Alien Squad Leader: Human Colonial vs Children of the Gods

 This is a 200 point game of Alien Squad Leader. My army are Children of the Gods which includes Power Armour, Regular Infantry, Floaters, Robot Infantry, a Light Transport and an Avatar. Alex's army are Human Colonial.

 The scenario rolled was Breakthrough, and I was the attacker. This meant I had to get at least one unit off the opposite end of the table as well as to reduce the enemy to their break point. My army wasn't well suited to this as it had very little fast units, and nothing like an AFF that might push through.

 

Alex had a large army that could cover the width of the table, and plenty of heavy weapons to reach far across the table from cover. His compulsary infantry weren't much good but he had plenty of descent units to do the fighting.

 

 I had to concentrate on one side to get a unit off the table. My right was no use, with no cover for me at all. I chose the left where I could tie up the enemy in the centre by attacking from the trees. 

 

My advancing force included Robot Infantry who would ignore near-misses and so not be pushed back, a lot of infantry and a transport. I was going to need to soak up a lot of fire to get a unit to the other side. My Air-Lifted Light Transport is converted from a Star Wars model of Jabba's skiffs and the Robot Infantry are plastic Eldar Dreadnoughts from the epic Space Marine game, trimmed and filed down to give a different shape.

 

Being unarmoured there was no chance the transport was going to zip across the table taking multiple hits each turn, so I dropped off it's passengers early.

Alex had two armoured vehicles behind the ridge and more heavy weapons in the central built up area. My only heavy weapon on that side was quickly sent packing leaving me with no way to damage them. I had to keep moving at double pace though anyway since moving and firing would mean taking twice as many hits.
 

 

On the opposite flank Alex had two more AFVs, a couple of crewed weapons and supporting infantry. I deployed two Floaters to keep them there as long as possible. They survived longer than expected but soon Alex was able to move his heavy weapons to attack my force in the cover.

My Robots were the first to attempt cross the ridge. Now damaged they had to make command rolls like other units. They got into melee with the vehicles but were ultimately destroyed.
 

My troops in the centre were fighting a losing battle against the enemy in the built up area. I could only get about three units at a time in a firing position. My only heavy weapons, from a pair of Floaters were unable to to damage the enemy Defence Turrets which were equipped with scatter missiles and hitting multiple targets with every shot. 

 

One of my three commanders spent about 18 turns in a row attempting to summon the Avatar of the Gods to the field, instead of issuing orders. It never arrived.
 

At one point all of them were driven back by near-misses or hiding with only one hit left. By then all of Alex's troops from the other side were now moving across. 

 

My army reached it's break point, having lost half it's units. I'd devoted half my force to making the breakthrough but none of them got past the ridge. I hadn't destroyed a single enemy unit, I would have needed to destroy 11 as well as getting a unit off the table to win. 

 

 

Alien Squad Leader: Children of the Gods v Hive Mind

 Last Sunday my Children of the Gods army faced Kev's Hive Mind at the club. This was a 150 point game so I didn't have a summoned unit off table.

We rolled a Pitched Battle for the scenario and Kev was the defender so he set up the terrain. As attacker I was able to move one piece so I moved a built up area from the centre to my left corner, denying him cover.

Kev's troops started out of sight so I had to rely on orders to put my units on overwatch, however his tunnelling bugs and flyers were in my rear before I could do this.

When I got units in the rear on overwatch they still couldn't cover enough approaches to stop the flyers. My Light Transport was soon destroyed. The setup meant I had no incentive to transport troops so I just aimed to have it on overwatch but never got the chance. I was reluctant to be distracted from covering the expected mass advance from the front but I soon had to feed more and more units into the fight.

One unit of Robot Infantry, with one hit remaining survived about four turns of losing melee in a row, on their armour saves before they were lost. Four Beasts and three Close Flyers destroyed a large portion of my army on the right, taking hardly any damage themselves.

The brain spiders on the other flank now advanced against my left position, which had been depleted sending support to the other side.

