Scrambled Eggs and Mashed Militia

Junior and I played a game of Swatters on Sunday afternoon. We hadn't broken out the bugs in a while and gave them some air. We played the "Space Demon Omelettes" scenario as written. Junior and I put together forces - he used the bugs and I used the humans. The basic premise is that the humans are raiding an alien lair and need to destroy three egg chambers. The bugs are simply trying to defend and drive off the humans.

Back Story
A few days ago some MCC* scouts located an alien hive roughly 10km from Litumsia City. Colonel Mugabe quickly organized a raiding party to destroy as many eggs as possible in an effort to keep the enemy population in check. The splitters from Le Pupi's army would not get credit for this fine victory!

This is after my first move. I kept as many bases as I could nearby my commander so they'd activate on 2+. The mortar got to work straight away on an egg chamber, as did some of my squads.

Some incessant gun and rocket fire knock out the egg chamber furthest to my left. One down, two to go!

Things are looking good for the Litumsian Militia. Just one hit left on the central egg chamber and the bugs are still having trouble getting it in gear.

But the difficulty goes up in the blink of an eye as a group of Warriors springs forward and quickly chews up a squad on my right flank.

The Hive Queen gets a bit too close to the Exterminators who finish her off. The Hive Mind was a bit disheartened but kept up the defense.

An overview of my now perilous situation.

My fighters wiped out the Assault Warriors, but the Exterminators were then hit by the Warriors who'd gotten around the flank.

Things are now really spiraling out of control for me. My units are decimated and probably should have routed, but I let my son enjoy wiping my stuff out completely.

Classic desperation. Calling in mortar fire on my own position. I killed a couple of bugs but my own squad was wiped out in the process. Nice.

Three guys left. Is that a fat lady I hear?

It was obvious that Le Pupi had alerted the bugs to our presence. His treachery truly is terrible. Willing to sacrifice fellow humans to the bug menace just to gain a political advantage. There will be vengeance!

That is a tough scenario for the human force. If I'd pounded on the rear egg chamber from the get-go with the mortar I may have been able to win. Junior had some terrible activation rolls and cut short some early turn by rolling snake-eyes which contributed to his slow start but in the end, he rolled me right off the board. It was a fun game and I really do like the game system. I'm ready for some revenge!

* - Militia Campaign for the New Congress

Swatters, or Toyota Technical Troopers

Three weeks ago the bug swarms started descending from the skies in their spore-meteors. They hit every part of the planet and nowhere was safe. Nowhere, unless you were armed and ready to give the alien invaders a fight.

A "raiding force" including Warriors, Incursors and a Colossus was making its way towards Kinshasa when elements of the People's Popular Front caught up with them.

The PPF was spread out across the battlefield.

The bugs went "heavy right" with only one unit of Incursors on their left flank.

The aliens move forward. Still out of reach of the PPFs guns. The mortar's fire was ineffective.

A couple units of the PPF move forward a bit and loose some shots and the invaders.

First contact. Warlord Krishan's elite's square off against their foes.

The unit next to those bugs got hammered by the tank and two other fire teams.

But the bugs just keep coming - another group appears from the trees!

But moments later the flank is getting rolled up.

The Colossus smashes into the tank and the flank is turned on the PPF.

The mortar finally makes good on its promises of destruction and wipes two units and cripples another!

The PPF has consolidated into the corner around their commander.

We called the game there, or shortly thereafter. We forgot to set a timer - the humans simply need to last two hours in this scenario. It had been close to two hours though. I like the game a lot and I think everyone enjoyed it. I had James as a teammate on the human side and Zig and Junior combined as the hivemind. The human force was very close to its break-point our units were beaten up or just lean to begin with. If the bugs had been able to summon one more unit of reinforcements I think we'd have lost. I definitely want to play this again!

We'll need to tweak our lists next time - firebugs were useless in this game because of their slow speed. Assault Warriors and regular Warriors are where it's at. The Incursors were OK, but without dashing, not quite as nasty. I think I'd prefer two units of shooters to the one tank. Well... next time.

Pics, or it didn't happen

It DID happen, I promise. Here are the Litumsian rebels I've been working on.

15mm Command Decision infantry and M26 Pattons. The refurb halftracks are Battlefront. I'm pretty sure the cars are also Command Decision re-paints.

Some regular-army defectors

The rabble. Mixing and matching their colors was good fun

A mortar, jeeps, a couple of machine-gunners and the commander (bottom right)

The Tanks

The troops on their Swatters CDs

 Back view. Many of the guys are wearing sports jerseys.

Another reverse angle shot