Raid on Orktebbe! (6mm FUBAR Battle Report)

Last Thursday Greg, Indo and Dave V. came by for the game. Greg had come up with a scenario - rules were the excellent one-page "FUBAR" SF skirmish set, scale was 6mm (!), the game would continue the loose narrative campaign that we'd been creating.

Greg had proposed the title "Raid on Orktebbe" and that got my imagination fired up... it had to be the Spooky Corporate Mercenaries making a daring raid on an Ork-held spaceport facility! The SCM's rolled in with three squads of five models, led by a "senior vice-president". Each squad had an RPG in addition to assault rifles and the squad leader's LMG.

SCM leader

 

Here's the Orks - there was a ton of them - mostly boyz, but led by a scary tooled-up leader and accompanied by a Killa Kan. Indo and DaveV. ran these guys and I took my SCMs.

The Boyz squads were salted with heavy weapons too.

Scary Ork boss

 

Here's the table layout. The Orks had hijacked the camo-painted aircraft sitting on the runway, and the SCM's were tasked with recovering some indeterminate item of value from the plane. One SCM trooper would need to spend a turn next to the aircraft to make the grab, then get off his home table edge, all in the 10-turn limit.

Satellite image - two squads of SCMs and their leader deployed at bottom, and the other squad was dropped at the middle top.

Here's the Ork deployment around the objective.
 

SCms advance to cover behind the Ork interceptors, and exchange fire with the Killa Kan (middle top beside the explosion marker).

And KABOOM! - concentrated SCM fire power blows up the Kan.

More Orks rush towards the fighting, including "The Boss".

Boss and boyz get stuck into close combat - due to some appalling die rolling by me, this spelled the end of the SCM squad.

 On the other table edge the SCMs were making good progress...

I guess it was about Turn 5 or 6 that the first SCM trooper reached the objective. Unfortunately the Orks arrived just after and close combat ensued, not all to the SCMs' favour.
 

However, after a bloody combat the SCMs got things under control and withdrew with haste towards their table edge. The three models at bottom are carrying the objective item, the five at upper left are running interference from the remaining Orks. Note Ork lone-nut assassin at centre right, the only survivor of his squad.

A brief pause to obliterate the lone-nut assassin!

With a comprehensive explosion! (I think the SCMs scored something like 10 hits on him in one round of shooting)

Everything appeared to be well in hand for the SCMs and they were withdrawing in good order with all Orks outside charge range. However Dave V. and Indo surprised with a bold move - running all remaining Orks up at full speed, gambling that they would win Initiative.

The first three SCMs made it to dust-off - mission accomplished.

But it was close!

THIS close!

What an exciting game. FUBAR is a great little system, and we've made a few tweaks to make it run a bit more to our liking. One of them is the "free activation" that can be used once each turn even if the die roll fails. Speeds the game along and keeps lips from getting too pouty (speaking for myself). I love playing with these li'l individual 6mm guys and I think the game looks really cool. Thanks to Greg for running it and to the guys for coming out! 

Battle Report - FUBAR - The Orks Make Another Escape

The "deal" goes down on 24601.

Last week Dallas hosted a game of FUBAR, 6mm sci-fi skirmish.  The game provided an opportunity for Dallas to premiere his excellent new 6mm detachment that he received for Christmas.  The game would pit Dallas's corporate mercenaries against the nefarious Ork mercenaries who had been a plague upon Mining Colony 24601.  Here are some pictures and a short recounting of the game.

Ork mercenaries pre-game

The Ork mercenary commander

Dallas' awesome troops - infantry from Brigade, and tanks from GZG

Dallas and Brian took command of the Corporate Mercs, while Dave V rolled with the Orks.  The Orks had to hold the mercenaries back while they loaded their stolen components onto the transport craft (working on behalf of parties unknown).  The Mercenaries had hard-hitting power armour troops and sleek grav tanks.  The Orks had some clunky tanks and gun trucks and less-armoured troops, but also sported a pair of anti-tank guns.  They also had the mercenary commander and his mega-armoured bodyguards - very vicious customers.

