• 1 with Green Gas Grenades
• 3 Scout Tripods

The Human force was made up of 36 elements consisting of:

• 1 Command section
• 4 Infantry sections (3 stands in each)
• 1 Machine gun section (3 stands)
• 2 Rough rider sections on motorcycles (3 stands in each)
• 3 sections of Mark II steam tanks (3 tanks in each)
• 2 sections of Mark III steam tanks (3 tanks in each)

In addition to the numbers advantage the Humans had, the also had 3 long trench sections with bunkers in which to hunker down in, and a lot of solid terrain to hide behind.  Would it be enough though?

The Martians had to setup along the table edge, while the human forces were allowed to deploy completely hidden.

Players rolled off and the Humans got the first move.  They responded by revealing their tanks and moving up to fire.  They were able to get several hits from the two units of Mark III's that had deployed in the right hand side of the town.  They scored a critical hit on a scout tripod and took off 5 armour in a single hit, which would make it very vulnerable later on.  They also scored a hit on an assault tripod and took of a single point of armour.

In response to the fire, the Martians moved up, using a command point to double move the assault tripod with the green gas grenades into range.  The injured scout tripod took some shelter in the woods to try and prevent being an easy target.

One of the distant tripods targeted the hidden counter in the trench to reveal a machine gun squad, and then the green gas equipped tripod opened up with his heat ray and gas grenades onto the Mark III tanks behind them, but thanks to AOE also tagged them.  Thanks to so really bad luck on the Martian rolls, the humans only lost one tank.

The Humans did their best to hold the line, but only 1 turn later all 6 Mark III tanks were gone, with only light damage against the advancing tripods.

The Human forces had tried to balance the table, having had to setup first, therefore a good portion of their tanks were on the far left and out of the action for several turns.  Below the left front sees the advance of several squads of Mark II's trying to come to the aid of their allies on the other side of the table.

 

The right half of the table was not going well, as a scout marched down one trench negating the cover that the machine gun team had and wiping them out.  The black dust launcher went to work on the center trench.  The only good news for the Humans was that on turn 3 and 4 they managed to get a whopping 5 immobilized counters on the green gas equipped assault tripod!  These all came from the bikes madly circling it with grappling hooks and effectively hog tying it.

The immobilized tripod made a great target for the 2 units of Mark III's that the humans spent command points to return to the table as reinforcements on turn 3 and 4.  Turn 4 they opened up on it missing on only 1's due to all the immobilized counters and threw a natural 10 on the damage table to blow it sky high!  The explosion also inflicted some more damage on the nearby scout tripod, but not enough to down it.  Unfortunately, the explosion also took out all the brave rough riders that had made the shot possible.

The next few turns involved the Martians and Humans trading shots along the left hand side of the town as they both tried to get the other the the breaking point.  In turn 5 the Martians needed to kill 2 more human units to break them but failed to do so.  In turn 5 and 6 the Humans won the initiative and only needed to drop a third tripod to win, but were obviously shaken from the explosion earlier and could not hit them.  In the bottom of turn 6 the Martians inflicted casualties on a Mark II tank unit and an infantry unit, both of which failed their moral tests and fled from the table, ending the game.

Yet another game of AQotMF that went down to either side being able win in the last turn.  Pretty much every game I have played has come down to 1 kill either way deciding the game, which to me makes for a really exciting game.

While the Martians won the day, only 2 escaped undamaged, and if the humans had been able to roll at least average on any number of occasions they could have won.

The game played out pretty well as the Humans have huge number advantages, as well as the ability to bring back forces, while the Martians see to shrug off huge numbers of hits before cracks finally appearing in their armour.

I hope everyone had a good time with the rules and that we can get more games in soon!  Especially once some of the more specialized vehicles and tripods show up from the wave 2 shipment.

The Martian Front is progressing...

