Hold the Line
by DrakenFyre on Nov.22, 2009, under Battle Report, FWC
It’s been a while since I’ve done any gaming so I decided this weekend to play a solo battle of Future War Commander (FWC). Two of the great things about FWC are that you can play against yourself and each side has just as good a chance of winning even though they know what the enemy is doing, and that you can match up armies that would have no chance of ever meeting in any other system. So for this battle the combatants are:
Mark VI OGRE "Agamemnon"
As the attacker, an OGRE Mark VI from Steve Jackson games, which has been christened “Agamemnon” for this it’s debut battle. Defending against it are a tank company in 3 squads, a mechanized infantry force and an anti-tank gun battery of Imperial Guard from Games Workshop.
The brave Imperial Guard defenders
The scenario being played is a Hit and Run, with the OGRE trying to do as much damage to the defenders and then flee the battle field if possible. The battle is limited to 8 turns and the Guard may only deploy a portion of their force until they have detected or been fired upon by the OGRE.
The Board:
I was unable to find most of my terrain for some reason so I set up the board with rolling hills surrounding a city straddling a major river crossing the board, and a heavily fortified military outpost in one corner. The outpost side of the river was the Guard deployment area and the OGRE would deploy on the opposite side of the river.
Deployment:
The Guard CO and the anti-tank guns deploy in position around the outpost to cover the Guard side of the river.
The mechanized infantry unit deploy in line ahead in the center of the board to advance directly on the city and the bridge.
The OGRE sets it’s deployment point off-centre of the board and out of site of all points across the river.
The remaining Guard units start off board in reserve waiting for the enemy to be spotted. Everyone else is deployed and ready for the battle to begin.
Turn 1:
The OGRE was deployed using mobile deployment so it’s first command roll is to make sure it deploys successful. It does but fails it second command roll to carry out any additional advance. The Guard fail their roll to detect the OGRE but the APCs make their first command roll to advance towards the bridge.
The Guard APCs advance on the bridge
Turn 2:
The OGRE makes two successful moves towards the city. However it’s attempt at a move and fire against the APCs results in a blunder and it comes close to trying to smash it’s way through the city to reach it’s target.
Agamemnon trys to smash it's way through
The Guard once again fails to detect the OGRE, so the APCs advance across the bridge but fail on their attempt to deploy their infantry loads.
The Guard cross the river
Turn 3:
The battle truly begins. The OGRE carries out a move and fire action to get it into the open and attacked the APCs.
Agamemnon engages the Guard
It fires it main guns into the lead APC, damaging and suppressing it. The OGRE fires again, it’s main batteries destroy the second APC and it’s missile batteries fire a barrage a point-blank range and just miss damaging itself. The barrage just destroys the remaining two APCs and damaging the infantry HQ.
The Guard APCs are wiped out
The OGRE then pushes forward onto the bridge shoving the debris of the APCs out of it’s way.
Agamemnon plows through the remains
The Guard reserves begin to arrive. The 1st tank squad arrives then scores a command bonus and makes a double move under cover towards the city. The 2nd squad arrives but fails to advance as the 3rd squad fails to arrive to the battle for this turn.
The Guard tanks begin to arrive
The Guard CO tries to order the anti-tank guns to fire on the OGRE as it crosses the bridge but they fail to attack.
The Guard guns can't see Agamemnon through the smoke
The Guard are at breakpoint 6/12 for losing all their infantry.
Turn 4:
The OGRE moves through the city firing as it goes. It’s main guns fire into the flank of the 1st squad, barely damaging one tank but suppressing it.
Agamemnon engages the 1st squad
As it advances the OGRE also launches a missile barrage towards the 2nd squad. The barrage lands short but manages to hit and damage two tanks and both the 2nd and 3rd squad HQs, suppressing one tank and the 2nd squad HQ.
Missiles rain upon the newly arrived tanks
The OGRE fails to launch a second attack. The Guard retaliate. The unsuppressed tanks of 1st squad move into the OGRE’s path firing as they go, but most of their rounds bounce off of the OGRE’s heavy armour. The 1st squad fires again but again still barely scratch the OGRE’s mighty hide, the gunners panic and refuse to follow their leader’s orders to fire again. The HQ who lead the now destroyed APCs manages to rally the unsuppressed members of the 2nd squad to advance but they refuse to get too close to the mighty cybertank.
