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!

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