As I said I'd do a military play test with a few more figures-- a 9 man Khurasan Exterminators squad--1 Sgt/Assault Rifle with 2 leader dice and 2 command dice, 2 Cpls/Assault Rifle with 1 leader die, 2 troopers with SAWs, 1 trooper with 'dumb' GL, and 3 troopers w/Assault Rifles, all with hand grenades-- against an 8 man GZG squad (I forget which)-- The same composition except instead of 2 SAWs and 1 'dumb' GL, they have 1 SAW and 1 'smart' GL that adds significant cover-ignoring abilities. All troops are wearing light body armor, which makes low caliber weapons and shrapnel less damaging, but the rifles and SAWs are pretty much just penetrating it. I'll call the Khurasan Exterminators Imperial Marines and the GZG forces are Asgardian Light Infantry.
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| The battlefield-- a small, dried riverbed running between two hills-- one with an old wall, the other with a few buildings. At either end of the dry riverbed is another building, and on the outskirts of the village there are sporadic trees. |
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| The Marines approach the village from the west. |
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| To the East, the Asgardian Light Infantry move towards the buildings, their squad leader with an extra rifleman pulling overwatch from the center. |
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| The two weapon teams (SAW on the left, GL on the right) move into the buildings and sprint up the stairs to get into position. |
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| One of the Marine SAWs can make out the Light Infantry on the right and starts suppressing them, while the activation order allows the dumb GL to start shooting at the third floor of the building on the left (the sprinting troops just visible above the ridgeline). With a few of the Light Infantry suppressed, and several others unable to react as they sprinted, the Marines move one fire team up to the ridge line and exchange fire with the Light Infantry. |
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| One of the Light Infantrymen gets unlucky and is killed outright by rifle fire. Between this and the weight of fire hitting their position, the entire fire team is suppressed. |
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| Seeing that the enemy is largely suppressed but not easy to damage, the Marine sergeant leads part of his other fire team through cover to the wall close to the enemy position, hoping to start hitting them with grenades. |
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| The corporal and SAW split off and provide additional covering fire against the 3 story building. |
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| With all of their troops suppressed except for the Sgt and his rifleman, the corporals and sergeant expend their energy simply trying to get the suppressed Smart GL and SAW to fire-- They manage to get both moving, but two of the three rolls are low initiative order. The other gets to shoot first, however, so the smart GL gets a shot out. |
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| Meanwhile the un-suppressed Marines are able to put their command and Leader dice towards activating all of their troops (and indeed have an extra successful die to 'pass' down to a fire team, which saves the SAW on the left from failing to activate). I activated the GL separately as he rolled a personal activation high enough to go before the Sgt's group, meaning he could possibly suppress the activated SAW and prevent it from reacting before the Sgt made his move. |
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| The Smart GL shoots over the wall in airburst mode (think like an XM25) and gives a heavy wound to one of the riflemen, but the rest keep their cool and aren't suppressed. This is pretty much the point that it was clear the firefight couldn't be salvaged for the Light Infantry-- even if they had done better to keep the enemy back, the Marines hadn't pinned themselves in buildings, and the Light Infantry inadvertently had-- the doors out were all too visible to the enemy!-- but failing to really connect this one shot ensured that the enemy would be able to advance and likely take out the rest with ease… |
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| The Marine Sgt. moves up and throws a grenade at the two story building on the right, the rest of the squad lays down even more suppressing fire to keep the enemy suppressed next turn as well, and some riflemen move up and start shooting at the enemy Sgt and rifleman. While the Light Infantry could've theoretically gotten in a reaction shot or two that could've slowed the process, the fact was they'd lost the firefight and didn't have the reserves or terrain to perform a tactical withdrawal and regroup. At the end of the turn there was 1 wounded Marine, 2 wounded Light Infantry (including the Sgt), and one dead Light Infantry. The rest of the LI were suppressed. I did play one more activation but only the Marines had any ability to do anything so I called it (they wounded 3 more with grenades mostly). |
