AAR: Stardust Ground - Space Marines and Space Bugs

 Well, my trip to Southern Front was cancelled. Sick mom, sick father-in-law. Stuff happens, whatcha gonna do? Well, what I did was get in a game of Stardust Ground with Mark. He's played more SDG than anyone but me, so he's always a good opponent. Since I just finished up those new Space Marines, they were of course on the short list of forces to be on the table. The Bugs, Mark's favorite, were an obvious second since their abilities had been tweaked since their last outing and they had a couple new units to test out. 

The Marines and the Bug forces are searching the area for lost relics scattered from a recent dropship crash.

I set up a 4' x 4' battlefield. Forces were deployed in opposite corners with three objectives diagonally across the table. Only two of three objectives would count, but we wouldn't know which until the game ended.

My deployed forces, the bugs have begun their moves. 

And after our first moves. Man, those bugs are quick.

Blue Bugs (the basic chompers) smash into my Marine squad on the right in no time. My Rhino had managed to zot one of them with its Storm Bolter. This made the close combat quite manageable. 

I have more coming in the center though!

The fuzziness of victory on the right!

But on the right, the Fire Bugs crash into my Terminators. The Termies are tough but were outclassed by the big swarm. Stardust Ground skews close combat in favor of larger units and those bugs getting a +8 to my +5 on the close combat roll was a tough pill to swallow.

But I've got buddies! The Assault Marines arrived in a convenient location to help and the Dreadnought charged into the mess as well. The Dread embarrassed itself getting immobilized by the bugs. I also lost a Termie.

Shit's about to get real though, as the bugs have reinforcements heading up the hill... Blues and a damn Doom Scorpion.

My squad in the middle is in for it. Chaplain Charlie does his best to keep the boys motivated.

Hazzah! A second Dreadnought arrives as a reinforcement for my Marines. Convenient location, it spews rounds at the Purps. Sadly, it only manages some pins. 

Driven by whatever drives a gigantic space bug, they absolutely crush the remains of the center squad shortly after. Ugh, what a loss!

Not to be outdone, the Doom Scorpion's first round of close combat goes remarkably well, absolutely dismantling the Assault Marines. What a terrible turn for the Marines!

The crap continued as those Purps who survived the Assault Cannon fire from the Dreadnought gobbled up a Marine stand and Librarian Dan.

Super Rhino gets a measure of revenge killing another stand of bugs with its Storm Bolter.

The Godforsaken Scorpion does what the Blues failed to do finishing off the immobilized Dreadnought. 

At the end of the game, my Marines had been thoroughly whipped, but I'd managed to nab two of the three objective locations, and wouldn't you know it, they were both the "live" objectives! Mark won a military victory by all measures, but the Marines had managed to secure the relic components. 

     That was a blast, even though I got completely wrecked. I was overconfident with the Terminators and they paid the price. The Dreadnought that was with them was also a stinker, but it had cursed dice. The other Dreadnought, functionally identical, had a terrific battle. The Assault Marines were brilliant but simply overwhelmed by the mighty Doom Scorpion which worked as well as I'd hoped. The Bug "Reinforcement" rule that was added which allows them to recycle units that have been wiped out worked very nicely and didn't feel too dominating. More games will need to be played to confirm that.

     The Bugs are good. Very good. They no longer require tweaks whatsoever. When we talked about the game over lunch, Mark had a good idea that Bog enemies should be able to disrupt the Hive Mind, so we came up with a mechanism to do so, which should allow Marine, Cultist and Robot Armies to throw a wet blanket on the Bug party from time to time. The Red Guard and Dawgs will simply need to outnumber the Bugs by 2-3 units at the start of a game in order to keep up since I don't envision either of those forces having the right technology to disrupt Bug communications.