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!