Battle Report: Contact!

I finally got a chance to try out FUBAR and its Generic Sci Fi supplement. The one page skirmish rules play fast enough with very little in terms of record keeping, which virtually amounted to nothing -- not if you count the drafting of the unit stats as record-keeping. Firefights were fast and deadly, so was close combat but I'm not so hot about how some modifiers were used. Some called for raising a unit's stats by 1 or 2 while others add modifiers to the dice roll. Admittedly, familiarity with the rules will soon render my rant and confusion moot but nevertheless, that was one of the things that kinda slowed down things at one point. Overall all though, it was quite fun. I see using this ruleset more often. So here's a short battle report, enjoy!

As usual, the pix are clickable.

 A squad of armored troopers are sent to Station Zebra, a small military research station hidden in the tundra of Marius Secundus. The five man squad is dropped by a shuttle that returns to the orbiting troopship. The squad discovers the facility abandoned and Sgt. Grey proceeds to download all the recoverable data from the station's main computer. Outside, Trooper Morita spots a large number of mobile forms approaching the station and identifies them as Biomechs. Grey contacts the troopship and requests for pickup. A storm though will delay the shuttle for some time, leaving the troopers no choice but to engage the approaching hostiles. Grey, Gupta and Sato join Morita and Ramirez outside the main structure. The troopers have to hold their positions until the shuttle arrives.

Grey bounces to the top of the building, finding a suitable spot perfect for sniping. Morita and Ramirez bounce towards a small huddle of buildings that serve as the facility's barracks and supply areas. In mid-bounce, the two acquire their targets and launch their rockets. Fireballs erupt amidst the ranks of the Biomechs as the two land on top of some buiildings, each firing his plasma rifle into the enemy. A Biomech cyclops falls as smaller and more agile Biomech warriors rush past. Gupta and Sato bounce to the right, launching an array of rockets at a squad of warriors angling to that side. Plasma fire erupts from the Biomechs, pinning Morita atop a building.

A Cyclops surges forward and fires a barrage of plasma discs at the rooftops but is blown back, its torso vaporized by Grey's plasma rifle. Gupta runs towards a low wall but is forced to seek cover as a barrage of plasma fire washes across his hiding place. Ramirez stops another squad of warriors from advancing at the left with a hail of plasma fire as Morita bounces from the rooftop, launching another set of rockets at a pair of Cyclops.

He lands in the middle of a squad and promptly vaporizes a warrior at point blank range as another rushes to engage him in hand to hand combat. Grey, catching Morita's movement, drops the attacking warrior but two other warriors turn to face Morita. Bolts of searing hot plasma liquify his armor and Morita goes down. Gupta drops one of the warriors and starts to bounce, only to be stopped by a plasma bolt from a Cyclops. He lands back on the ground, just as lances of heat strike his chest and he slams forward onto the low wall. Sato returns fire but is pinned down by another cyclops. Grey covers him, his plasma shots disrupting the Cyclops from targeting Sato.

 

Ramirez launches his last set of rockets as he prepares to bounce towards Sato. A trio of warriors spot his movement and shower him with plasma blasts. His burning power suit, the front twisted in a melted heap, crashes back down into the rooftop. Alone, Sato bounces back towards the main structure and finds cover as the biomechs break through the smaller buildings. The shuttle arrives and Grey covers Sato as he bounces to the waiting vehicle. Another Cyclops falls to Grey's covering fire and the sergeant rushes to join Sato. With a thunderclap, the shuttle blasts away into space, leaving behind the remaining biomechs swarming around the lost research station.

Of course, the scene was played out a couple of times with the troopers escaping only one time out of four. Three of the games were played solo and only the last one was against Sandie. The other games saw the whole squad wiped out. Which was to be expected since they were vastly outnumbered. The attackers consisted of a 4 man squad of Biomech warriors and three squads consisting of two Cyclops and three warriors each. If the troopers hadn't been able to board the shuttle within a turn after it arrived for pickup, another squad of Biomechs would have been added.

We went through this to test the stats I had drawn up for the armored troopers. I wanted the troopers to be able to have an advantage because of their power armor's jump capabilities and to try and recreate how Heinlein's Cap troopers fought "on the bounce." Our troopers can walk, run and bounce and if the player should wish it,  the figure can fire his weapon/launch rockets midway during the bounce and get an extra FP die -- with the benefits added from the "Guided Munitions" rule. Each trooper has ammo supplies sufficient for 3 such attacks. Once the rockets are used up, the trooper can still fire his plasma rifle at 4FP during the bounce but without the benefits of the Guided Munitions rule. Once on the ground, the trooper can fire his weapon again but using the weapon's alloted FP ( 3FP in the case of plasma rifles). The squad was also organized into 3 fireteams with two teams having two troopers and the lone sniper as one fireteam for activation purposes. We wanted to recreate the "leapfrogging" movement for covering fire but the buildings were set too close for the troopers to acquire LOS.

A few more test games and I'll be posting our unit stats for others to try out.