Mar's Attacks - The Foreshadowing Battle Report - Turn 2

TURN 2

Note: You can find Turn 1 here.

Initiative Phase

This turn opens with the Bandits winning Initiative for the turn. The Martians will activate after the Bandits and the Mercenaries will activate last.

Movement Phase

The Bandits open their movement with one Rattled model recovering and then moving to partial cover next to the dumpster. The other Bandits behind the truck also recover but choose to stay where they are.

The Rattled Bandit between the truck and the abandoned factory also recovers and takes partial cover against the building positioning himself so that he can shoot through the window at the Martians inside during the Shooting Phase. All the other Bandits choose to stay where they are for now.

The Martians, during their activation phase, move two of their soldiers to better firing positions whilst the other Martians remain where they are.

Finally, the Mercenaries move their two teams up towards to abandoned factory.

Finally, the Soldier Zombies react to the sounds of shouting, gun fire and explosions either moving towards to nearest sound or, if they have Line of Sight (LOS), the nearest juicy set of brains.

The final disposition of everyone sees some good opportunities for shootouts in the Shooting Phase.

Fight Phase

As no one is in hand-to-hand combat, the Fight Phase gets skipped.

Shooting Phase

The Bandits have the first activation of each phase and so get to seek some revenge for the loss of two member's last turn. One of whom was their leader.

A Bandit behind the truck, with LOS to the oncoming Zombies, decides the horror is a little too close for comfort and opens fire, scoring 2 hits. The Zombie (who are considered to be armoured) needs a 4+ to survive, rolls three dice and scores three successes, one of which is an 8 on the die (i.e. a critical success). So, it gets to roll another die and scores a second 8. Rolling another die for this second critical success sees the damn thing score another 8! All told, once critical successes have all been rolled, the Zombies scores a total of six successes. Either this thing was charmed, or the Bandit was a terrible shot.

One of the two Bandits near the entrance to the factory then opened fire on one of the two Martian's who just exited the building. Doing a total of 3 hits, the Martian fails to save them and his helmet shatters in the hail of gunfire. Exposed to the alien atmosphere, the Martian crumples to the ground as its exposed brain explodes showing everything nearby in green goo. First blood to the Bandits and some revenge for the loss of the Bandit Leader.

Finally, the Bandit at the factory window spies the Martian Leader and one it their soldiers just inside. He drops a grenade through the window and momentarily it explodes, doing 2 hits to both the Leader and his offsider. Both Martians survive only by virtue of their armour. As such, both aliens become Rattled and can't act in the Martian activations in the Shooting Phase.

Now the Martians get to act.

The Martian in the open gets enraged. Not by the sudden death of his colleague, but by the fact that he will have to clean Martian brains off his uniform when they get back to the Mothership. He opens fire with his heat ray on the Bandit that just killed his colleague. Scoring 3 hits, the Bandit disintegrates into a pile of ash. That's three dead Bandits now!

The Bandit dead begin to pile up

The single Martian on the mezzanine floor of the factory can clearly see the two shambling Zombie Soldiers approaching. He fires his heat ray at the closest Zombie and scores a total of six hits (keep rolling those 8's!). However, the Zombie rolls a total of five survival successes and, being considered to be armoured, incredibly survives. Armour adds a single Survival success and, when it makes the difference between survival and death, causes the model to become Rattled. However, Zombies are too stupid to care about petty things like survival and so never become Rattled. Martian's have clearly not been watching the old Zombie flicks otherwise they would have gone for the head.

Finally, the Mercenaries get their shooting activations. With two Zombies approaching them, they don't hold back as all the Merc's have LOS. The Merc Leader opens up with his SMG and riddles the closest Zombie with holes, scoring four hits to the Zombies three survival successes. Scratch another dead Zombie.

A second Merc opens up also but must have aimed for the closest Zombie too as he fails to land a blow. A third Merc then fires and takes the second Zombie out. With no other targets, the Merc's shooting ends and so does Turn 2.

Scratch another two Zombies! Things are heating up for Turn 3.

