Tomorrow's War AAR: Tiger by the Tail

[Updated May 29, 2013:  Additional AAR's added to links at bottom of post.]

The boy and I had another opportunity to play a wargame in a way that required us to don sunscreen before rolling them bones.  Just another day in paradise.  We have enough 10mm tanks to take the Tomorrow's War scenario Tigers by the Tail for a spin, but not the terrain.  To compensate, we drew out the battlefield in chalk on the concrete patio like so:


 Before starting the game we ran into the first problem: What sort of woods are those?  The scenario didn't specify.  If they are light woods they do nothing, and what's the point of having them? If they are heavy woods, then they black movement and fire. In which case it's a shooting gallery for the US Forces.  We decided they are light woods that prevent rapid movement and block fire after three inches.  That slows down the DPRG, but gives them ample room to maneuver while protecting them from the better guns of the USMC.


The USMC gets the initiative, moves into place, and just like that two DPRG tanks are out of action.  The DPRG couldn't grab the reaction fast enough to get into cover, so the USMC essentially started the game with 2 of the 6 VP needed for victory.  One tank out of action and the lead tank's main gun knocked out - this would be a pretty boring game...or would it?


The DPRG rushes its damaged tank off the table, narrowing the victory margin, and moves the other into position to hurt the USMC with a shot up the tail pipe.  In the back half of the table, the USMC wipes out a second tank, but is too far back to catch Bai Lin's command tank.


The DPRG gets greedy - rather than get off the table for 2 VP, the lead tank takes a pot shot at the weak rear armor of the USMC.  To make matters worse, the USMC rolls a one on it's Reaction roll, triggering an off-board artillery strike that leaves it unable to move.  The DPRG gets a solid shot off and scores another VP by blowing the USMC tank to kingdom come.  With the score 4-3 in favor of the USMC, and one tank ready to move off table at the start of the next round, the game boils down to a single die roll on the right half of the table.  If the DPRG wins it's reaction roll, it can get another tank near the board edge and behind cover, leaving no way for the USMC to hit it.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be.  The USMC wins the roll, swats the tiger like a annoying bug, (leading to my son's quip asking if the DPRG tanks are named after the cat or the mosquito), leaving the DPRG unable to score enough points to win the game.


At the start of turn 4, the USMC again gets the initiative and moves up to take out the remaining DPRG tank before it can get off table.  The USMC tank has just enough movement to poke its snout out of the woods and blast the DPRG, avenging the loss of the USMC tank earlier in the game.

Final result - an 8 to 3 USMC victory.  Not a decisive win, but solid.  The game started ugly, but the DPRG fought back to make a game of it and add some drama in the mid-game, but couldn't overcome the weak armor plating and tech level difference of the two types of tanks.

We did some things wrong in this game (we didn't use the Buttoned Up rules at all, but that wouldn't have made a difference to any of the Reaction rolls), and fudged some things (Ambush Alley, you've got to do a better job detailing terrain effects in the scenarios).  Nonetheless, a good time was had by both, and no one got sunburned, so things worked out great.

As mentioned in this blog previously, part of the fun of running these scenarios is comparing the results of your own fight to that of others.  Here are a couple of other guys that ran this for your own comparison:

• Walworth County Gamers
• The Ooh Shiny Complex
• Tabletop Geeks

 If you know of any other AAR's for this scenario, let me know and I'll add them in.

Tomorrow's War: Scenario Unit Cards

The next name on my dance card is Tigers by the Tail, featuring the hot tank-on-tank action of 5 DPRG Chonma Ho's escaping from a pair of M70 Perkins.  This is the second scenario included in the main rulebook of Tomorrow's War, and to expedite the game I've made up the following unit cards.  Print out one for each tank, and you've got a handy way of tracking whether the commander is buttoned up, which crew members are dead, as well as each tanks special attributes.  Sort of.  I've left off the ones that are already factored in to the tank's stat lines.

The photos aren't mine.  I shamelessly grabbed them off Google Image Search and shamefully forgot to track who is responsible for them.

Tomorrow's War: Odds and Ends

Got a couple of points to add to yesterday's Tomorrow's War post.  They didn't make the final cut because the AAR was getting a bit long.  Neither is enough to justify a full blog post, but they are each perhaps worth a brief mention.