The Guard tanks advance on the beast
The 3rd tank squad finally arrives but refused to advance towards the enemy. The Guard CO orders the anti-tank guns to fire upon the OGRE, this time they comply but like the tanks they barely scratch it. They fire again and this time penetrate the OGRE’s outer armour (shields down effect) but they fail to fire a third barrage to capitalise on their success.
Turn 5:
The OGRE slides armoured panels into place to protect it’s damaged areas (shields restored) and takes an initiative fire against the 1st tank squad, hitting and suppressing one tank. It fires again, it’s main guns hitting and damaging the same tank from the 1st squad. The missile barrage is launched at the newly arrived 3rd squad catching all of the 3rd and the stalled elements of the 2nd in the blast. However only minor damage is caused and two tanks of the 3rd are suppresed. And the OGRE fails to launch a second set of attacks.
More fire rains upon the arriving tanks
The Guard 1st squad open fires hammering the OGREs outer armour, but the crews are too busy cheering to fire a second time. The APC HQ orders it’s ad-hoc unit forward firing as they go, they manage to penetrate the outer armour (shields down again). The ad-hoc unit halts in line with the 1st squad and fires again, damaging the OGRE and suppressing it. Again the cheering causes a unit to capitalise on their success, and a combination of cheering and sustained artillery cause the stalled elements of the 2nd and 3rd squads to miss their orders to advance. The CO orders the anti-tank battery to open fire again, damaging the OGRE and causing it to fall back along the bridge out of sight of their guns.
Massed fire drives the damaged Agamemnon back to cover
Turn 6:
The OGRE is suppressed and only manages to bring it’s automated repair systems online to bring itself back to battle ready state. Combined elements of the 1st and 2nd tank squads advance while firing in an attempt to bottle up the OGRE. The OGRE retaliates with opportunity fire from all guns, once again dropping artillery rounds just off it’s own fenders. When the smoke clears from the 2-sided exchange the Guard have lost two tanks, three are damaged with two of those being suppressed.
Guard tanks are hammered trying to bottle up Agamemnon
The combined 1st/2nd group is distrupted and fails to act again, and the combined 2nd/3rd elements remained stalled at their own table edge again. The anti-tank battery still have no target to fire upon. The Guard breakpoint is at 8/12.
Turn 7:
The dice rebel. The OGRE fails it’s command roll and fails to act, followed by the combined 1st/2nd squads failing to act as well. The stalled 2nd/3rd units finally advance but refuse to move forward to support their friends.
The remaining tanks advance (finally)
Turn 8:
The OGRE again fires at the combined 1st/2nd elements this time adjusting it’s missile fire to land over the target. It manages to destroy one tank and suppress another, miraculously the last tank avoids taking any damage at all.
Agamemnon continues to hammer the Guard tanks
The OGRE fails to attacks again. It a sign of their impending defeat all the Guard units fail to act on their command orders this turn. The Guard are at breakpoint 9/12.
Final Analysis:
Neither side managed to break their opponent but the OGRE did manage to destroy a third of the Guard force while barely taking any damage itself, so in this case the victory goes to Agamemnon, hopefully a good sign for it’s future battles. I was quite impressed with the OGRE’s performance in battle, I’ve tried some Imperial titans in FWC but they had bad luck on their outings and didn’t last very long. I found Imperial tanks to be surprisingly resilient to the OGRE’s fire but unless they were fired on mass they were not very effective at damaging it. As I’d seen it a previous battle massed fire from the anti-tank guns are capable of crushing nearly any opponent, only problem with them is they don’t really move around effectively.
Towards the end of the battle it seemed like the dice were against me so I went back to look at my rolling stats. There were 25 command successes with one bonus, and 23 failures with one blunder. Since most of my targets were 8-9 on 2D6 it looks like the dice were staying pretty even.
Overall a good battle and I look forward to playing with OGREs again, especially since I have 8 others to use.
