Cowboys vs. Aliens in a prequel "V" wargame

This year it's exactly 40 years since the 'V' tv-series was aired and I saw it on Swedish television for the first time. -It never found its way to Norwegian television, so luckily we could receive tv-signals from Sweden where I lived (with an own areal). I think this was one of the most expensive productions of its time. I was a great fan of it, and still is, so I think this 40 year anniversary is a good reason to to play a small skirmish wargame based upon it as a homage.

Creating a Visitor-army

Not many manufacturers makes 'Visitor'-miniatures, and those which exist are either to wrong scale for me, or too expensive if you want to build an army. As the TV series was never aired in Norway, none of the merch never hit the shelves in Norwegian toystores either. 

This is a budget wargaming blog after all, so I needed to find a cheaper substitute for the V-miniatures. Some few years ago I bought a bucket of futuristic soldiers looking like Space Marines from 'Starship Troopers' in the local toy shop, and that was what I planned to use them for. On a toysoldier group on Facebook I once saw that one have painted figures like this in all kind of different colors; blue, green, red... -When I saw the red ones they reminded me of the 'V - Shock Troopers', and I decided I wanted to try making a similar conversion. If you want to read more about that prosess please visit the blogger-post "Making V-miniatures on a budget"

The landing ship is a 3D-printed 'V - Skyfighter' - Free STL-file from Thingiverse, just resized, assembled and painted. The Skyfighters are capable of both atmospheric and space travel with an unlimited range, with speeds up to mach 3 in the atmosphere and 20-30% of the speed of light in the space.

The Rules

To take advantage of the 'Visitors' body armor, considerations to small firearms vs. laser-rifles, heavy weapons and different troop quality levels, I think the rules dictated them self as FUBAR, which is the only free wargame rules I know which includes all of them. 

Playing FUBAR Solo?

What the FUBAR-rules does not include is any SOLO-mechanics, so when I play FUBAR alone I usually just play both sides (as best as I can). I like wargame rules that has it's own SOLO-mechanics as it is more unpredictable and add to the 'chaos' during battle. Therefore I've created a simple chart or table for my FUBAR 'AI-opponent' in this game. I'm looking forward to try it out to see if it works:

The Scenario

100 years before the (1984) tv-series and the militaristic race of reptilian aliens from a star near Sirius arrived earth with 50 'Motherships' to start their invasion and plundering in 1984, they sent out several reconnaissance patrols across the solar system to search for suitable plantes to invade and plunder. - Space-travelling back and forth + planning such a massive operation takes time (!).

In 1884 one such reconnaissance-ship arrived earth and landed close to the frontier town of Singate, New Mexico. A reconnaissance-patrol of 6 Visitor Shock Troopers (as a 'V' Skyfighter only holds a crew of 3 + 3 Troopers) was set out to search the surroundings to their landing zone.

The outlaw gang 'The Sinful Eight' (with, guess what, 8 members) was located in the same area, and approached the landing ship while the reconnaissance patrol were away and tried to open the landing ship to search it for values. They still had their hands on the landing-ship trying to open it when the alien reconnaissance-patrol returned to it.

The landing ship's initial approach to the wasteland outside the town of Singate was observed by one of the inhabitants, who reported it to a nearby Army Post, which sent out an patrol of 5 members to check it out. Due to the distance they won't arrive at the scene before turn 6.

Forces:

• The Shock Troopers:
• 1 squad of 2 fireteams:
• Fireteam 1: 2 troopers with High-Output Energy Rifles (like assault rifles according to the rules) and 1 trooper with a heavy laser blaster (like a LMG in the rules)
• Fireteam 2: 2 troopers with High-output Energy Rifles (like assault rifles according to the rules) and 1 trooper with laser launcher (rocket launcher in the rules).
• The Shock Troopers have body armour which will save on 5+ and are 'Veterans'.

• The Sinful Eight:
• A  outlaw gang of 8 members acting like 2 fireteams of 4 each, armed with pistols and rifles.
• These outlaws are ruthless and experienced gunfighters and are 'Elite'.

• The US Army patrol:
• A unit of 5 soldiers armed with rifles and pistols.
• Their commander is 'Veteran' and the soldiers are 'Seasoned'.

Mission:

• The Shock Troopers:
• To fight The Sinful Eight and regain control and access to their landing ship so they can eventually fly away from Earth and report their observations.
• If possible in the process; bring back one human sample for further investigation and testing.

• The Sinful Eight:
• To fight the Shock Troopers so they can seize their innovative weapons and armour to get an upper hand in their future raids.

• The US Army patrol:
• To fight any invaders and gain control of the landing craft. 
  

I'll play the human units in this game, and the V-Shock-troopers are commanded by the AI-chart.