Ork skirmish line at the start of the game

The corporate power armour enters the table...slowly....

The table was about 4' x 4', with an unmarked but suspiciously well-equipped landing strip at the back corner of the table.  This was the target for the Corporate Mercenaries - if they could spend a whole turn beside the transport and then escape from one of two pre-designated table edges, they will have managed to - ahem - "transfer" the goods in question to new management.

Corporate tanks advance.

Now that's a flank shot! Dave's near-suicidal tactics pay handsome dividends.

Dallas and Brian tried to use the armour to go up the flank, while the infantry punched straight up the middle.  This simple-sounding plan did not pan out very well, as they suffered from awful dice-rolling, particularly on command rolls.  Time was of the essence for them, and the troops struggled to move at all while the Scottish Number held sway. As a result, the armoured thrust moved ahead of the power-armoured troops, and became vulnerable.

Armour without infantry support - it ends in tears for the Corporate guys...

The Ork mercenary commander and his bodyguard literally tear the corporate tanks apart

Dave rolled quite Vegas for his part, and got major mileage out of his outmatched-on-paper tanks.  The Ork tankers made very aggressive, high-risk dashes for the flanks of the merc hover tanks, and managed to sell themselves dearly.  The Ork AT guns also held out very well, knocking out some mercenary tanks before the power armoured infantry overwhelmed them with missiles and assault rifles.

The key decision point in the game came when the un-supported merc armour got within reach (literally) of the Ork mercenary commander and his body guards, who used their power claws etc to rip the tanks apart.  I'm sure the power armoured infantry might have had something to say about this, but all those "1"s for activation rolls were hurting...

Dallas and Brian gave it their best to make up for this loss- the merc power-armoured infantry mowed down a number of the Ork grunts, but they could not get enough command rolls to move forward to the objective.

Heavy fire from the Ork infantry slows the corporate troops down, but does little harm in the end.

The transport prepares to take off - the transaction is complete...

Final result - win for the Orks.  The mysterious components stolen from Binary Petroleum have now moved elsewhere. What will this mean for the humble Colony 24601? Only time will tell...

Final shot of the game - the corporate troops are sweeping toward the target, but it is too late.

We have played several FUBAR games now.  Overall, I think it gets high marks for being simple and fun, but it does suffer in one respect - the whole "roll to activate" approach.  I think this is a great mechanic from an abstract game design perspective, but it sucks as a player.  In the end, bad luck with the dice is bad luck with the dice, whether it is a roll to hit, or a roll to "activate", but in the mind of the player, I would rather have a "chance to shoot" and miss rather than have no chance to shoot at all.  

As it stands, units that fail to activate get to go on a kind of Overwatch, but it's still not that fun to go through, and when you are putting on a game, having fun is the key! I am going to fiddle with the rules a bit to try and ensure some basic options (i.e. a move, or shoot at -1, or something) are always available, even on a failed activation.

Stay tuned for further FUBAR adventures...

Game This Week - FUBAR 6mm Sci-Fi

We were going to attempt this a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately some unforseen real life issues screwed up plans. The plans have been re-loaded, and this week we will be playing FUBAR,  using 6mm figures to skirmish in sci-fi.

As the unfortunate colonists of Colony 24601 struggle with Ork attacks, the Orks themselves are finally ready to complete their job, delivering some unspecified parts stolen from a Binary Petroleum facility to parties unknown.  They have bloodied the noses of the mechanized reservists who had been sent to pursue them. The meeting to deliver the goods and get the cash (or teeth or hacked FutureNetFlix accounts or whatever) is all set up. What could possibly go wrong?

Hope to see you tonight!

6mm FUBAR force

One thing about our group of gamers, is the variety and insanity of the multitudinous projects we're all working on.  Back in November, Greg sprang 6mm skirmish gaming on us, and it looked so cool I had to jump in with a force (one hesitates to call 30-odd 6mm models an "army") of my own.

