Expanding the Planethead - SL:PO AAR

Saturday afternoon at Rapier Mike hosted a game of Strike Legion: Planetary Ops. A group of five of us played in the game - I was paired with Mark and we controlled the Commonwealth defenders, trying to halt the advance of the TOG forces led by Mike, James and Bill.

Our initial plan was to move our tanks forward to occupy the crystal forests and gain some cover. The mechanized infantry would hold back, occupying cover areas closer to our edge of the board. The nasty wasty TOGs were advancing across the battlefield length-wise and needed to exit stands off our edge.

The TOG tanks streak forward. Grav tanks in march formation don't slow down for nothin'. Houston, we have a problem.

A traffic jam develops as six zillion TOG tanks coalesce above and in the canyon. Our defenders are still trying to reach their positions.

A close up of some of our grav tanks (NOT HOVER! NEVER HOVER!) before Mike and Co. ruin their paint jobs.

Our front line begins to get into position.

Sumnabitch TOGs make it to the center crystals before we do. We're golden on the left though.

We start trading shots. You can see that we came to the decision of "oh fuck it" in the center since the TOGs outnumbered us 3 to 1 in the crystals. I maintain that our situation on the right was solid and although outnumbered on the left, we had a surprise in store for the filthy Imperials.

As of turn 5, we'd lost three stands and inflicted no casualties.

The brown horde's heavy tanks (the unbased Falcons) in position to blow through a gap in our front line.

But then our own heavy tanks show up and smash into the flank of the evil oppressors!

And my shlubs on the right side finally account for a stand of Imperials!

But we get hammered in the center as our reserve tanks fill in the gap and are then crushed.

We wrapped the game shortly thereafter. Mark and I threw in the towel - the writing was on the wall and there was no way the defenders were going to be able to make a dent in the attack. We'd lost 12 stands and the attackers had only lost 3. They outnumbered us to begin with and had stronger units. Perhaps a better starting position for the defenders or an impassible chasm with a couple of bridges would have made the battle more manageable for the Commonwealth. Either way, it was a fun afternoon and I do like the SL:PO game system. The only change I'd like to see is simultaneous damage resolution. At a game this scale - each unit being a battalion - the I shoot-you-shoot mechanic is questionable. Bitching aside, we got run off the battlefield and will be ready to reverse their gains next time!

Strike Legion Planetary Ops - Crushing the Renegades

Mike Baker brought out his 6mm SciFi toys Sunday afternoon for a game of Planetary Ops, by Legionnaire Games. We ended up with seven players, including Mike, which worked out well, each of us got to drive a brigade in the scenario he'd set up. It was a rather straight-forward affair featuring armored and mechanized infantry units. Units and factions are from the "Renegade Legions" fiction universe.

The Terran Overlord Government - TOG  (us, the "bad guys") were attacking in the scenario and had to push past the defenses of the filthy Commonwealth Renegades and exit units off the far table edge. For what it's worth, the TOG forces are more technologically advanced and have better quality units than the Commonwealth.

Da Cunnin' Plan 1.0 - My group (orange) and Alan's (red) were going to do their best to fire down the edge of the map. The corridor was narrow and lightly defended - a steamroller approach seemed in order.

Ian's heavy mechanized infantry was going to tie up units on our left. We also had a large reinforcement brigade that was to join Ian's mechanized brigade on turn 4.

The Renegade's defenses. Trash tanks in the forward town. Better tanks further back. I can't explain their rationale. "Leaderless rabble" would be my best guess.

The commanders assembled. 7 people playing on a 2' X 6' area. Deodorant mandatory.

Cunnin' Plan 1.1 - Ian's APCs move out and my tanks shift forward left. Ian and I decided to form a schwerepunkt in the center. Alan's tragically slow tanks inch up the right side.

Ian and I get ready for our assault. The cowardly Commonwealth troops pull back into a better defensive arrangement.

Turn 4 rolls around. Time for our reinforcements. Ian and I decided to work on the enemy units between the hill and town. This would present Ian's flanks to Mike's trash tanks and hopefully be a target too good to pass up. Then, our reinforcements would emerge from he table edge behind Mike's units and eliminate them. The plan worked wonderfully. We wiped one full battalion (the black area) and damaged a heavy tank company further down range. Ian took two hits on his nearest mechanized battalion but that was all.

Alan's heavy tanks smash two stands of Cameron's heavies!

Turn 5 - The Commonwealth is getting desperate. Their heavy tanks get committed to the center and become instant targets. Ian's APCs and my medium tanks wreak havoc on our side of the center.

Black smoke markers are stands destroyed during the turn. This is near the end of turn 5. Three full battalions wiped out. The TOG has only lost one stand of Mechanized Infantry.

It was getting late so we called it there. The TOG forces were rolling and now vastly outnumbered their foes.

So, what do I think? The game system is good - interesting mechanics and simple enough for new players to get a grip on. Five of the players at the table had never played SLPO before. Granted, we were using very basic units - no fliers, artillery, orbital bombardment, etc. but I imagine it would hold up well enough with the wacky units thrown in. The scenario seemed to be well balanced - we still had three turns to exit troops off the far edge of the board but there were enough defenders to make it a chore, so it would have been interesting to finish it out just to see if we could have pulled it off. I look forward to playing SLPO again some time!