My right flank collapsed and fight moved into the centre, spidery reinforcements started to move up. It was looking like they might win with half their army still hidden away in their starting positions.

As all the units in my centre became engaged the mass of spiders in the centre finally moved up and engulfed them. On the left my units were trapped between enemy so every time they lost a combat they recoiled into enemy and took another hit and became pinned.

My army reached it's break point at 8/16 units giving Kev a total victoy, we finished the turn and more of them died.

My losses were 110 points against only 26 against Kev.

My Power Armoured troops are from MJ figures, inspired by Star Gate, the Regular Infantry are from Corvus Belli, The Robot Infantry are converted from epic scale Eldar dreadnoughts, the Floaters are converted from Necron Destroyers from Games Workshop and the Light Transport is from Star Wars.

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.

Alien Squad Leader: Bristol tournament 2022

 A few weeks ago we held our annual tournament at the Barn with eight players this year. We each played three games over a whole day session.

 

2nd Global War American Union.

 

The giant mushrooms are an Alien Tribal Mercenary army, the (not so little) little ponies are a Hive Mind army.

This Human Cultist's deity appeared in the rear to cause havoc but was forced to recoil repeatedly until it had nowhere left to run.

Human Imperial Strike Force v Alien Tribal Mercenaries

This flank attack by birdmen of the Rebel Alliance didn't go to plan, due to a swift counterattack which drove them back off the table.

Rebel Alliance v Hive Mind

 

2nd Global War Soviets advance.

Power armoured commander of the Children of the Gods and assault tanks of the Human Cultists

 Alien Squad Leader is a 15mm Sci-fi game by Alex Self, published on Lulu.

Alien Squad Leader: 200 points, 700 legs

 This is a 200 point game of Alien Squad Leader. 

My army are Alien Enslavers. The enslaver infantry are from GZG's 'chitter' range of six legged aliens. The Floaters are from Alternative Armies. The thralls are home-made from plastic spiders and round headed pins for the eyeballs. The red beasts are converted from plastic ants using green stuff and the remaining beasts are from various sources. That's a lot of legs.

 

Richard's army use the 2nd Global War: Far Eastern Empire army list, although they have a purely sci-fi look.

 

Richard was defending, the scenario meant his army wouldn't break while he controlled the objective area in the centre. The 3 artillery in the far corner were going to cause a lot of trouble for a horde army like mine. The scenario allowed me to add new entry points on the sides of the table during the game but I decided the number of units I'd be allowed to bring on wouldn't be enough to deal with all the units defending them. Instead I aimed to pour into the objective from the opposite direction.

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Seeing that I wasn't going to try to reach the artillery Richard sent his light tanks forward to engage my left flank, several off them breaking down. 

Richard had 4 units of Cyber-Samurai who were very good but also obliged to charge if possible. I moved my worthless thralls out of cover to trigger them. I could then shoot his premium troops without worrying if I hit my own thralls who neither react to fire or count towards my break point. As the Thralls started dying they pushed on into my enslaver units. I destroyed all four units eventually but I was unable to advance past them.

 My left flank collapsed rapidly under fire from the tanks and artillery.

On my right I opened a new entry point with the intention that the fast primitives would join with the advance already underway. They took a long time to get in position and Richard was able to reinforce the objective, replacing the elite warriors I had pulled out of it.

My beasts went in and lost the combat, they were then being shot at from the objective and the pile up of units was being bombarded by artillery.

Richard's hero went from unit to unit inflicting many hits. Here he attacks a heavy weapon squad (not teenage mutant ninja turtles) in red headbands.

 

By now my army was incapable of any offensive action and it was just a matter of Richard mopping up enough units to reach the break point. So we called it there.

 

My plan for drawing the cyber-samurai out of the objective and shooting them in the open was sound but I should have planned to move round them instead of through them because they hung around for a long time. I should have moved quicker on the right rather than hiding behind slow moving thralls, since they weren't facing that much firepower, then I could have got the primitives into the objective much earlier.

After the game 7 of us played an entertaining board game in which we attempted to flee our own city of Bristol and the plague, called Bristol 1350.