A long while ago I saw a Kickstarter (sorry to use a swear word, at least in Greg's opinion) for a game that really caught my eye.  The idea of the whole game and setting is based on one of my favourite books, even though neither movie made was all that great.  The game is called "All Quiet on the Martian Front" (AQotMF) and based on H.G.Wells book "War of the Worlds".

A Martian Assault Tripod with both a Heat Ray
and the dreaded Green Gas Grenades

The theory of the game is that the first invasion took place and then the Martians died out, but now 10 years later they have come back with a vengeance.  In that time frame though Earth has prepared.  We now have some weapons based on the Martian technology left behind, and have developed huge steam powered tanks and guns.  The look is steam punk / WW1 / WW2.  While it takes place in 1910 some of the weapons and guns would normally have been almost WW2 level, but due to the advances made after the first invasion the Earth is further ahead in the timeline.

Two units of infantry, a command stand, a machine gun unit,
and a squad of motorcycles.

While I got into the Kickstarter because of the figures and being too cool / goofy to pass up (or Cute in the wife's words) and thought that no matter what the rule set was like since the figures were 15mm(ish) I could use them for any rule set we liked.

As you can see, even though it is a 15mm game,
the martians are HUGE!

However as a pleasant surprise the rules supplied are actually really well done!  The rules are written by a few ex-GW employees namely Priestley, Cavatore, and Baker, which makes it maybe a bit more surprising since the current GW rules are not all that great (maybe because these guys left?).  While the rules are not hugely complicated or in-depth, they are excellent in their simplicity and allow a game to play really quickly and "feel" right, meaning it feels like I think it should fighting the Martian tripods.  

4 units of tanks, 2 units of Mark II's (each armed with a single 4" gun)
and 2 units of Mark III's (each armed with 3x 4" guns)

Now that I have two 1000 point forces painted, I will be getting the figures out for a game soon with the Fawcett crew.  Here are the rest of the images of the stuff I have painted so far, and a few pictures of a game that I played with my son to show how quickly things can go wrong...

3 Scout Tripods and 3 Assault Tripods.  Totaling almost 1200 points,
meaning these 6 models add up to 200 points more than
ALL of the Human forces in the pictures!

A Machine Gun unit and a Rough Riders Motorcycle unit.
The Motorcycle unit all have tow hooks and chains and can
attempt to immobilize the Martian Tripods making the easier to hit.

The Mark II steam tanks.

The Mark III steam tanks.

The game is based on a D10 system, almost everything Human dies in 1 shot if in the open, and the game has a move-shoot-move mechanic. The move-shoot-move allows you to pull out from cover, fire, and get back in cover before being shot at, which is critical for the humans.  It also allows the Tripods to advance at a blinding speed though, as the Assault Tripods have a 8" move and the Scouts have a 10" move. Meaning they can cover 16" or 20" respectively in a turn!

In a test game I played with my son last night he advanced the Martians against the town sweeping all the way around onto my side of the table.

 

The Tripods surrounding the town!

To react I spent several command points to bring 2 previously destroyed units of tanks back into play and launched an attack against the tripods trying to pull them away from the town.  However, the tripods are tough as nails and I only managed to damage 1 of them.  The next turn, the Martians turned around and...

The Martians turned to face the 6 tanks...

... and all were gone!
Even before all 4 tripods had finished firing! 
If I remember correctly only 3 had to shoot.

Anyway, there are the images for the new game and models, and while I may get flack from some gamers due to the cartoony nature of the tripods and the over the top steam punk nature of the tanks, I really like them :-)

Best of all, the game play so far is a lot of fast and furious fun.

I can not wait until wave 2 gets here, at which point I will have even bigger Tripods and tanks, as well as some of the really bizarre / goofy weapons like Tesla guns, Land Ironclads,  clamper tanks, mono-wheels, and more!

Oh, and I am sorry to report, that I lost the game by 1 unit to Riley...  He is of course now grounded for the rest of the summer.