Mar's Attacks - The Foreshadowing Battle Report - Turn 1

TURN 1

In my previous post I laid out of the scenario I concocted for Mar's Attacks. You can read that there. Now we dive into the action. But first, one point of clarification. I checked my notes and this is how Grenades will work in the scenario

Grenades

Grenades have the range and explosive effects as below. Only human players possess grenades in this scenario.

• Range is 8"
• Use the Small Blast Template (SBT)
• Attack as a Shooting Attack, hitting on a 4+
• Mercenaries have 4 grenades to share amongst themselves
• Bandits have 4 grenades to share amongst themselves
• Any model of these two factions can declare they are throwing a grenade instead of shooting in the Shooting Phase

Initiative Phase

Martians won the Initiative, meaning they will go first, followed by the Mercenaries and then finally the Bandits, this turn.

Movement Phase

The Martians stayed put whilst the Mercenaries, then Bandits moved their models.

Last of all, the Zombie Soldiers move towards to closest noise, or the nearest juicy looking live bait visible and in Line of Sight (LOS).

Zombies spot the Mercenaries

Whilst other Zombies spot the Bandits

Fight Phase

As no one was within melee range, no fights took place this phase.

Shooting Phase

A Martian grunt peers through the broken windows of the abandoned factory and spies the Bandits. Having partial LOS to the Bandit Leader, the Martian decides to try to ruin his day and shoots.

Ach, Ach? (Martian for, who's got line of sight)

Ach, Ach! (Martian for I see movement.)

Ach, Ach, hehehe (Martian for Take that! <laughing>)

Martian heat rays need a 4+ to successfully hit

Whilst the Bandit Leader needs to roll 3 dice and score 5+ to survive.

The Bandit Leader hears the sound of the Martian heat ray...

...but suddenly turns to ash

Next, the Martial Leader decides not to be outdone and takes a shot through the window at the Bandits clustered around outside. Suffering four hits, the targeted Bandit fails his survival rolls and swiftly joins his Leader as a pile of ash. This causes four of the Bandits around these hapless victims to fail their Rattled Test and they dive for cover.

One flash, and your ash!

Hit the dirt!

At this point, I forgot it was the Mercenaries turn to shoot next and moved straight on to the Bandits shooting. Given that the Mercs were on the other side of the board, this really didn't matter much for this turn.

Of the Bandits, only one un-Rattled Bandit has a LOS on any of the Martians, whilst another Bandit has LOS on some Zombie Soldiers who are meandering from the road towards the factory compound.

The first Bandit tosses a grenade at the Martians, two of which are on the ground floor and a third is on a mezzanine catwalk. The grenade explodes doing a total of 3 hits on the two Martians on the ground floor (the one on the catwalk just misses the blast radius). The Martians both roll their Survival roll and get two successes; however, both score an 8 for one of their die rolls meaning they get to roll and additional die for the critical success. The extra die roll for both Martians sees them gain another success. With a total of 3 successes each, they survive! As they don't have to rely on their armour to save them, they also don't even get rattled by the blast. Definitely badass!

The second Bandit takes a potshot at the closest Zombie Soldier shuffling towards the chain-link gate and scores a single hit. The Zombie rolls for its Survival roll and scores three 8's on the dice roll. The additional three dice rolled due to the critical successes sees another three successes. With these many successes, the Zombie doesn't even flinch. Should have shot for the head. For the Zombie, it was a no-brainer!

Now I remembered the poor Mercenaries out there all on their own.

The two Mercenaries in the lead of the two columns of Merc's are the Merc Leader (on the grass in the photo above) and his 2IC (kneeling on the road taking aim). A couple of Mercs have LOS to the Zombies and the two leaders decide to take the first shots, one at each of the two Zombies approaching them.

The Merc leader shoots at the Zombie, scoring three hits. The Zombie, needing a 4+ on its Survival roll, doesn't! Blamo, the shambling brain fried former human collapses as its head explodes.

The Merc 2IC then takes aim and shoots, rolling four dice for (with the help of an 8) a total of 4 hits. The Zombie, even rolling an 8 itself, only manages to Survive a total of 2 hits. Blamo! Its head explodes also. Two Zombies down.

Well done lads! Always remember to hire professionals, kids. And with that, turn 1 comes to an end.