Another FUBAR scenario: SW Mos Eisley

Stormtrooper patrol in Mos Eisley

So far Steve and I have had a couple of try outs of the FUBAR rules, but for our third game we thought we'd return to the Star Wars Universe and test them in a different way. This time we went for a multi-player skirmish game. The test was to see if FUBAR rules could handle a multi-player action and with just a couple of units per player and whether they would survive long enough to have an enjoyable game. We opened it up as a participation game and three other guys joined in.

I did a long scenario write-up for this game, which I will post elsewhere. Basically it was based around the Mos Eisley scenes in the first Star Wars film (ie. Episode IV). Obi Wan, Luke and the droids had to slip into Mos Eisley evade the Imperial Patrols, meet Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Cantina in the centre of the table, then make it to Dock 93 in the opposite corner of the table and take off in the Millenium Falcon. As a sub-plot a band of Jawas had a cargo of droids to bring into town to exchange with a band of Smugglers for a cargo of weapons. To really mix things up every one also had at least one gang of Fringers, and Jabba the Hutt had some extra tough 'bounty hunters' as well. Each Fringer gang had a hide-out or two with a 'cache' of money there. The Imperial player not only found it difficult to activate his units initially, but also anyone else could try and activate them, particularly if a fire-fight broke out, when the Stormtroopers could be expected to intervene to restore 'order'. Fringer's could attempt to rob the Jawa, Smugglers or each other. The Cantina was a 'safe' area, but individual Fringers could start 'challenges' ie. one-on-.one fights there.

Whole game board at start of play

The game opened with Obi Wan attempting to slip in but getting stopped by a patrol of Stormtroopers. Fortunately a Jedi Mind trick was available to get them past. One party of Jabba the Hutt's Fringers started sidling up to the smugglers unloading their cargo and another moved towards the Jawas.. The Jawas in the whole 'Keystone cops' spirit of the game ran into the centre of town, only to find their Sandcrawlers failed to activate and they had to run back towards them. A gang of Fringers allied with the Smugglers conceived the idea of 'car-jacking' Luke's speeder, but thought better of it when a second Stormtrooper patrol stopped the Speeder and Obi Wan drew out his light sabre and 'sliced and diced' virtually the whole patrol. Instead the Fringers decided to charge across to one of Jabba the Hutt's hide-outs and killing all but one of the Fringers there came close to stealing their 'cache'. Meanwhile Steve (who was also controlling the good guys) used his gang of Fringers in a non-too subtle diversion by firing on a patrol of Imperial Stormtroopers. When they were close enough one gang of Jabba's Fringer's charged half the Smuggler gang killed them all in close assault and started trying to steal their cargo. Another of Jabba's gang emerged from the leaky chemical factory and attacked the Jawas. Alerted by the drawing of a light sabre, an Imperial Speeder was successfully activated zipped across the board with its impressive 36" move and totalled the good guys' speeder with some cannon fire. The good guys all bailed out stunned (ie. suppressed). Obi and Luke just about made it into the Cantina to bluff Han Solo that they really would get paid, honest, despite not having a speeder to sell, and Han and Chewie set off to get the Millenium Falcon read for take-off. The Jawas having initially had the worst of the fire-fight with a virtually whole band killed or suppressed made a come back when a second band of Jawas wiped out a group of Jabba's Fringers. Various patrols of Imperial Stormtroopers ran back and forth responding variously to other players activations getting them involved in firefights between Fringers, and the Imperial player (me) trying to get them in position to stop Obi Wan, Luke and Han Solo etc..

"These are not the droids you are looking for", Steve plays a Jedi Mind Trick and swaps places with his speeder with a 'civilian' character to avoid being stopped by a Stormtrooper patrol

At this point we ran out of time, but all agreed it had been a great laugh and a suitable 'simulation' of the 'hive of scum and villany' that was Mos Eisley. The Scenario Rules had been fairly complex and for three of the players this was their first game of FUBAR, but most had got the hang of it by the end. It was a bit tricky operating the FUBAR rules for multiple players - for simplicity we only made one initiative roll at the start of the turn and then let players try and activate in turn following a clockwork direction around the table, but as players frequently failed to activate it very much randomised the order of play, and with a bit of familiarity we  started getting each turn completed in a reasonable amount of time, albeit didn't get through that many turns. We really pushed the rule envelopes in some respects - units could have mixed morale ratings - activating on the highest morale rating in the group but rating for suppression etc. on the most common, so Veterans could lead a bunch of Seasoned troopers/Fringers. Units were also allowed to split up or join together in the course of the game. This worked very well and meant high level heroes and villains might have to split from their parties or sneak off deserting them.

I was particularly pleased with the Mos Eisley town that I knocked up in just three days for the game, out of computer packing, old biscuit trays, egg boxes, and some cork tile buildings which were extremely quick to make and will serve me in plenty more middle eastern  (with the simple domes made from tennis balls) or 'Mexican'-style adobe buildingsWild West games. The cork tile buildings have already seen service in another club member's Sudan game! All in all it showed how effective simply painting and dry brushing stuff in the same colours can be in bringing something together.

