Tuesday 14 June 2011

Red Planet FUBAR Battle Report

By popular request: a report from the first battle fought on my new Red Planet board. Enjoy!

Background: Conquest System - the moon of Miniatus. A Conquest Development Corporation firebase suddenly lost all communications with a nearby uranium mine. Major Curker took a personal interest in this operation (for reasons unknown), and ordered the 369 Expeditionary Squad to accompany him on an investigation. They found the remains of a slaughter, and instantly their dropship's scanners indicated unidentified bio readings. As the dropship lifted off to investigate, one of the 369 fire-teams found evidence within a colony building. It was a claw from a Bio-T (bio-terror) Warrior - what CDC troopers informally called "Space Demons." Major Curker ordered the men to split up and take fire positions - the Bio-T's had to still be nearby. Just as he signalled the dropship to return, he heard the corporal from Fireteam B shout "Bio-T's Inbound!"

Game: A quick FUBAR solo battle. The CDC forces (Rebel Minis Titan Marines with a Laserburn commander) were broken into three units: Fireteams A and B, and Major Curker's personal command team. They began the game deployed into my colony buildings (BWS Starotwn Slums). The Bio-T's (Khurasan Space Demons) have a Queen, a unit of eight Warriors, and a unit of eight Acid Spitters. If a unit of Warriors or Spitters were killed off, I would roll a D6. A replacement swarm would arrive on a roll of 4-6. The Space Demons arrived from a random table edge and had Initiative for the first round.


Victory Conditions: A straight bloodbath - no objectives. I set a limit of ten turns, and then the CDC Dropship would arrive to evacuate any CDC survivors.

Turn One: The Bio-T's quickly ran into the colony. The Spitters made it in first and assaulted Fireteam A. Two troopers died instantly, and they were hit so quickly they didn't kill any Spitters in return. The Queen and warriors came about next. Major Kurker opened fire on the Queen... she met his gaze and prepared her own assault. Fireteam B fired upon the spitters, killing three.



Turn Two: The spitters quickly finished off Fireteam A, but lost two of their number in the process. Fireteam B shot far more accurately and killed the remaining Spitters. The Warriors now assaulted Fireteam B while the Queen advanced on the Major and his command team.


Turn Three: In a brutal melee, Fireteam B lost three members and three Warriors were killed. The Queen killed one of the Major's men in close combat.


Turn Four: The survivor from Fireteam B (who was apparently the child of Ripley and John McClane and raised on a diet of titanium nuggets) made five successful armor saves as he killed another Warrior. The melee continued with the Major wounding the Bio-T Queen.

Yes... this happened!

Turn Five: The Queen was killed. The final member of Fireteam B fell in combat, taking another Warrior with him.

Turn Six: The final two Warriors, now without their Queen and under fire from the victorious Major, retreated from the buildings.


Turn Seven: Major Curker and the two surviving members of his squad wiped out the retreating Bio-T Warriors. They had survived the onslaught, but nine of their troopers had died in the process.

Aftermath: The Major's personal dropship evacuated him from his carnage. It had identified a large canyon filled with the bugs, including at least one more Queen. Major Curker alerted his firebase to mobilize all troops for assault... this wasn't over yet!

Analysis: The inspiration for this game took nothing more than setting up a few buildings and terrain pieces on my newly-finished table and grabbing some minis off the shelf. Yet it made for a quick and enjoyable game! FUBAR's simple framework can provide an "instant game" with minimal preparation time and bookkeeping - to me, that captures the essence of 15mm Science Fiction gaming.

Cheers,
Chris

14 comments:

  1. If i could only get my profile pic and callsign to appear when i comment... Now that's what i call a blast, this just illustrates how a pretty basic game can become the start of a mini campaign and progress to something much bigger, all in all a fantastic little battle report and I really hope to see more like this in the future, thanks for the read. Zac

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  2. Which game do you think works best for such a game - FUBAR, USE ME or FAD 4?

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  3. You should give a try to 5150 (the SF game of Two Hour Wargames). I played a couple of games against bugs/aliens/xenos and it was very tense and fun : http://chroniquesdufortbastiani.blogspot.com/2010/11/5150-xenos.html

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  4. Great battle report, even if the bugs didn't manage to eat all in the end... maybe this was just a lure to attract more meat into the next battle :)

    I have downloaded Fubar but I will need to download the stats of the troops and the points costs to make up a list?

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  5. Thank you, gentlemen.

    @Omer - To me, nothing beats FUBAR for an impromptu game. I have stat cards made for every painted mini I own, so it's just a matter of throwing them on the table and coming up with victory conditions. With a little more planning FAD might be better, especially since it has such a good campaign system. I love USE ME when I have an opponent, but opposed-dice mechanics kinda bore me when I play solo.

    @Kobayachimaru - Tried it, don't personally like it. Some of the others here (Steve especially) are HUGE fans of 5150, so you'll see plenty of it in hte coming months. :)

    @Navarro - If you grab the generic sci-fi supplement it should give you all you need to stat your troops. I have made specific expansions for Khurasan and Rebel, available on the Basement Gaming Bunker blog. There is a point cost generator on the Yahoo group, but I haven't used it once. I find that it takes me less time to make stats from scratch with FUBAR than it does to fiddle with a points based army list. Besides... why do scenarios always have to be "balanced?" :)

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  6. Great AAR, thanks for sharing.

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  7. Great report. Gonna download fubar to try it out!

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  8. @ Chris K. Thank you for the hint, I downloaded the generic scififubar and also khurasan expansion to adapt the activation distances to 15mm play.

    Sorry for all these noob questions but just checking if I got everything OK... so FUBAR the points systems are not important and you create some stat cards for your units and just play with that right?
    And yes I agree that not balanced games are more fun.

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  9. That's right... just come up with your own roster, cards, or whatever other method you prefer for tracking your units, get them on the table, and throw some dice!

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  10. You got it right... pick some models, apply some stats to them (cards, a roster, or whatever works for you), come up with your scenario and victory conditions, and get playing!

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  11. Thank you sir.
    Its so simple that its incredible... No need to drag myself into 40+ pages rule books with complex rules etc.. Amazing!

    I noticed theres also a rpg scifi one page game, I need to check that out also... Now to sculpt some buggers in 15mm and paint my first 15mm...

    Liberating experience all this 15mm universe.

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  12. "Liberating experience all this 15mm universe."

    Hehe! Yes, I think most of us can recognize that feeling. The freedom you discover when you start building 15mm sci fi is such a great feeling!

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  13. Nice report! Loving FUBAR. Can I ask what sistem do you use for solo? Im exploring more options to play solo and FUBAR seems decent but I need a good solo system.

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