Monday 7 September 2015

Flying Lead A few Sheyang more. Part 2 The Walker Tank - bigger guns


The driver trotted to a point in the seemingly featureless field, calling his vehicles name. Deep underground the MBT responded and reversed out of its bay. With a curt nod the driver reversed his course and it followed like a well trained dog. Joining the rest of the crew they reviewed the status plot before boarding. The commander was first, taking the front nacelle tactical seat as opposed to the turret post which was filled by the drone handler and his charge. The two scouts would run alongside for most of the journey. A few short Rels later (50 Rels = 1 earth Minute or 2 Southpaw Aaw's) they moved off.



Once they got close the drone is flown and the scouts latched onto the rear, riding as their ancestors once rode giant sauropods to war.


Drone. I decided to invoke the Drone rules I wrote after the first use of the Southpaws.



Drones. Scout and/or electronic warfare (EW) asset, from shell delivered to grav AI's. EW can be built into any vehicle or robot. Here is a use for those plastic covers on CD's as its area of influence. Use as seems logical. For instance in a built up area a drones effectiveness is greatly reduced. Drones are replaceable small targets. Any wheeled or tracked counts as in soft cover, any flying as hard to represent random evasion movement and small size. Q will represent tech level and sophistication. Most drones are unarmed. Any armed drone loses cover advantage above. Armament could be a tazer on a police model, shotgun on a bomb disposal or light MG on a recce by fire model. Here's my suggestions:
Actions
Move Long
EW attack, 2dice Q test. If passed any unit in area cannot make aimed shot due to disrupted electronics.  
Or target command radius reduced to Short.  

Reaction (only)
Move Long.
Or, target has revealed itself and is painted, if successful 2dice Q test any shot against will count as +1. This lasts until drone is destroyed or end of turn.


Walker Tank, Points 81, Quality 4+ Combat 4 Armoured +3 (Medium), Gyro Stabilization, Off-Road, Vehicle Chain gun as above 49 Main gun caseless HEAP, Points:27, Anti-Tank 4, Move & Shoot, Range: Long, Stable Missiles AA, Points:41, Armour Piercing, Combat +4, High Tech Ammo, Move & Shoot, Range: Long, Stable

The Game. As per usual, nothing worked out as planned, which was nice. The main use of the drone was to allow me to know the Sheyang's location. As last time, Tony set up far back then moved forward. I started with my riders and drone moving up fairly sharpish, then brought on the tank.

Tony, for some reason, took care to keep under cover of the tank, my right flanker did exchange fire, but was thrown back, threatened with outflanking. My left scout did a blinding run to take 'em in the rear with a dash of fire. I had hoped to flush 'em, but it didn't work and a grenade finished him. If I could've knocked them down they would die. Doh!

Once at close Tony rained grenades on the front armour of the tank, getting repeated stuns. The crew were forced to bail out, then forced to the rear or the shelter of the legs. I did get a chaingun shot at the leader but failed by 1!

The tank finally rebooted long enough to get the commander aboard. I surmised that one crew was enough to move it, but not enough to operate the weapons. The tank went a-hunting. First target was Dancer, living up to his name, hopped over the fence putting him in a good position to blow away the remaining 2 crew. Next was the leader, who failed to dodge, but they kept equalling! We reasoned that he hung on to the leg for grim life-. Eventually he got 3 fails then a pushback, so he went flying! Bad result though, as it allowed them to poor shots into its belly until it was disabled.

Well it was different. I had toyed with a sniper team and drone combination. I would have won, but I'm not too sure it would have been so interesting a game? If we had a troop of those nice walkers that would make a great variant. But no force has all or the best TOE, this is a militia! I will toy with adding more anti-personnel weapons to the tank, but I hadn't seen a solo operation away from the APC's. Perhaps something like a rifle grenade for the infantry? Sticky bomb's an idea-.




























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