Hold The Line! – Apocalypse: Earth Battle Report

(Might as well get this out of the way straight away)

The ARPANet alarm barked in Lt. Grant’s Humvee, jarring the tired officer from a much needed nap. Code Red. Urgent. He swore softly and lit a cigarette as the dashboard communications panel pulsed into life.

The news was unwelcome. Heavy Soviet activity in his sector – no mistaking the signs. Ivan was preparing a major attack and the forward logistics/ R & D installation Grant and his command had been assigned to secure was almost certainly the target. Grant cursed the Soviet remote viewers who had penetrated the most sophisticated Allied shielding to learn of this facility’s location. He clicked his communicator.

“All units, this is Sunray. Say again, this is Sunray. Stand to. Maximum alert. Prepare to evacuate scientific personnel. All units to their stations. The Russians are coming.”

 

Scenario:

Deep in the heart of Central Germany, a forward Allied R & D/ logistics hub is about to be attacked by an overwhelming Holy Soviet Army force. Buffalo 2-7 have to hold the line against an Endless Horde (more on that in a moment) long enough for the scientists and their research to be evacuated.

Evacuation – there are 20+ scientists (I never did count them!)

Each turn, D6+ Turn Number would be evacuated, so on Turn 1 D6+1, Turn 2 D6+2 and so on.

Now, this Endless Horde – every time a Holy Soviet unit (vehicle or infantry squad) was completely destroyed, it would respawn in it’s deployment zone, which would stretch 10cm further forward each turn). Infantry squads would rush forward to maintain their platoon coherency, representing reinforcements rushing forward to find their officer, and then behave normally.

We deployed along the narrow table edge, the Soviets having to run the gauntlet of Alliance fire to capture the scientists for their own nefarious purposes…

Deployment:

The Red Tide!

The Soviets ready to storm the station..

The Red Tide approaches…

 

The Allies hunker down…

 

Turn 1

The Rampager leads the charge.. and is duly immobilised by an Alliance Centurion..

Soviet infantry pour along the forest floor, following close to their armour

Behind the central gulley, minigun-armed Humvee and Allied power armour Dreadnaught squad prepare a devastating ambush for the Soviets

Impressively, an Allied Humvee equipped with Stinger/TOW GUIDED missile manages to miss this shot… back to the range, gentlemen!

Learning from previous battles, the Siberian assault squad watch their ride ripped apart by Allied anti-tank fire and decide that there are worse things in life than a gentle jog.

The battlefield at the end of Turn 1 – Soviets coming from the left, Alliance on the right

The first two scientists are away clean…

Just leaving these guys…. Hmm, this could get tricky

Turn 2

Elektra menaces the Allied lines with her fearsome Lightning Launcher…

…Briefly… before an M60A3 Centurion gets in a lethal flank shot..

Cherno Brava, a Soviet T-48, demolishes Allied plans for an ambush

Allied Rocketeers raid the Soviet lines, cutting down Lt. Polikarpov and leaving the beloved/ dreaded Commissar in charge – however, two fall to Soviet rifle fire…

..and then the other two are downed by the Holy Mystic telekinetically hurling the wrecked APC at them!!

Soviet infantry stream forward past a wrecked T-48

As another six scientists are safely evacuated

 

Turn 3

In the opening salvoes, a T-48 is destroyed and the M85 Autonomous Combat Platform (robot to you and me) destroys the weapon systems on the already immobilised Rampager..

Seeing as it has outlived it’s usefulness, the Soviet Holy Mystic uses his telekinetic power to chuck the 75 ton behemoth at the central allied position, destroying it and causing a nasty scratch on the paintwork of an M60A3 (as well as breaking it’s ARPANet link)

Allied Dreadnaught squad (bottom right) springs it’s ambush, two miniguns and a missile launcher rake the Soviet forces caught in open ground… 32 dice account for TWO Soviet infantry. More range time needed. MUCH more range time.

Disregarding it’s smoking, leaking fuel line, a T-48 lines up the now exposed Dreadnaught squad..

..This does not end well.

And so it falls to No. 4 squad and their heavy DsHK machine guns to reduce the Alliance power armoured elite to red mist!

Firing from cover, a Centurion reduces the final T-48 to scrap metal

Flamethrower destroyed but Assault Saw VERY much alive and well, Inferna crashes into the Allied lines. Cement and bricks fly as the massive buzzsaw engages the armour on the Allied M60A3 Centurion

Attempting to move up in support of Inferna, the remaining Siberian assault troops are gunned down by an Allied M113

Soviet infantry are really in the fight now, engaging the Allied left flank position at heavy cost — but the Allied lines are stretched ever more thinly… 

Soviet artillery enters at the end of turn 3 in devastating style, destroying a Centurion

Another six scientists are evacuated..

..and stretched to their utmost, desperate Allied forces see another wave of Soviets appear!

