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!
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