Star Wars Game with FUBAR Rules

 This is the set up for our first try out of FUBAR rules using Star Wars figures. We put the board together with the paper board and cardboard tiles that come with the CMG game, and a few photo copies of the same. The scenario was based on the first battle scene of (what I at least think of as) the first Star Wars film (now confusingly called Episode IV: New Hope). Princess Leia is transporting the top secret plans acquired by the Rebel Alliance for the Death Star, when her ship, Tantive IV, is attacked and boarded by Imperial Stormtroopers led by Darth Vader. The idea behind the scenario is that four squads of Imperial Stormtroopers come on board from two different directions (bottom left and right in the top photo). The Rebel troopers and passengers must hold them off long enough for Princess Leia to rush across to the Droids (or in this case droid as lacking an R2D2 model between us, we only had C3PO), plant her message, then Droids and Princess Leia had to try and escape to the escape pods (top left of top picture) before the Empire took control of the ship. We subsequently modified this rule in the course of the game to say that the Droids must escape FIRST - we made C3PO a 'green figure' ie. difficult to activate and inclined to bumble around, and Princess Leia a Veteran to make her good in combat. The original rule would have made it easy for Princess Leia to escape, and the modified one left her to try to fight a fighting withdrawal to try allow the droids to escape (as per the film). We ruled that any hits on Princess Leia and the droids had to be taken as Suppressions ie. delaying them but not killing them. We also ruled that if necessary the Imperial Player could bring on fresh squads of Stormtroopers after taking enough losses to make one up-the idea being that the Empire would eventually overwhelm the ship.

The top picture shows the battle already underway. Princess Leia has run out of her quarters on the way to activate C3PO. Meanwhile the two squads of Imperial Stormtroopers have charged in from the bottom left, one taking heavy casualties, the other suppressed and pinned down. On the right hand side of the board, however, we encountered the effect of the FUBAR activiation system. A squad of Stormtroopers and a Probe Droid got to the entrance to a corridor and refused to activate - for several rounds! Executions all around later!

 Eventually I managed to get a second squad to a second the corridor on the right and they stormed in, shot up a squad of Rebel Troopers but were suppressed themselves...

 ...a second squad behind them charged forward, charged into a room and started to shoot up a squad of fighter pilots and passengers blocking their way.

 At this point the squad of Stormtroopers hesitating at the other corridor entrance finally activated and moved forward into a room, letting in the probe droid behind it...

 ...fresh squads of Stormtroopers followed behind them...

 ...further shots were exchanged...

 ....a squad on the bottom left held on despite being badly shot up and reduced to two figures...

 ....while a lone surviving Stormtrooper from the other squad on the bottom left was left sniping at a blocking squad of Rebel troopers...

 ...until also supported by a fresh Stormtrooper unit behind him...

 ....My squads on the right recovers from suppressions and move forward...

 ....but C3PO is finally making some good progress towards the escape pods covered by Princess Leia...

 ....the probe droid proves its worth inflicting three hits firing into the rear of a squad of Rebel Troopers defending the attack from bottom right...

 ...who then take more hits from my long 'stuck' squad Stormtroopers now storming through the ship...

 ...On the far right my lead squad of Stormtroopers activate to be able to charge into a squad of Rebel Troopers with another squad of Stormtroopers following on behind...

 ....C3PO and Princess Leia are just a few moves away from the escape pods (top left in this pic)...

 .....and there unfortunately the game had to end, right on a cliff hanger. The Rebel Defences crumbling all around as the Imperial Stormtroopers swept through the ship, just a handful of defenders left, but the droids and also Princess Leia herself tantalisingly close to escaping....

....unfortunately we had started late due to a bunfight between wargamers and card players over getting space to set up a table (a series of bunfights that has lead to us wargamers decamping and setting up our own club). If we hadn't started late the scenario would certainly have played out to a conclusion.

We had played this game as a play-test of the FUBAR rules, and I'd been worried that I needed 'big' squads of figures for the game to work. In fact, I shouldn't have worried. The rules worked fine not only for the size of squads that we used, but also when they had been whittled down to just a few figures, and the FUBAR activiation rules also worked fine for the 'character' figures that we deployed as individual units. We realised some markers might be useful to indicate if a unit has activated (or failed an activation test) - we just used dice instead- but otherwise the game played extremely well. We would definitely play these simple but subtle little rules again!

Sources for Star Wars figures

I placed my order yesterday with two eBay shops on eBay UK, 'Yugblad's Mountain Emporium' and 'Robinson Gaming Supplies'. Both have a good selection of Star Wars figures. There are a couple of other eBay shops specialising in SW figures, notably 'Green Angel Games' and 'Miniature Games', although Green Angel is generally more expensive for common figures, although to be fair they do have more figs from the older sets. Elsewhere on the web, UK based 'The 13th Floor', which used to be one of the biggest over here, no longer seems to have any in stock.

An article on Wikipedia I found yesterday confirmed that Wizards of the Coast decided not to renew its SW licence in 2010, so there definitely won't be any new sets or re-issues, so the time-span to pick up any more figures is likely to be limited.

Doing some more 'google' searches last night, I found this shop, based in the US:

The CCG Armoury

It can be found at

http://www.ccgarmory.com/

The 'blurb' says it ships internationally, and prices are much more reasonable than the UK, eg. 50 cents (ie. around 30p) for a recent common figure like a Hoth trooper rather than £1 a fig from the UK shops. So, say a 24 figure, force which would be £24 plus in the UK would work out at just £8, which would make the higher postage worth it.

There also appear to be LOTS of tempting goods in stock, which I couldn't find in the UK stores, including large models from the 'Universe' sets such as Tuskan raider on Bantha for around 8 dollars. Not good for the wallet to see all this stuff available, and probably not for that long!

Anyway, as I'm restraining myself for now, I thought I'd make this blog entry so I don't lose the URL.