Turn 4

The inexorable Soviet advance continues, thinning out Allied infantry with rifles, machineguns and artillery while the next wave of troops and tanks move up… meanwhile the Soviet Holy Mystic uses pyrogenesis to start a fire in the left flank defence position and Alliance HQ is forced out of position by the threat of Soviet artillery. Turn ends with 7 scientists being evacuated, leaving only 5. This will, therefore, be the last turn as each turn we evacuate D6+(turn number) in each end phase… can the Soviet steamroller do it?

(sorry for the lack of Turn 4 pics, we were quite busy drinking)

Turn 5

Forced from their hiding position, the Alliance HQ is forced to go toe to toe with the crazed mutant Siberians…

This does not end well for the decadent Westerners. Note the crazed gleeful smile on the Siberian Sergeant’s face..

Don’t get too smug, boys… with two M60s and an automatic grenade launcher, this M113 atomises the Siberian brutes

Living up to its name, the Rampager… rampages.. into the centre of the Allied lines, destroying an M113 and massacring infantry..

The moment you realise you’ve hidden behind the wrong wall – the last moments of fireteam Bravo 2

Finally in range, Elektra looses her lethal Lightning Launcher, cutting down an Allied robot but also crippling her sister tank, Inferna – whoops.  Still, nothing a few vodkas won’t fix.

The Holy Soviet tide sweeps across the battlefield against hopelessly outnumbered Allied forces

Infantry and armour bear down on the last few survivors in the ruins

Soviet artillery is all over the beleagured defenders

But it’s just not quite enough! The last five scientists are evacuated – the Alliance has held just long enough!

Conclusions

Wow. That was close. Dan’s hordes had almost completely wiped out plucky little Bffalo 2-7.. I had a grand total of 3 infantry models and one APC capable of moving. Everything else – everything else – was dead or destroyed. And yet.. we made it.

Fundamentally, the plan was sound, although my big mistake was in deployment – a mostly anti-infantry force held the right flank, anti-tank on the left… and Dan came at me the other way around! was a hell of a blast though, reminded me of the climactic battle at the end of Platoon with the Alliance positions crumbling under the endless hordes of Soviets and their lethal artillery.

In this instance though, Dan agreed that he played it too much like a conventional game and focused on destroying my forces, gaining tactical advantages etc, when in fact he should have just piled everything forward and gone for it. Too clever for his own good this time! It has to be said, the lack of a fast mobile unit for the Holy Soviet Army really hurt them this time – the implacable wall of steel rolled forward, with it’s firestorm of death and destruction, but just not quite fast enough.

Still, a hell of a game – and a great way to shoot my previous rant in the foot. This may well not have been realistic, but it was loads of fun. Dan wants to build a giant Soviet robot for the next one, and I want to let him – I’m going to build an Avrocar gunship! Screw the statistics, let’s play 🙂

A Matter Of Scale

I’ll start this post with some maths. The standard wargame tale is 6′ by 4′ – that equates to 1.8 by 1.2 metres in metric. We wargame (mostly) in 1/72 – so this equates to a simulated battlespace of 129.6 by 86.4 metres. To give some sort of real world reference, a football field is 90-120 metres long and 45-90 metres wide.

So basically – 6’x4′ in 1/72 = a Premier League club football field. Hmm. And we’re supposed to believe an epic struggle between company level units with heavy weapons and tanks?

For you 28mm chaps – you poor deluded fools 😉 – it gets even worse. 28Mm is officially 1/48, meaning you guys cram all your 40k Imperial Guard, Ork or Tyranid horde onto 86.4 by 57.6 metres. Usain Bolt can run the length of your table in less than ten seconds – it’s fair to say a Space Marine probably can too.

However, let me throw an interesting statistic your way – during the course of the 21^st century and the endless “War On Terror”, most infantry firefights take place at ranges of 100m or less, making the standard 1/72, 15mm and even 28mm scales actually not bad at simulating skirmishes.

But that’s just it. Skirmishes. A platoon or so. Anything beyond that – silly.

So, with that revelation in mind, it occurred to me that when it comes to Apocalypse: Earth, trying to build a huge army with massive superheavy units is completely missing the point. So, from now on, nothing heavier than an MBT. No apocalyptic monsters, no titanic giant robots, no massive flying gunships – we’ll save them for A: E’s 6mm cousin!

And this leads to an interesting idea – seeing as we focus on keeping armies cheap and affordable through use of 1/72 infantry and scratchbuilt vehicles, maybe our player base won’t consist of Soviet Empire or Atlantic Alliance or FutureCorp or Brotherhood players – maybe most players will end up with a bit of everything. As we’re not in the business of selling miniatures, that works out great as far as we’re concerned!

Now 6mm – 1/300… that means we’ve got 540 x 360 metres to play with. Now THIS is where we want the crazy stuff – and we’re planning A: E Armageddon, the battalion level wargame where we crank the crazy up to 11! So what would you guys like to see? Let us know, the more mental the better!