Aliens and Cultists AAR

Zig and I got together for some toy soldiers last evening. We decided on my home-brew skirmish rules. I put together a scenario featuring my recently painted cultists being interrupted during one of their gatherings. The interruption of course was an alien landing. The aliens were there to collect bodies and subjects for experimentation. The cultists were simply trying to save themselves.

The space invaders arrived in the four corners of the tabletop. Two at around 24" away from the center, two others around 30" away. The distancing was done for play balance - it would have been tough for all the aliens to arrive at the center at one time.

The cultists surrounding the circle began their chanting early and often in an effort to summon some otherwordly assistance!

Tobor gets the action going my sending a blast of energy at the earthlings!

All the chanting pays off! Brother Frank's vessel is consumed as a mighty demon appears!

Big 'Un heads straight for Tobor.

The stars must be right - in no time, two Winged Hunters also burst forth from the summoning circle and set upon an alien. The aliens have the South Georgia chapter of Dagon's Faithful surrounded. Some of the brothers leave the circle and take the fight to their attackers.

The fight was intense now! Tobor managed to break off from the demon. Down in the lower lift of the picture you can see two aliens dragging bodies back to the craft.

Moments later, cultist Earl was subdued by a pair of aliens and one started to lead the poor bastard off to a flying saucer! 

Tobor managed to get the better of the Demon.

The cultists were too scattered and beaten up to make a difference at this point. Here we see two aliens dragging bodies back to one of the space craft.

Poor Earl. He showed back up in town a few weeks later but he was different. He didn't talk so much any more.

At the end of the day, that was a damn entertaining game. Good weird story, tense action. It looked like I was going to get slaughtered early on, but once the Winged Hunters got into the action and the summoning circle broke up the cultists got back into the fight quickly. Before the game, I set the aliens' victory condition as retrieving 5 "body points" work of humans - that's 1 point each for corpses and 3 for living subjects. Halfway through the game it looked unachievable. As it turned out, it was perfect! Ziggy's handling of the aliens was pretty solid. He was bothered by their lack of shooting prowess, but if it had been any better, I'd never have had a chance.

I liked the summoning mechanic though I may need to increase the amount of Summing Points required to summon the critters. To generate Summoning Points, cultists had to stand idle next to the circle. At the end of the turn, regular cultists generated one point each. Cult Leaders would generate d10 points each. I rolled terrifically well each times and the summoning circle was churning out monsters like Universal Studios.

I hope you're not in your quaratine for very long, those of you in affected areas.We've been lucky thusfar in Savannah and there are no enforces curfews and quaratines. Work has been a zoo, deploying staff to work at home and quickly turn up telemedicine systems for physicians. Stay safe, be well and good gaming!