Not At all Quiet on the Martian Front!

The Housemartin dropped by with his extensive collection of AQotMF toys and ran a game for us the Saturday before the 4th of July. Yes, I am late in filing my AAR. The scenario is that U.S. and Canadian forces are meeting up to attack a Martian base that is nearby and seems poorly defended. The Martians have figured out the simple Marconi radio-telegraphs used by the humans and know the attack is coming and have laid an ambush for the unsuspecting humans.



Canadian recon blips advance

half the blips were dummies and the Martians suffered

a premature deployment event when they decided to fire on one of them

having eliminated both dummies

the Walkers advanced to fire on the remaining units

the blips were lifted and the units deployed,

a company of infantry and three armored cars

after hammering the recon units with fire the Walkers retired to the forest,

 but the word was out and the Canadian armor advanced into the fray

LOTS of Canadian armor, and a double battery of self-propelled artillery

a furious exchange of fire broke out,

with many hit clattering harmlessly off the thick Martian armor

the recon units had miraculously survived the torrent of fire that the Walkers had poured onto them and continued their advance only to find the village infested with lobotomized humans,

 they instantly took this abominations under fire

 

much to their horror the fire of the tanks had no discernible effect

and the artillery decided to blow the living daylights out of a nearby pasture

(smoke clouds just the right of top center)

to escape the rapidly re-ranging Canadian artillery

the Walkers advanced to "danger close" range

 and battered the Canadian armor from point blank

the move was unnecessary as the rest of the Martian force now deployed

and took the artillery under fire destroying most of both batteries

suddenly things looked very grim for the Canucks

it got even worse as the Walkers advanced close enough to start using gas weapons

a ton of lucky (depending on your point of view)

die rolls spared the Canadian Forces for a turn

at last the Americans appeared on the field

the light Canadian tanks were no match for the Heavy Walkers

 but they fought bravely on trading their lives to give the U.S. forces time to deploy

then the Slaver made off with the command element

leaderless now, the Canadians still clung to the fight

surrounded by the smoke of their friend's burning tanks

the Americans advanced boldly toward the Martian invaders,

meeting up with the two remaining elements of the armored cars

 and forcing the lobotomized  Martian slaves out of one of the village houses

the Walkers gathered to confront the new threat

the vast fleet of American armor advanced majestically across the wheat fields

while the last of the doomed Canadian armor continued to slug it out with their oppressors

the Walkers and the Americans began to exchange fire

while the sole remaining Canadian tank continued it's lonelt duel with the Martians

the U.S. armor now faced the full brunt of the Martian force

they had some successes at first

moving up re-enforcements

but the Walkers continued to gather

and the Martian fire began to find its mark

casualties began to mount on both sides

 with appreciable damage to some of the Walkers

the infantry holed up in the  village did well against the lobotomized Martian slaves,

 but fared rather poorly when fighting the drones

despite some noteworthy damage the Walkers continued to close with the Americans

and inflict casualties

confronted by drones and flyers the infantry had nearly no chance,

but knowing the option was to die fighting or become a Martian slave

they fought with desperate courage

surrounded and under fire from every angle the infantry and machine gunners finally relinquished the house, they died like Spartan warriors, facing the enemy with steadfast courage

the Slaver, always looking for new victims, engaged another unit of infantry,

failing to notice that it was a unit of heavy infantry was his mistake 

the American armor suffered a horrifying bit of bad luck

and was rapidly losing the fire-fight  with the Walkers

then the Slaver paid the price for his hubris,

 the fight with the heavy infantry destroyed him

unfortunately the resulting explosion killed many

of the fearless men of the Heavy Infantry as well

suffering titanic losses the Americans withdrew from the fight

 leaving the Martians victorious but badly battered

some Canadian stragglers arrived just at this moment

 but retired to inform High Command of the disaster

      A ripping good game (even though I was the Canadian Commander). Thanks again to the Housemartian (that was on purpose!) for hosting the game. I have come to enjoy this game system a lot. It plays well and is fairly easy to pick up.