The Game

Time:    1 hour and 20 minutes 

Turns:   12

Result:  The professional gunfighters won the shootout against the Lizards and gunned down the Army patrol as well.

When the alien reconnaissance teams are returning to their craft after checking out the surroundings, they see that there are already other armed men at their ship. When the Sinful Eight sees one of the Alien fireteams too, they don't hesitate and are immediately are fronting this new threat. Besides it seems like there are only 3 of them (as they could spot only one fireteam).

The Outlaws ran for the nearest cover and took their battle stance behind some rocks. One of the Fireteams of the Shock troopers started to advance against the outlaws behind the  cover, and placing them under heavy fire...

...But despite heavy fire, the Outlaws was far more better shooters and managed to suppress a couple of the aliens in this fireteam. They also benefited from being cover as well, which the aliens were not.

After exchanging fire for a while, the Outlaws manage to kill the Alien with the heavy blaster...

At the same time the 2 other members of this lizard fireteam got back on their feet and started to return fire, but another group of Outlaws was about to flank them.

While the first Visitor-fireteam was in heavy fighting the second team was very careful and were hiding in cover for 5 turns (due to insuffisient activation):

In turn 6 An Army Patrol arrived the scene, and saw the gunfight going on. They decided to open fire at those strangers looking like soldiers with high tech weapons...

The first V-fireteam was almost surrounded now, being shot at from 3 sides by 3 different units.

...This alien fireteam was soon supressed and the Outlaws decided to run and take them out in a hand-to-hand fight.

Now the second alien fireteam (which had been hiding in the bushes for 5 turns) decided to relief their alien friends from the first fireteam, and come to the rescue...

...but it was just too late by this time, and they were running into a nasty and fierce melee. While the Outlaws was busy killing the lizard aliens, the Army patrol went for that strange craft...

...but they were ambushed by the first team of Outlaws who were now leaving their cover...

The 2 sides were exchanging fire for a couple of turns...

...until the the Army patrol was finally wiped out.

The Outlaws lost a couple of members in the firefights, and have now become the "Sinful Six". Now it was time to focus on their loot, but they were hearing a dreadful noise from above. When looking up they saw another Skyfighter started to shoot at the landed and abandoned one. It was clearly that the aliens didn't want to simply hand over this technology to humans. Perhaps they are planning to come back at some time?

The FUBAR rules works well for SOLO-playing when playing both sides with it's activation mechanichs, and as unactivated units automatically goes on guard, which gives them the ability to perform actions; shoot at opposing units moving towards them or fires at them. Units in melee also activates automatically into the following assault action. I think my table/chart for the other side just merely filled in some holes for AI-opponents in these already superb wargaming rules. I think I'll use them again, and if you do so too, please feel free to give me a feedback on how they worked for you  or didn't...

Season Wars 2023 - Once Upon a time under the Christmastree in the north

It's less than a week until Christmas, so it's about time to fight the annual 'season war'. Last year the 'Season Wars' was played with Thor Sheil's OMOK - One Man, One Knight free wargame rules, and 'The Ginger Bread Army' won the battle. 

The 'Ginger Bread Army' has hold the ground since then, but this year the 'Cookie Men Army' (called Gøttekællær in Norwegian) returns, trying to reclaim territory. The 'Ginger Bread Army' occupies 'Yule Village' beneath the Christmas tree, which they defend trying to avoid the new Circular Railroad Company to enter and cross through their precious little town. 

The white 'Cookie Men Army' decides to help the Railroad Company by fight the tan 'Ginger Bread Army' trying to force them to retreat so the Railroad Company can complete their Railroad and  at the same time let the 'Cookie Men' hold the ground this year.

For the battle this year I've decided to use another free wargame rules which you can download and readily play with your own miniatures. This years Season Wars will be played by the FUBAR free wargame rules. As my holidays armies are armed with swords, spears and bows I'll use FUBAR Medieval 2nd Edition. For FUBAR order-counters please see my review of FUBAR 4th edition. 

Since both the armies probably were 'Green' last year and gained some experience since then, I'll let both armies fight as 'Seasoned' according to the rules this year. Another lesson the white army learned last year, was to create warbands with similar weapons in each and not spred them out on all units.

The Battle

The white cookie men army rapidly gained the initiative and rushed to the battle with 2 of it's warbands. I'm not sure if the 3rd white warband actually was 'seasoned' as they hesitated to leave the safe train for 2 turns:

It seems like the Gingerbread army was taken by total surprise and was stunned by the white cookie men's advancement, and they didn't manage to take any initiative for several turns:

This gave the white cookie army the upper hand and they kept pushing. Finally their last warband found it safe to leave the train and join their fellows:

Not only did the white cookie men army have the leading initiative and drive in the battle, but their archers also seemed more skilled than their Gingerbread counterpart, almost annihilating a Gingerbread warband:

This left the Gingerbread army under pressure and it seems like they had no any other options than to counterstrike into a melee:

The white cookie archers were very effective and managed to make the rest of a Gingerbread warband retreat while they took out another enemy archer at the same time. This made a clear way for the white cookie men spear warband  to enter the battle...

