AQMF at Fall In

A Headless Body Production

All Quiet on the Martian Front After Action Report: Monty’s Pythons vs Marvin's Martians

Location: Table 51, Distelfink Room, Lancaster Host, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Game: All Quiet on the Martian Front
Scenario: Attack on Fort Edmonton
Players: Unnamed Convention Attendees: Marvin's Martians
               Unnamed Convention Attendees: Canadian 2nd Armoured Squadron 
Administrators: Steve Turn, Phil Gardocki

The Forces: "Monty’s Pythons", the 2nd Squadron, 12th "Three Rivers” Regiment, 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade.  Consisting of 5 Infantry Company's, a MG Company, Command Stand, a Troop of Mounties,  3 Field Guns, an Anti-Tripod Gun, 6 Mk III's, 9 Mk II's, a clamp tank and Nell.  About 2,500 points

Elements of Pod का क्रोध आपका, hive एक पल का क्रोध आपका भविष्य बिगाड सकता है, a total of 11 tripods, 7 Assault, 2 Grenadier, 1 Slaver and 1 Scout, supported by 12 Drones and 9 stands of Lobototons.  About 2,400 points.  

Scenario: 

The Martian expansion has been held in check by the combined Canadian/British/American forces stationed at Fort Edmonton in the far west.  With the arrival of the huge human war machine, the Collective Hive Mind has deemed that it is necessary to attack on the main human base in the area and eliminate the threat before it can be effectively used against them.  By launching several simultaneous spoiler attacks, major forces have been drawn away from the human base. 


The Board:Fort Edmonton, 155 acres of recently cleared area in western Canada. 

Special Rules: Nell, the Land Ironclad misappropriated by malingering men belonging to the Canadian armed forces has a number of restrictions placed on her.  See the bottom this AAR for details.

The Human player has 6 units of Mk II steamer tanks as reinforcements.

The Martian player must destroy Nell to win. 

The Humans must drive off the Martians, by destroying 6 tripods, to win.   
 

Deployment:

Humans have all  but 2 of their units on the board.  But Fort Edmonton is a very untidy place as piles of trash, badly cut lumber and other debris litter the landscape, offering may places to hide.  So while the Martians get to see the Human deployment, the only things that stand out are 9 steamer tanks, and Nell.

Most of the Human deployment is represented by Orange chits littering the board.  Half of them have actual troops, the rest is a pair of blokes shaking the trees and bushes, while trying desperately to be not seen.

The Martian deployment is fairly symmetrical. Assault Tripods on both sides Drones and Lobototons supporting both flanks.  The Grenadiers hiding behind the trees and capable of dumping rounds anywhere on the board. 

Turn 1:

The Tripods advance menacingly.  Taking little advantage of the prevailing they raised the camera-like generators of their Heat-Rays.  Their invisible paths cut through trees and buildings, destroying a couple of steam tanks.

A lone figure of a Scout Tripod stood on a hill.  It's illuminator tracing invisible sigils upon the Land Ironclad, "Nell".  The shells of the Grenadier tripods soon followed.  Scoring the armor, and causing a critical hit.  The first of five needed to destroy Nell.

The humans respond, the loudest from the big 12" cannon of Nells main battery.  But with little luck.

A peaceful Friday morning at Fort Edmonton.  Where all good Canadians wistfully look forward a weekend of cutting down trees, skipping and jumping, pressing wild flowers, and dressing in women's clothing.  We will see if we can fix that.

The Martians arrive, with one goal in their collective mind, kill Nell.

Sorry for the blurry shot.  The Martian Tripods aggressively move forward.

Turn 2:

The Martians retained the initiative.  Aggressively moving forward, heat-rays dancing the ground, but through luck, stealth or design the Canadians were unharmed.

Steam Tanks and Nell unleash their full barrages, causing only minor damage to the invaders. 
The Canadian Artillery is revealed and joins the fight, destroying a fighting machine.

Just 2 smoking tanks from turn 1.  All the stealth forces remain hidden.

Tripods race across the Mill Creek, past the remains of Captain Lawrence of Arizona's biplane, and douse the Mk III Steam Tanks of Troop 'D' with green gas.

The left flank steam tanks of Troop 'D' try desperately not to be seen.  Tank D3's armor resists the acidic erosion from the green gas.

Nine shots fired and the black dust Tripod takes a minor hit.

The Canadian Artillery is revealed.

The first shell burst six yards above the hood.  Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell. The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal.

Emboldened by reinforcements, the Mk II Steam Tanks of Troop 'A' counter charge the Martian Drones.

Singing a rendition of Oh Canada, the heavy infantry join Troop 'A's charge into the gulch.

Turn 3:
The Canadians gain the initiative, effectively double firing.  Nell's barrage's somewhat weakened due to one of the 5" guns running out of ammunition. 

More tripods cross Mill Creek, while the fearless Canadian Mounted Police ride to meet them.

