Mars Attacks (Duluth?); An All Quiet on the Martian Front game

The Housemartin is a huge fan of the All Quiet on the Martain Front rules. I have to confess that I like the rules as well and find the models beautiful. I had built a rough fortification at Housemartin's request as he desired to try out the fortification rules.

       The design of the fort was based on the idea that the Martians have no naval presence to speak of  and thus the guns and turrets from warships can profitably be used to defend important points inland. The fort is an elongated hexagon with a twin-gun light cruiser turret on each corner. in the center  are a pair of towers; one equipped with range-finders and huge fans (to dispel the Martian toxic gasses), the other has a gun that shoots a thick mastic substance (think Liquid Nails) to cripple anything entering the surrounding earthwork.

     The Martians had several Assault Tripods, a heavy Howitzer Tripod, a couple of lighter Scout Tripods and a Slaver running as bevy of drones(?).

 

at the beginning of the game the 'Pods come into view

the Assault 'Pods lead the attack but some lucky hits to Navigation and Weapons systems early-on by the Earthlings caused two of them to spend most of the game wandering aimlessly about

but it wasn't all in the humans favor, repeated hit from the corrosive Green Gas ate away at the boundary walls and the gun turrets as well, the dispersal fans helped a bit...

....but the gas eventually ate its way into the turrets...

....resulting in a massive explosion....

followed by a second, things were looking grim for the Earthlings at this point , 

two of the three turrets directly facing the attack were gone

the risk of leading the attack all by itself became evident to the last Assault Walker 

as it died in a catastrophic explosion

the remaining turrets and tanks managed to hit the Martian saucers, 

but not before the flyers had caused further havoc with their gas bombs

the Scout Walker bravely tried to lead the way through the breach

 but found itself face-to-face with an undamaged turret...

his death was heroic, but swift

(notice the two Assault Walkers at the top edge of the shot, 

they spent most of the game outside of range, wandering)

the Slaver then took over the assault, sending the bevy of drones in to attack

(I am not sure that it the correct name for them, 

I played humans and spent my time trying to blow them up)

then, one of the most unlikely events in the history of miniature gaming occurred, I rolled three tens (yes, I know that it is a one-in-a-thousand event and I have been gaming for nigh unto forty years but this is ME ROLLING THREE TENS!!!!!)

sorry about that, I do get excited from time to time

and the little ones died in their droves

at this point the Martians gave up, the casualties had been horrific and the humans still had most of the fort running as well as three steam-tanks, plus re-enforcements on the way

     Thanks to Housemartin for running the game, it was a nail-biter to the finish and his models were lovely. I will have to get to work on finishing his fortification system (perhaps we can get him to bring this scenario to a gaming convention)