...and engage outnumbered Gingerbread warbands. 

This started to take a toll at the Gingerbread army, which were starting to get outnumbered on the battlefield. The Gingerbread warband in the melee managed quite well though. -As did the white cookie men:

Now the distance was so close that the Gingerbread archers finally started to hit something:

-But too late. Soon they were assaulted and in a melee they could not win:

The only Gingerbread warband making to hold ground at this stage, was the swordfighters in the melee. As the other white cookie warbands defeated one Gingerbread warband after the other, they also entered the melee to fight the last Gingerbread unit:

The last Gingerbread knights were very brave and managed to hold the superior forces off for 2 more turns:

Slowly the last Gingerbread warband was halved in size, and was totally surrounded having no chance to win:

This made the White Cookie Men army win the Seasonal War this year after 12 turns and about 2 hours. Now they could finally enter the Yule Village and the Circular Railroad Company could lay the last track through the village and complete their railroad around the Christmastree. -Which is good as I wonder what rest of the family would have said if we didn't have a complete circuit under the tree ths year. Luckily the train was loaded with a tanker of Christmas Ale, so some celebration seemed to be in place:

Conclusion:

I've been doing a lot of model railway and garden railway stuff this autumn and winter, and not so much wargaming. Even if this wargame and scenario wasn't too serious I think it felt good finally doing some wargaming again. -Which again reminds me about not waiting too long to do another game. 

This post is not an ordinary game review as I usually does on other wargame rules, but I've noticed something about FUBAR Medieval 2nd Edition worth mentioning:

• In the rules firing ranges are given in inches an centimeters, whatever you prefer. But for all ranges from 8" and below, there are not exact compassion in centimeters, giving the cm much shorter range than inches.
• In this version of FUBAR unsaved hits are not taken as suppression. I don't know why not, but I think suppression is a nice game mechanic slowing down or pinning units or punishing units leaving members behind. Perhaps its omitted due to medieval tactics and warfare? Were they more likely to leave wounded behind? If you have any thoughts of this please comment in the comment section below.

With this I wish all fellow wargamers and their families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Rules of Engagement Part I - Work in Progress

Last year (and a couple of times this year as well), I've played several different rules for wargaming I've found online for free which could be used with ordinary toy soldiers and army men. The complete series of reviews can be found on this blog. I played the same setup and scenario each time, which made it easier to see the different rules pros and cons. All the different rules had different advantages and some disadvantages. I wanted to see if it was possible to take most of the elements I consider as 'the best' from the different rules and collect them into one ruleset, and see if it was possible to get it all on one page as well since I'm a fan of one page rules. It became clear with so many great rules; there was not place enough on the paper for including all their best elements together on only one page.

Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed playing all these different rules found online for free (and had a good time doing it as well), and I'm definitely going to play them over again for different scenarios and periods. At the same time I wanted to see if it was possible to develop my own 'home brewed' house rules based on my experience playing these games made by others. Therefore my rules are heavily influenced by great rules such as FUBAR, 1 BC Toy Soldier rules, Fighting Plastic, OMOG, Close Wars, Wargame in a bag and Plastic Command by Craig Cartmel, Pete Kautz, Corey Butler, Thor Sheil, Donald Featherstone, Nick Grant and J.P. Medved respectively. Thanks for your inspiration! The result of  these inspirational games was my own draft for home brewed, onepage rules for army men and toy soldiers.

Developing these home brewed rules was a process so long, so to describe it all in one blogpost would have made it far too long to read in one piece. Instead I've made it into a series of 4 blogposts with a short description and a Battle Report in each which will follow here shortly. It would be tempting to do like George Lucas and start with Episode 4 and the most interesting part right away, but as these rules are playable in all stages I'll show the different stages of the development of them. And IF following Lucas' example; the prequels would not be so interesting...

From my own service abroad I remember we got a single page card with the Rules of Engagement for the mission/conflict. Since my own homebrewed rules for miniature battles also are just a single page, I decided to simply name these Rules of Engagement for Wargaming with Miniatures.

Link: Draft - Rules for Army Men Wargaming

The test

Where the initial rules playable? They needed to be tested. They say that no plan survive the first contact with the enemy, so to test these rules I decided to try them out on the same, familiar by many now, setup and scenario as I did for the other games I've got the inspiration from. 

The scenario

I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement' with force.

Situation:

This skirmish is finding place in fictional place of Lumbaya in the early January of 1963, when the UN during operation 'Grand Slam' are turning their attention to the remaining Katangese strongholds in Southern Katanga after after securing the Katangese capitol of Élisabethville.