Nell continues to risk the peril of it coal bin.  The Martians don't know it but any missed heat-ray on Nell will strike the coaling station, causing a massive explosion.  Instead, Nell is being constantly bombarded by the Grenadier Tripods.

In the shadow of the Larch, Troop 'D' scores another hit on the Black Dust Tripod, and a mobility hit.

The Mk II Steam Tanks of Troop 'A' retreat.  So Marvin and his drones focus their heat-rays on the field guns destroying 2 and causing the battery to flee.

In the center it is a grand melee as man and machine are pitted against zombies.

The Heavy Infantry took a hit, and lost their nerve, fleeing the drones near the gulch.  Marvin uses his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator to destroy the Anti Tripod gun.

Turn 4:
The Canadians keep the initiative.  But suddenly, the camera batteries failed, and the backup batteries were flat, and the photographer was much maligned.

But wait, I had an iPod(tm), and there was much rejoicing!

To keep the charge of the Lobototons and Drones going, the Slaver Tripod had to continue his advance.  Picking up hits from Nell, and wrapped in TOW cables by the Mounties.

The Martians spend their command points double moving Marvin and K9. 

Marvin rakes Nell with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, causing a mobility critical hit. 

The Steam Tanks of Troop 'B' arrive and decapitated the colossus.

However the resulting boom takes out Troop 'D', and some miscellaneous Lobototons.

The Mk II Steam Tanks of Troop 'B' and Nell shoot at the Slaver Tripod, but every shell missed.  Seeing several Tripods blow up, the Canadian Infantry come out of their fox holes to assault the remaining enemy.

Turn 5:
The Martians gain the initiative!  They manage to destroy or run off enough infantry units to crater the Canadian Army's morale.  But Nell is not subject to the morale rules, and though wounded, continues to fight.

The lobototons continue to assault the infantry.

Marvin picks up drone support taking out the Canadian High Command.

The inexperienced crew of Nell has been shifting 5" rounds constantly in an effort to keep the guns firing,

There was an earth-shattering kaboom!, and Marvin is blown off screen.  "This makes me very angry, very angry indeed."

Nell's 12" gun finally scores a hit.  Destroying another Tripod, while it's 7" gun also scores a hit, causing a collapse of a fourth tripod.  Her Machine Guns began raking drones and took out two.  This caused the Martians to hit their break point as well.  So both armies are in retreat!

Who won?  The Martians failed in their objective, to destroy Nell, scoring only 3 of the 5 critical hits necessary.  The Canadians were routed from the field, but routed the Martians as well, achieving a Pyrrhic victory.

Nell's Special Rules:

The Canadian-American Alliance has been strained by the Canadian acquisition, either found or stolen, depending on your point of view, of the Landship, “Nell”, otherwise known as “The Spirit of Detroit”, as the Americans have named it.  

The Americans have been putting pressure on Canada to get “The Spirit of Detroit” back, as such there are numerous rules governing its use.

Low Ammunition

The Americans have refused to provide the 12”, 7” and 5” shells for “Nell”’s guns.  Britain has made shipments of ammunition of all these calibers, but they have yet to reach  western Canada.

When each of these calibers makes a “to hit” roll that is exactly “1”, that gun is out of ammo.  For the 5” guns, this applies only to the turret in question.  That turret is out of ammo for the next turn, but is restocked by shifting rounds from other turrets.

A gun that is out of ammo may still be target and fire blanks, to try to fool the Martian that it is still functioning.

Low Coal

Nell needs more coal than all the rest of the 2^nd Squadron combined, as such, measures have been taken to conserve coal.

Nell is deployed next to the coaling station.  Nell needs to remain there until turn 4 to be fully coaled.  

If a heat ray misses Nell, (I.E. A “to hit” roll of 1 or a 2) the coaling station is hit instead, exploding, causing 5 +4 hits to Nell and everyone else within 6”.  Units at a range of 6.1 to 12” suffer 3 +2 hits instead.

Nell is running on one boiler out of four, it takes time to stoke up the remaining boilers.  As such she moves only 1” on turn 1, 2” on turn 2 and 3” on turn 3.

If not fully coaled, roll a D10 each time Nell moves, or uses the Steam Defense.  On a 1, the coal bunkers are empty, and Nell can only move 1” a turn thereafter.

Skeleton Crew

The proper crew for the Landship is considerable and Nell hasn’t been fully crewed with trained personnel.

Due to minimal crew available for damage control, all hits on the Damage Chart 6+ are considered critical hits towards the 5 critical hits required for Nell to be considered destroyed.

If a critical gun hit is made, roll the die to determine which gun is hit.  The Martians may reroll that die if they see fit.  The reroll must be kept.  

Cannibalizing units

             Some of the manpower to crew Nell was taken from existing infantry units.  

Infantry and Machine Gun unit only gets one additional hidden movement counter instead of two.