Tripods across the Piave

Hi all,

I have just started playing this game and just hosted a large 5 player game. Because there were so many of us I choose the mission "Tipods across the Piave" so we could have lots of tripods and planes. The mission however seemed quite unbalanced as 8 pieces of terrain/objectives is quite the task to have to destroy them all. We played the mission twice but the tripods couldn't do it.

Anyways I have a quick question. The mission says we need to deploy 4 terrain pieces and 4 objective markers.
In the box you only get 4 terrain pieces so one of them HAS to be a Pond, however the rules state that as soon as you touch this you fall over!! Is this correct as it seems really tough on the Martian player.
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It does seem tough on the Tripod players. I suppose that you could leave the pond until towards the end of the game, when hopefully some of the aircraft have been shot down, drop some black clouds to act as obstacles for the aircraft and use the other Tripod to defend the one in the pond. Once the one in the pond rises again, make sure that it moves out of the pond immediately after it has destroyed it. The rules do not say that Tripods topple if they are standing still in a pond or moving out of a pond.

If you have a W.W.2 counter set for Tripods and Triplanes, William, it contains an additional two objective discs that are not ponds.

I would go with the pond as a "standard" objective token, or one that doesn't cause toppling.

Also, Do Not Let the Humans discuss their planning! There were no radios in WWI planes, so pilots have to plan their moves separately, and not discuss who is doing what, nor what tripod to attack. This is critical in multi-plane games. If players can discuss their tactics as they go, it gets easy to overwhelm individual tripods. Communications rules for Wings of Glory planes still apply in Tripods & Triplanes.

Just saying, from bitter experience, demo'ing T&T with some very proficient WoG players. They managed to hit the tripods most times on unshielded sides throughout the demo, taking the Tripods out with ease. The occasional backup moves really threw them for loops, and was the only thing that saved me in some instances.

I have only played WOG once and all the players in the club seem to be old hats at the game. Which is why I decided to not really buy planes (really expensive and hard to get in the UK anyways) and concentrate on Tripods where everybody is new.

I think what I will do for that scenario is absolutely remove the pond and say it is instead a swamp as it looks pretty similar.

I didn't know that not letting the human players discuss was part of the rules. It did come up earlier in the game with one of the WOG vets saying there were no radios etc but it seemed strange to me to cut down on chat but I can see where you are coming from with regards to not having tripods being ganged up on.

Poor tripods.. they thought they would have the superior machines but were sadly mistaken!

I'm not saying that you don't let people talk, as social interaction is part of the attraction of the game.

However, Human players are not to discuss their planes moves. If you read the Tripod rules, it says that Martians can freely discuss their moves while planning, but humans cannot.

OK great! I always thought my talents in Martian telepathy would come in handy at some point.

Have any of you guys played this mission and if so, how did it go?

Me. Total destruction of both sides and of all targets:

https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sh...ve-how-it-went

Formally a victory of Earthlings, but very very very tight.

Actually no pond or hindering terrain was used.

I just read your AAR. It was quite the game! Looks like a lot of fun for both sides! :sAprvd:;)

We tried this mission again last night for the third time at it allows for more tripods than usual so we can have more players. We said that the auto-toppling pond was now a marsh but in the game our tripods fell down three times. The martians won but barely with the cuttlefish escaping with 2hp and all of the planes still alive.

I wish there were more missions that have a large number of tripods.

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