Star Wars Star Grunt

I played a game of Star Wars using the StarGrunt 2 rules last weekend. Needless to say, it didn't turn out quite like the films! StarGrunt is a rule set that veers distinctly on the 'realistic' side of wargaming, so putting lightly armoured, pistol armed rebels up against armoured, rifle armed stromtroopers was a recipe for disaster really. This was especially true as the Rebels had to get a droid off the other end of the table.

But the game was great fun and I would definitely use SG2 again for Star Wars, although I might tweak the stats of the models in some cases.

[Urgh. I just uploaded the pictures to blogger and have found they are in reverse order. Can't be bothered to fiddle around with them.]



The point at which the game was effectively over. The Empire had taken almost zero casualties whereas 4 out of 6 squads on the Rebel side were out of the fight. The planetary militia were running away and the elite Rebel commandos had been cut down by the probe droid (more of that later). The R5 unit that had to get off the other end of the board had moved no more than 12 inches the whole game...




An overview of the table. The Rebels started in the shattered remains of a city that had been bombarded from orbit. The Empire troops were advancing through the jungle. You'll note a squad of Battle Droids from the new trilogy. I don't mind too much about that sort of thing and figured the local Imperial force had access to some for some reason.


A shot of the Rebel advance. Sending the locals out first turned out to be a bad idea...



The Imperials advance through the jungle.



This is the first squad of local infantry being blown apart by the probe droid. I had given it weapons that in retrospect were far too strong for a robot that is just supposed to probe stuff! Will be toning it down a bit in future.



The probe droid at the bottom giving the Rebels what for and devastating what were suppose to be elite commandos! Unfortunately, the Rebels were not able to amass enough firepower to make a hole in the imperial lines. The probe droid effectively destroyed the Rebel left flank. As for the rest, they just couldn't seem to make a dent in the Stormtroopers.

Although the battle was rather one sided, it did make for an interesting solo game and I'm looking forward to playing again. I might replay the scenario and change the forces a little to see if it balances things out.

Zombie Fun

A while back I thought I'd have a go at a game of All Things Zombie: Better Dead than Zed, and it didn't disappoint. By and large the rules were okay and it was a fun game, although there were one or two unclear points that I had to make up as I went along. But as it is a solo game, that was not a problem.

The terrain is my regular stuff, although I printed out house plans I had made using Shuffler. As the game allows characters to enter buildings and I didn't have any appropriate ones, I thought it would do the job. To be honest I was happy with how it worked out.

The figures are all from the Last Night on Earth boardgame by Flying Frog.




The game started with the Sheriff and colleague entering the board. Their mission was to search the village for any survivors and lead them to safety. The initial zombie presence was limited, but as the female cop was carrying a shotgun, there were likely to be more attracted by the noise!



Another view of the set up with zombies lurking in the background.



A view of the board with 4 houses (excluding the garage) to explore.





A picture from towards the end of the game. I wasn't originally intending to post this, hence the lack of pictures. Two survivors had been found and joined my group. Unfortunately, someone decided it would be an okay idea to explore the final house alone and they were ambushed by zombies and got chewed up. Another character died shortly later, leaving two to escape off the board.

The game was definitely fun and I'd like to play a campaign at some point. The only downside is that the rules were vague in some places. It does make me wonder about trying "No More Room in Hell" for zombie games instead, but I'm happy to stick with ATZ for a while longer.