Forum member Quickdraw*and I met today at Gamer's Haven and played the "Demolition" scenario (p. 57). We were both right at 2700 points total; he played Covenant, running one Hunting Host*and one Siege Host*battlegroup, and I played UNSC, running two Mechanized Infantry battlegroups (with heavy armor support in the second battlegroup). Quickdraw recently picked up a nicely-colored piece of terrain cloth, which provided a great backdrop for the game. Initial deployment (from the UNSC point of view; I was the defender, protecting the bunker in the foreground):
For VP purposes, the bunker in the foreground was the objective; the other two out near the middle of the battlefield were considered "outposts" and didn't grant any VP, only light cover for infantry and of course line-of-sight blocking.
Quickdraw also recently picked up and painted both the Jackal Infantry and Snipers; great-looking models! (And, as I discovered later, the Jackal Infantry are not easy to kill...)
As with every game of Ground Command that I've played thus far, this was a hard-fought game with a narrow margin of victory. The UNSC carried the day, 36 VP to 31 VP, but it was not a victory of which to be proud.
Generally speaking, I was able to eliminate most of the Covenant infantry before they got to the objective bunker. This was not easy, and I lost a LOT of units doing so, but my main goal was to defend the bunker and I think I did a (barely) adequate job of doing this. In retrospect, I should probably have tightened up at least one battlegroup around the bunker and forced him to come to me; I think UNSC infantry does better holding ground than advancing (especially considering the "move or shoot" rule for the HMG teams). There were a*few highlights and cinematic moments in the game, as shown below.
After taking two damage points from the Hunters, Quickdraw finished off my Scorpion with--of all things--side gunner fire from a Phantom while it was executing a combat drop mission! Thankfully the Scorpion had knocked out some of his Storm Ghosts, but I still wasn't happy with the tradeoff. We decided that the tank looked good flipped over with the turret laying next to it, so we left it where it died and it became part of the battlefield:
That same combat drop mission deposited two Scout Ghosts near my bunker, which Spartan Black had to deal with. He killed one pretty quickly, and the other didn't do too much damage--more of a distraction than anything else. (The D6s near the Ghosts were my VP trackers.)
I garrisoned the objective bunker pretty early in Turn 1 with an Infantry Unit that had both an officer element and an HMG element. This turned out to be the perfect combination inside the bunker, as the officer boosted the unit's reaction rolls and the HMG element gave it some good anti-infantry firepower. I did lose two rifleman elements, but I was still rolling 13 anti-infantry AD every time they fired.
More proof that Spartans are not invincible! I had just made a supply drop air mission and Spartan Black was about to exchange his assault rifle for a Spartan Laser, when he was hit by the Wraith. Spartan Black already had one wound, and he had to re-roll his successful save due to the Wraith's weapon loadout. He failed the second roll, and was removed from the battlefield (remember: Spartans never die, they're just missing in action). Good thing for the Covenant, too, as he probably would have put a world of hurt on that Wraith on the next activation.
Also...each Spartan failed at least one reaction roll. So, they're not as invincible as everyone thinks they are. Just sayin'.*
I lost my Gauss Warthog unit in a bizarre melee situation, where the vehicles were repulsed into the Spartan, thereby destroying them. I was not very pleased with this result, as both 'Hogs only had one damage point on them, and they had just obliterated an entire Storm Ghost unit.
Of his two Wraiths, I was only able to kill one (the anti-air variant); this was accomplished through a couple Wild Weasel air missions and an attack by one of the Spartans.
By the end of Turn 4, Quickdraw had lost most of his infantry and figured he was not going to be able to destroy the bunker based on what he had left on the board, so he called for a general retreat. I did not have ANY vehicles left, and not much infantry, but I did still have a (relatively) healthy Spartan that might have still done some pretty serious damage. A few lessons learned:
1. We need to start playing with more terrain that infantry can use for cover. This game had a lot of terrain that blocked line of sight, but not much that the infantry could use for cover. For my part, this may be due to my playing fleet-based games (Dystopian Wars, Halo Fleet Battles, Firestorm Armada) and not being used to using terrain for cover (I guess you can do that with gas clouds in Firestorm Armada, but it's not a tactic with which I'm very familiar). Both UNSC and Covenant infantry units are pretty squishy, so getting them into terrain like buildings, patches of woods, etc might make a big difference. Quickdraw observed that infantry units on both sides in this game spent a LOT of time out in the open, susceptible to all kinds of attacks from both ground and air units. Giving them more buildings and more trees to use might make them last a little longer.
2. I learned (painfully) that sometimes a Hold Move action is exactly what is needed. Again, since most of my wargaming experience is in fleet-based games, I think I'm mentally stuck in a "must move a minimum distance" mindset. I lost a Warthog today due to this tactical error.
3. Leave buffer room around units in case they are repulsed in melee. This is the situation where I lost my Gauss Warthog unit. The Warthogs were engaged in melee by a Grunt Levy unit, and to be honest I'm not happy with how this resolved. The unit did enough damage to put one damage marker on one Warthog, but then per the melee rules the vehicles were repulsed four inches back from the melee attack. This brought them into contact with one of my Spartans. As Quickdraw and I interpreted the melee rules on p. 83, the Warthogs had to move directly back from the direction of the melee attack, which violated the two-inch buffer rule around the Spartan, which meant the Warthogs were destroyed. This was frustrating, as I stated above, since the 'Hogs both only had one point of damage apiece. Now--I should have thought about this possibility ahead of time and given some room around the unit to prevent an outcome like this. However, thematically, I have an issue with the unit being destroyed when it violates that two-inch buffer when repulsed. What I think would work better is that the colliding units (in this case, the Warthogs and the Spartan) should gain an activation AND a cooldown marker, to show that there was a lot of confusion caused by the Warthogs having to quickly back away from a melee attack. If the repulse would cause vehicles to impact a building, maybe they should be subject to an "impact" attack from the building. I don't know. Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part because I lost the Warthogs on a rule that I think is a technicality. Certainly not a show-stopper, and I'll definitely leave a 6-inch buffer around my units in the future, but still. Frustrating. If we resolved this incorrectly, please let me know.
Other than that...it was a fun game! We are both starting to see the tactical depth to the combat mechanics, and for my part I seem to enjoy and appreciate the game more and more each time I play. At one point this afternoon, I activated one of the Spartans and said "I'm activating the Spartan, and I'm going to target your Jackal Snipers." Do you know how cool it is to be able to say something like that?!?!?
Thanks for reading!
