Scarabs on the Loose

[matt56]

We played a 5-person game last night at our Third Thursday gaming session. I took two Scarabs against 2 SE5s, an SE5a, and a Fokker DVIII. The Scarabs stayed together in an effort to somewhat shield one another. My goal was to basically march them from one end of the board to the other, trying out the new (to me) covering tactics. On the third turn we were finally close enough for the heavy Heat-Ray to reach the two nearest SEs, and damage was done to both planes.

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By the end of the next turn, the planes were close enough to deploy Black Smoke - I hit the Fokker...

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...but I missed the America SE5...

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...but the 'missed' Black Smoke served as an obstacle for the rest of the game until I finally took it down.

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I needed to stand still for a complete turn to recharge batteries. The ability (or need) of the tripods to not move really throws a wrench in the Earthlings' movement plans

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The Earthlings managed to do quite a bit of shield damage to the tripods, and they also had several heavy hits on the unshielded areas of the Martians.

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Stopping and recharging was again necessary, and one tripod recharged while the other covered with Black Smoke...while the American SE5 came on with rockets ready to fire...

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...which hit and did some serious damage to the left tripod. Several more turns of stopping and recharging and planes firing against shielding ensued...

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...and as we played the final turn, the shield-less status of the left tripod took mega-hits - an expolsion and several numbered cards, bringing its hits to 23 out of 24:eek:

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It was a good game with all of us learning more about how tripods can operate, how they should operate, how planes need to maneuver to counter them, etc... Next time we play, I think we have decided to use Triplanes against them that will be a bit more maneuverable to offset the stopping ability of the Tripods - and actual game of Tripods and Triplanes...

All the best,
Matt

[cmmdre]

That's some serious fun Matt. :clap: :thumbsup:

[flash]

Looks like grand fun Matt, maybe try to use the smoke as a screen to cover your vulnerable bits to sides and rear.
Hoping to try this out on the chaps at Entoyment next week.

[matt56]

Great idea, Dave - Black Smoke as a defensive smoke screen instead of offensively... Timing with both BS and the H-R is key due to the energy cost involved - it's too easy to lose energy more quickly than you'd like with these beasties.:p Next time we play I will definitely deploy it as a screen in addition to as a weapon.:sAprvd:

All the best,
Matt

[Future Pilot]

Nice Job with the AAR!:thumbsup:

[camelbeagle]

It was a very very fun game. At times the fast planes were just a bit too much horsepower. I think we will try the more agile planes to see how that works out. Fokker Dr. 1 and Hanriots were brought up in discussions.

[Naharaht]

Thank you for the good A.A.R., Matt. :thumbsup: It looks like you all had a good time.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

A very worthwhile and educational tutorial AAR Matt.
Thanks for posting.
Rob.

[Windy Jack]

Thanks for the AAR, Matt. We are all learning. We played T&T last week, and decided to play it again tonight to consolidate what we learnt both as pilots and as Martians. (We didn't take any photographs last week because we saw it as a learning exercise.)

[Teaticket]

Nice use ot the tripods as a team. Easier to do when one person commands them! So far in the games I've run the Martians haven't had a lot of synchronization even with being able to communicate.

I agree that it is overly tempting to use black smoke as an offensive weapon but when a cloud lingers on the board planes are not that eager to risk flying into them.