My infantry consists of 24 power armoured suits, organized into three sections of seven, and a three-man command section. The power armour troops are the very Ma.K.-like  castings available from Brigade Models. Incidentally, I hear tell that these models may be available in 15mm in the not-too-distant future... if so, I am down to clown like Charlie Brown ;-)

This is the command section, distinguished by the "skull" motif painted on their armour. A stripe on each arm indicates Lieutenant rank and platoon command. Right-arm stripe distinguishes NCOs in the command element, while squad leaders have a stripe on their left arms.

Sections are designated by letter; this platoon consists of "K", "R" and "S" sections, names for the first initial of the squad leader.

Transport provided by the Fliegende Schuhkartons (models from Ground Zero Games)

Heavy support grav tanks from GZG as well. The grav vehicles in the force are supported on their bases by small metal pieces from Brigade Models.

Medium grav tanks also from GZG. I have to say that I was not terrifically impressed by the quality of the GZG casts I received. The heavy tanks and flyers especially suffered from heavy flash and indistinct detail in places. The flyers in particular looked like they had been pulled from damaged moulds, as the areas around the engines was pretty messed up. I fixed them as best as I could with paint.

Pretty difficult to get the paint details to photograph in 6mm! Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting these guys on the table. I imagine that they're a mercenary force, as there is no national or corporate insignia on the vehicles or suits. The platoon is lead by Leutnant Ziegler and is currently under contract to 769855 Terra Inc., a numbered company subsidiary of ZaxxonMobil Corp. Perhaps ZaxxonMobil also has an interest in the geological activities underway on Colony 24601? Only time will tell...

New bits for FUBAR - 6mm Sci-Fi

Late last year we had some fun with FUBAR, using the rules to play some sci-fi skirmish games in 6mm. Dallas has been sucked into the fray, and I understand some of his Christmas presents are in production right now, so to encourage him along, here are some shots of some reinforcements for the hard-hit reservists of Task Force Bravo, trying to defend the resource-production colony number 24601.

Bikers to provide recon - the figures are from the old Imperial Guard epic-scale sprues

In their last encounter, the Task Force got shot up pretty badly by the Ork mercenaries.  The military authorities have sent some reinforcements to help out in the form of some regular mechanized troops - a section of three bikes for recon duties, two squads mounted in Ramjack APCs, and a pair of newer-model tanks.

With the exception of the bikers (which are GW Epic 40k models), all figures are from Dark Realm Miniatures.

Mechanized regulars from the Pax Arcadian forces

The mechanized infantry consists of two eight-man squads of regulars, each with one AT launcher and one grenade launcher.  The infantry squads are mounted in Ramjack APCs, newer model vehicles from the main Pax Arcadia mechanized forces. 

Close shows a sergeant (front right) and AT launcher trooper beside him

Each eight-man squad has a Ramjack APC

Rear angle shot of the Ramjack APC - yet another gorgeous 6mm figure from DRM

The tanks are Rampart-class, vehicles on the heavy side of "medium", much newer models than the old Mammoth heavy tanks that have been providing the armoured oomph to the column so far.  These tanks do not mount guns that are as heavy as the Mammoths, but they are faster, and have more advanced optics and hard-hitting, advanced rounds.  The sloped armour is made of newer composite materials. 

The Rampart tanks have a more high-tech, advanced look to them - again, the quality from DRM is amazing

As a final touch, the governor of the colony has sent down a squad of his elite household guard troops.  These are elite heavy infantrymen - they are not on hand to join up with the Task Force, but have instead received orders to guard the public facilities in the main settlement.  It remains to be seen where, if at all, they will see any action...the reservists and regular soldiers scoff at these "toy soldiers", but are privately impressed with their high-tech equipment, and are hoping they will help out if there is further serious fighting.

Household guard, represented by DRM's "Industrial Infantry" - really cool castings

Sadly, I couldn't get this lit properly - but these are very unique "heavy infantry" for 6mm

I look forward to seeing Dallas' 6mm FUBAR lads on the table - it will be great to add another "faction" to the unfolding drama of the Orks, Binary Petroleum, and the unfortunate colonists of 24601.