Sunday 17 December 2023

Alien Squad Leader

Alien Predatory Warhost vs Outlaw Gangs, 200 points.

 


My army consists of beasts with guns, while they can shoot like infantry they react as primitives, fleeing rather than falling back to cover. They are also subject to a blood lust rule that forces them to chase after wounded prey while ignoring a better target that may be available.

Alex's Outlaws are split into distinct gangs each with their own leader, under a supreme leader. Unlike most armies they total number of units destroyed doesn't matter, only the leaders count towards their break point and I need to get half of them.

The scenario gives the defender (Alex) an objective area near the centre to defend, his army won't break unless I contest the objective.

The defender sets up the terrain and the attacker gets to move one piece. The table only left one practical line of attack,on the right side. I deployed most of my troops hidden in the corner ready to move up through the cover.

 On the left I deployed heavy droids with their heavy weapons, hoping to tie up a portion of the enemy. Some of my troops were off table due to the scenario and could come on at entry points defined during the game. Some of my troops were stealthy and were able to occupy some cover close to the objective.


Alex deployed a gang with heavy weapon armed vehicles to face off against my robots, infantry in the objective and motorised units in the rear.

My stealthy units couldn't be seen unless they fired or the enemy were within 10cm. I knew most of my army were going to move through this terrain piece so I grabbed the opportunity to charge the objective in the first term before Alex could put them on overwatch.

After doing a little damage were pushed out into the open and shot up. A light vehicle gang came round the side of the objective to try to finish them off, pushing one to the table edge.


I brought my units on from off table into cover and moved my other troops up as room allowed but the layout only allowed me a small area of cover to fight from. Outlaws made several forays into the cover and were driven out each time.

 


 But I was making no progress moving into the objective. I had a character who attached himself to a squad and did well, but blood lust made difficult to fight effectively.


On the other side a long range duel ensued the robots and heavy weapon trucks. When bikers came out to chase down my fleeing beasts I moved some robots around to shoot at them and ended up on a ridge where I could cover the objective and the trucks. Some vehicles came over to attack my reduced flank but I shot them up, driving one of the table.

With time running out I had killed none of the gang leaders and had only contested the objective for the first two turns, I wasn't close to breaking at that point but there was no prospect of meeting the victory conditions and I would have lost eventually. The game went to points and with a 14 point difference in losses in Alex's favour it was (just) a draw.