Future Wars Trial Game - Genestealer Attack!

With progress with the 'Future Wars' project slow but steady, I had decided to give the rules a whirl and see if they suited the flavour I was looking for.

With pal JTM looking to try out a layout he'd been amassing 'bits and bobs' for a ruined urban terrain layout he'd been planning, the two trials came together for a game a few nights ago.

With both the troops and the terrain being WIP, we still managed a fairly good game and certainly a good trial of the rules.

I fielded the majority of my Mechanised Assault Platoon with re-inforcements in the form of an elite SAS squad types, coming on on a random turn plus random delpoyment. JTM decided to field his growing horde of alien horde/genestealers. A quick scenario was thrown together with the Thin Blue Line deployed defending their Command HQ (int the form of a couple of Staff Officers with small squad of Mercenary Body Guards as last ditch defence and the rest of the platoon ranged across two thirds of the battlefield ready to sell their lives dearly against the oncoming tide.

Defence in depth

The initial couple of moves were uneventful with the aliens moving through the terrain pretty much in cover, but the next moves then opened up all sorts of hell-on-earth with the movement almost all on the alien side and the shooting all on the Mech Infantry side the moves were pretty quickly done.

The Green Tide emerges

The first few creatures to appear in the centre, quickly disappeared in a hail of automatic gun fire and mortar rounds, but there were plenty more to come.

View from one of APC's

The firing was pretty effective, mainly due to the huge amount coming at the enemy and the aliens in the centre had a pretty hard time of it.

The alien right flank had a lot more cover right up to contact so faired much better. The alien left however broke up pretty quickly with some very accurate shooting from Section Charlie.

JTM quickly realised that he had to concentrate his rushes and the natural course of event pushed the horde to the right flank.

There did appear a natural wave effect with the horde making more progress every second turn, this was the result of the light mortars and grenade launchers (vehicle mounted mainly) firing every second turn.

The two APC mounted mini-guns proved to be singularly in-accurate except at the closest ranges where they gratifyingly shredded several aliens clambering over their hulls.

The pinning result from the shooting proved to be a real godsend as this often caused battle necks with the alien numbers getting in their own way when a 'pinned' alien blocked an avenue of advance and allowing more time to hose the enemy lines with lead and depleted uranium.

Not surprisingly, once the aliens got into close combat, they started to deal out a reasonable amount of damage and the line started an orderly withdraw, firing as they went.

First casualties as the aliens get to grips

The front line start to fall back, firing as they go

With the agreed time running out, the aliens eventually beat a grudged retreat and the Mech Infantry in possession of the field with the HQ intact but weakened before the next assault, though they had inflicted huge casualties (but there's always more aliens).

A good trial of the rules and of the terrain, which now goes to the painting and basing stage suitably modified.

The rules seemed to be fine in most respects, the only minor niggle was that there didn't seem to be much noticeable difference between weapon types eg assault rifle and LMG for instance, so a few tweeks on the weapon types is probably on the cards but nothing major, but a good old fire fight is needed to check whether things are going the right way there.

The rules certainly produced a quick game and with the feel of high powered modern weaponry but a little bit more complexity might be a nice twist of chilli to the overall flavour. We'll see.