Mission Two: Oh My!
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| And Suicide it was! |
Mission Summary:
The mission is to get the flamer in a position to flame the northern most room.
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| Flame the top room for the win. |
So I lined up my guys with what I thought would be a winning formation:
My Plan:
So my thought was to bring the Sergeant and Chainfirst up through the upper corridor and the flamer and a regular Marine through the center corridor. The Sergeant would clear the upper corridor and either be able to get to the intersection before the objective and blow the door or allow enough time (after dying a tremendous death) for the chainfist to do the same. The flamer would move into the center corridor and put his righteous flame down through the blasted door to win the game. But...
The Dice Were Just Not With Me:
In order for it to be a fighting chance, the command point rolls (we roll a 1d6 vs. drawing a chit) had to be in my favor. The bug player starts with 2 blips and gets 2 reinforcements per turn which makes for 4 blips on turn 1! From my viewpoint, getting everyone in place in both corridors needs to happen by turn 4 at the latest. Well, my terrible rolls didn't allow that to happen and allowed Ron to get a flood of blips onto the board before I could even turn the bend.
Sergeant Bilko, errrr, "leads the way":
So my Sergeant and Chainfist manage to make the first turn, open the upper corridor door and BAM! stood face to face with what was probably his first encounter with a Genestealer. He promptly fired off a couple of rounds (and recall that my command points were crap) missing every time then decided to test out his power sword (issued to him the day before when he made Sergeant...inscribed with, "return to this address if found") and went on guard. Come and get some, bug were his final thoughts. His buddy, Chainfist guy, went on overwatch muttering into his comms...I got you buddy. The bug in front of Bilko proceeds to evicerate him and Chainfist who can't seem to figure out the aiming device on his storm bolter. Two Marines down. AND no more +1 for command points!
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| Bilko's power sword fizzles. |
Meanwhile, Back in the Center Corridor:
Our intrepid Flamer and his sidekick, Zazu, move confidently up the center corridor, blasting the center intersection to keep the encroaching bugs at bay. Thinking, "hey, Sarge's got this...and I will unleash the emperor's fiery wrath into that room and we'll be outta here" they get all the way to the center corridor before realizing that, well....sarge and chainfist are goners. But hey! Zazu is backing me up and I got plenty of hell's breath left to deal so I will simply turn the corner and blast my way through! "Zazu, cover me!" and Flamer turns the corner to face the corridor leading to the objective. The corridor is filled with bugs and Flamer lays down some wicked fire. With Zazu behind him guarding his back, he was good to go! Well, Zazu, aka "man who can't hit the side of a barn", missed every attempt to kill the bug darting across the corridor to rip into Flamer from the rear and extricate his spine. Game Over!
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| Overall movements and spots where my guys died. |
Next Game:
Didn't fare so well either for Ron but he did manage to get his flamer into the upper corridor facing the objective door. But I had killed his Sergeant in almost the exact same spot as where mine died and methodically chewed through the rest of his Marines leaving the Flamer for last. His death was gruesome as well.
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| Almost there! Turn to the left and there is the objective! |
Conclusion:
I won't post what the results were from 2015 for this same mission as we agreed to leave the comparison's for the end of these 16 missions. There are differences between this edition of the mission and earlier versions that seem to really tilt the game towards the bugs making it extremely difficult to win this one without the intervention of a great deal of luck; great command points and a low initial draw for the bugs (read, all blips of 1!). Maybe the designers decided to make this one more in line with the Star Trek Version of the Kobayashi Maru exercise.
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| I cheated. |
In spite of the insurmountable odds, it was great to spend a couple of hours pushing toy soldiers and bugs around! Especially during this time!
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