Place:

Lumbaya is a very small village located 80km south west of Élisabethville, and are made into a stronghold by a small platoon of Katangese Gendarmes. The village is one of several strongholds in the area to trying to hold the UN off while trying to keep the self-proclaimed president Tshombe by power of the self-proclaimed Katanga state.

Forces:

• Forces:
  • Katangese:
  • 2 rifle-squads each of 10 soldiers, a LMG and and a bazooka/flame thrower. Each squad can operate as 2 fireteams independently. 
  • 1 HMG-detachment of 3 soldiers
  • 1 sniper
  • HQ-section with platoon-leader and 2 medics
  • After turn 12: QRF consisting of 1 truck with a HMG and a section of 10 'veterans' with a LMG and a bazooka arrives from the next village. Only if Lumbaya is still held by Katangese forces.

  

  
  

  
  

  • UN:
  • 1 Platoon of 3 rifle-squads each of 8 soldiers and a LMG. The squads can operate independently.
  • 1 Light mortar-detachment of  2 soldiers and an observer
  • 1 bazooka-detachment of 3 soldiers
  • HQ-section with platoon-leader
  • 1 Jeep with HMG and 2 soldiers.

  

Mission:

• Katangese: To hold the strongpoint of Lumbaya. Can request QRF-support as mentioned in the force-section from turn 12 if still holding whole or part of the strongpoint.
• UN: To take and hold the strongpoint of Lumbya, preferably within 12 turns, and take control on as many Katangese gendarms located there as possible.

AAR

Time:    5 hours and 30 minutes (!)

Turns:   23 (!)

Result:  UN withdrawal

The UN started their offensive by placing the Katangese supportbase under heavy fire, which managed to suppress the HMG for a turn...

...but the Katangese sniper managed to hit the UN machine-gunner in the same turn, and he had to be replaced by the UN platoon-leader.

The Katangese forces managed to successfully pin down several units in the UN advancement for several turns with suppressive fire...

..which really slowed the UN offensive down...

When slowly approaching the village, there came to fierce fire-fighting in the outskirts...

And the UN forces was about to make a breakthrough, but by turn 12 the Katangese QRF entered the village, just in time to change the tide of battle.

The UN forces decided to make another push for it, as they were close and about to break through the Katangese defense-lines. The UN Bazooka-team managed to strike a direct hit and took out the Katangese HMG and pickup. Would they make it after all?

In these rules the Katangese QRF are played as an 'elite unit', and their appearance made the UN offensive come to a definite halt. 

The UN forces closest to the village met the Katangese QRF first, and were charged into a hand to hand combat, in which they had no chance with this elite unit.

The other UN units got pinned in their positions outside the village...

...which also made it difficult to retreat without leaving any brothers in arms behind...

The UN support-weapons were eventually used to cover the retreat, while the UN troops in the battlefield were striving to get back to their own lines...

...due to enemy fire they were struggling to withdraw from the battle, and only a few of them managed at the end.

The Katangese Forces made to hold Lumbaya, and this was a clear victory. For now. The UN engagement in Congo was to last for many years and there would be more clashes to come.

Pros

• Being 'own' rules based upon the best of a lots of other rules, so sure there should only be pros in this section, or...? -Well, being own rules makes you remember them easier, as you have used a lot of time tweaking about them, so you don't use so much time for reference check in the rules while playing. 

Cons

• I wouldn't exaggerate and claim that these were fast playing rules...
  On the contrary. But perhaps that is a pro for some? 
• I feel it was low casualty rates from shooting, and perhaps that's why the game took so long? On the other side this makes it easier to slow down, suppress and pin units for several turns, which again are as in real combat; slowing down, halt and interrupt enemy actions, forcing the other side to abort, step down or retreat with minimal own losses. Regarding armour-savings; I remember from my own service we always asked 'if we had to wear helmets' during different exercises as we preferred to use our berets or field caps instead. Now it's clear why wearing helmets have it's benefits, even in a wargame.

Conclusion

Even though it took some time to develop this draft and a pretty long time to play them, I had a good time all the time working on and playing this. Even if I took all the parts I considered as pros from different rules I couldn't fit them all into one page and the result was defiantly not a 'perfect ruleset', but it's still playable though if you wanna have a go. 

Despite of this I hope you will read through my rules and feel free to give me a feedback in the comment-section. If some of you also consider to try out a game with these rules, you're more than welcome to share your experiences. I'm curious to see if they coincide with mine.

As this was only a 'test play' of my draft for a homebrewed houserules for wargaming with Army Men, I think It's still needs some more tweaking and adjustments to fit my demands for such a wargame. It seems like there will have to be a return to, and a second battle for Lumbaya (again).

To be continued...