The Molling Incident, Ep. VI(a): The Crossing

Background

The orbital supply and reinforcement drop from our last episode was at least successful in getting the Kingdom of Colores (KC) gear and soldiers to the ground. Now, the challenge is to assemble the scattered units before the Reich can destroy them piecemeal.

This episode is the first of a set of 3 battles of the KC Troops moving to the rally point and the Reich’s forces sent to intercept them.

SITREP 1

Some of the KC troops were landed south of a water feature known as the Tango River.  A platoon of Honschu were deployed as guides and escorts to gather them up and bring them north to the rally point.

The KC Units:

2 Squads of Honschu, led by Targeethilar

2 Squads of 8 Ball Infantry led by Lt. Philo

1 Battlesuit and drones (Tank)

1 Mortar Team from the 23^rd Foreign Cav on detached duty

The group made it as far as Ford Charlie when they were intercepted by a Reich force:

2 Heavy Automs (Tanks)

3 Autom Squads

1 Reichs Panzer Hunters led by Cpt. Luchs (HQ and AT Squad)

The Battle

MAP PIC

Lt. Philo and his troops were approaching from the south in file order and the Reich’s troops were trying to assemble from the other three points of the compass after detecting the KC force. The fight itself was a whirlwind as both sides arrived piecemeal and threw any newly arrived units into the fray at the ford. 

The action was very close and casualties were heavy on both sides

In the end Lt. Philo was not able to solidly establish a foothold north of the Tango River and under the cover of an artillery smokescreen the KC survivors exfiltrated toward the west.

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Greetings Readers,

A little bit of change for this episode (and the next 2).  My son and I played a series of scenarios from the book One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. For this first battle, we used Scenario 5, “Bridgehead”, and the book’s random force generator. For rules we used our own homegrown card driven set.

“Bridgehead” is an extremely chaotic scenario:  the units from both sides arrive piecemeal, plus the defender arrives from random board edges.  The telescoping of the action to the ford led the whole thing down to a slugfest of who could roll better. If not particularly abundant with tactical choices, it was still fun to play. Speaking to my personal preferences, this scenario is a perfect illustration of the strength of playing detailed scenarios.  I honestly would not have enjoyed the game if I was playing in a FOW or 40k tournament, but as a situation placed in front of me, and given orders to execute, it was a blast. (BTW – I was playing the bad guys)

My son and I really liked picking the scenario and using the force generator.  Once of the nice aspects of the force generator is that there are d6 possibilities, but once the first player rolls, the second player is not allowed to re-use that result. The second player must roll again, so that the army compositions MUST be different.

Coming soon: Scenario 15, Fortified Defence