Insurgent Earth - First Game

 I had an opportunity to give Insurgent Earth a go on Sunday afternoon. It's designed as a solo / co-op tabletop game where the player(s) control a band of human survivors in a post-alien invasion environment. The basic goals for a scenario generally consist of retrieving loot, completing a specific objective and staying alive against a stout alien presence. 

I set up a 3 X 3 board and kitted out four characters for the test run. I rolled up a "Locate the Survivor" mission in which I had to rescue a civilian on the tabletop and evacuate him safely without getting nabbed by the bad guys.

Ariadna Infinity models are suitable post-apocalyptic models so they made the cut. They received suitable French names.

The tabletop. The guy needing to be rescued is in the center next to the dumpster.

There he is.

The crew spread out. Pinkie heads toward the survivor. The fireman investigates a loot location (the barrels) and Jacque makes his way to the loot location in the large blue dumpster.

The Occupation Force arrives. Some low-level schlubs, but there are five of them and we'd prefer to keep things quiet.

Pinkie searches the dumpster for loot, finds a promising bag of medical supplies but rats have gotten to it. Blast! She takes Jeeves under her wing and they move along. 

Monique searches the yellow dumpster and scrounges an old power drill that looks mostly intact. That'll be useful.

JC's rooting around in the barrels triggers a flash and boom! Some scumbag trapped this thing. JC avoids any injury than notices why there was a trap. A computer-assisted targeting system! Heck yeah, that'll go nicely in the backpack. 

The sentries move forward and spot Pinkie and Jeeves. the jig is up! Pinkie heaves a smoke grenade towards them. A very lucky bounce and the smoke is right on top of the aliens! 

Those two move away from the critters in the smoke, getting behind the wall.

Moments later, an alien craft appears overhead and drops two robot warriors out. Jeeves is right there and the mechanical monsters take their shots. Amazingly, Jeeves is able to evade the incoming shots. No wonder he was able to survive out here by himself!

Pinkie's no dummy and tosses her second smoke grenade at the 'bots. That should slow them down a bit. She and the butler run for the dumpster out of sight of the rapid reaction robots.

The orange aliens are worryingly close.

The smoke clears on team orange and they're all over Pinkie and the Butler. Since the aliens now have "total battlefield awareness" they're under no automatic behavior compulsion and go into kill mode.

The two robots in the center move out the other direction and go hunting for humies on the the other side of the table. 

Jean Claude isn't "phased" and re-programs the the alien droid with his fireman's axe.

Jacque give the other 'bot the ol' "two to the body, one to the head" treatment. Impressive!

Not to be left out, Monique lines up a shot on the orange critter atop the truck and pops its noggin. Holy cow. Three for three.

 Pinkie knows what time it is and seeing as though she's a technician, not a machine-gunner, she and Jeeves scoot boots away from the orange menace.

Two more rapid reaction robots drop in. Monique realizes she's in deep kimchi.

Pinkie evades the weapons fire of the aliens pursuing her!

Likewise, Monique's reactions and body armor and are up to the task when the 'bots take aim at her.

Pinkie and Jeeves make it out alive.

Followed closely by Monique who got hopped up on some of "Pappy's Special Medicine" and ran like a scalded dog.

JC and Jacque run as well, but don't quite reach the edge.

The dodge rolls start failing, so it appears I made a good decision to flee when I did. JC takes two hits from the 'bots, but it's not enough to take him down. A turn later, Jean Claude and Jacque make it off the table.

Well that was a lot of fun! I'm much more comfortable with IE now and look forward to playing again when there will be fewer trips to the rules, etc. There's a campaign system so Jeeves needs to join the group and become a full-time member of the band. I'm strongly considering taking this to Southern Front in Raleigh in September to run a couple sessions. The games are relatively quick, and I imagine much moreso with a GM running the aliens, so it's feasible to get in 2-3 games in a single convention time block. 

Be well and good gaming!