Ohio 1, Mars 0 : An AQMF Battle

I suppose the title of the post give it away a bit, but over the weekend Mark J brought his All Quiet on the Martian Front toys over for some early 20th-century shoot-em-up. I opted for the Earthlings, in a reprise of my last game a couple years ago, repping the Ohio National Guard. Mark's collection has improved considerably in the last two years and this time around, the humans had a much nastier selection of kit to field against the filthy invaders.

Mark gets his tripods ready to deploy. His mission was to rescue two downed 'pod pilots - one on the train station platform and the other in the middle of the woods over to the left by the open book. After picking them up, he had to transport them off a randomly determined board edge/corner that was secret from me. He marked the spot with a scrap of paper hidden under the battle mat. I had to prevent the rescue, and ideally capture the pilots myself,

The Martians appear! We went off-script and did an alternating activation, one unit at a time. All units marched in from the board edges.

The brave green hordes of the Ohio National Guard! I had waaay too much stuff and traffic management became a serious issue.

Second Lieutenant Morgo of the Mars Expeditionary Force.

And Major Oong!

Early into the proceedings, a light scout walker gets taken out by lucky long-ranged shots!

And before long, a second tripod is smoked!

But it wasn't long before the Martians got close enough to start boiling and vaporizing my things.

And like Donkey Kong, it was on. The 'pods which had advanced up the left flank burst out in front of my central platoon. My boys were saved from certain doom by the Martians' terrible aim!

But the terrible metal monsters glided ever closer and began crushing tanks and troops, all the while sweeping arcs of death over the brave defenders with their heat rays! My big "Patton" tank had also been severely damaged, though it remained in the fight. It's resilience would prove pivotal.

My remaining tanks redeploy and begin inflicting significant losses on the Martian horde.

Adding insult to injury, one of the Martian pilots ejects into a group of Ohioans. The unfortunate space traveler is immediately subjected to horrific experiments involving rifle butts and pointy sticks.

Guardsmen assault the pod which had just attacked the central position and bring it down! The pilot survives the destruction of his vehicle. ** insert doom-laden riff here **

And that's the last anyone ever heard from Martian Lieutenant Grob.

It wasn't all fun and games for the earthlings. A heavy assault 'pod has a good time with a tank squadron at close range.

And then the Patton is hulled out! Woe is me! It's all-around guns were terribly useful propping up that side of the battlefield.

A sneaky lone steamer gets some kind of lucky and takes out one of the three tripods making a break for it!

The heavy walkers dance on the graves and flaming wrecks of my soldiers and tanks.

One of the rescued pilots loses his ride, mere meters from safety! An artillery prime mover grinds over to assist. Its machine gun fires...

Dakka dakka, space squid!

With that, we called it. I had finished off the two initial downed pilots and won a minor victory. I wasn't able to capture them, but hey, better dead than red!

In the end, I'd suffered massive casualties - 24 infantry and guns and at least 8 tanks, but was able to keep up a steady stream of losses on the Martian side to even out the back and forth firepower. We both had a hell of a good time. We fudged a handful of rules, but the game was better for it and it became a terrific beer and pretzels game - simple mechanics, a fun scenario and a fine opponent. Thanks for bringing the toys out Mark!