The Shroom House

You might have noticed the little red number serving as a farm house.  It's the new style for my Pocketmunda terrain, bright white with bright colors.  While painting, the swooping red trim looked sharp.  When done, my son though it looked like a large mushroom.  Not the intended purpose, but we artists have to put our work out into the world and let people form their own interpretations.  The red dots are small opalescent beads picked up cheap at the craft store.  They'll be a regular feature on these paper-mache houses and should help tie the urban board together.

Fog of War Deck

Also mentioned and shown, but not discussed in yesterday's post is this lovely little Fog of War Deck.  It's printed off the pdf (available from the publisher here) onto thick parchment cardstock and trimmed as neat as possible.Simple, elegant, and evocative, I enjoy these cards way out of proportion the effect they've had on the games we've played.

Lost & Found, A Tomorrow's War AAR

The boy has been pestering me to buy and paint a full unit of Rebel Mini's slick new Sons of Thunder alien dwarves.  He's a bit jaded on the skirmish level gaming after seeing four of his Mangalorc gang killed in action and his leader captured by his sister's all girl gang.  He's ready for some one-offs, and you can't really blame him.  His enthusiasm was infectious, resulting in me cracking open the Tomorrow's War and boning up enough to run through the introductory scenario, Lost and Found.

I'd read a few after action reports (AAR) on this scenario, like this one, this one, and this one.  That helped resolve a few questions before they'd even arisen, and meant that I knew what to expect out of the game...or did I?  We'll get back to that, but first, and interlude:

One of the cool things about Tomorrow's War is that it is scenario driven, and not points driven.  That means that most everybody is going to cut their teeth on the game by playing the scenarios detailed in the main rulebook.  It's a minor point, but it's worth mentioning that it does help you feel like part of a community when you play the same game as others, even if those games are separated by 1,000 miles and two years.

With that out of the way, let's jump right into the action.

Here's the table setup at the start of the game.  You've got the Ladies In Blue (the USMC for those of you following along at home), a small high-tech squad of well motivated and well trained professional soldiers attempting to move north to make contact and rescue the famous movie star, Wally (a downed pilot per the rules as written).  Shown here, the ladies are represented by three fire teams whose movement and fire is shown in yellow.  They are represented by a mix of Rebel Mini Black Widow mercs and Laserburn Law Officers.

Opposing them is a mixed force of alien mercenaries (by GZG) and yellow suited aliens (by Rebel Minis) broken up into four fire teams shown in bright green.  The rules list these as the DPRG, a larger force of motivated, but not nearly as well equipped or trained regular troops who want to keep that robot on the table through Turn 8, and rack up as many kills and POWs as possible while doing so.

In turn one, the ladies send Fireteam Alpha sprinting north while Fireteams Bravo and Charlie take up flanking positions.  The Allied Forces lurk in the woods for the turn, waiting for a more opportune moment to light up the battlefield.  That moment presents itself moments later...

The two flanking units exchange first fire.  This would set the pattern for the bulk of the game.  Meanwhile, Fireteam Alpha slowly approaches Wally, trying to stay under cover for just one turn to make a safe dash for the pilot in the following turn.

But before they could make that dash, the Allies triggered an old booby-trap of their very own, set in the eastern woods during a previous engagement - likely the one that turned a set of ruins to the north into a giant crater.  The net effect of the Fog of War card was...one less bomb for the UXO boys to have to collect later.

Meanwhile, in the center, the Ladies were ready to score the first victory points of the day by making contact and answering the age old question of, "Where's Wally?"  As the flankers continued to trade blows to no real effect, Allied Fireteam Three lit up the Ladies Fireteam Alpha like a Christmas tree.  A brutal exchange of fire left the Allies unhurt and the Ladies pinned, which allowing the Allied Fireteam Four to rush right up to the old farmhouse, where they psyched themselves up for...

...the big grapple.  With the ladies in the center depleted and demoralized by the previous turn, the still fresh Allied Fireteam was able to hold them off and found themselves...

...dead or captured.  This photo is blurry to represent the bitter tears of anger and frustration your humble editor felt and the pain and humiliation of losing two brave ladies KIA and seeing another paraded around Allied-ville, to say nothing of the secrets pried out of the most adorable trash compacting robot ever to grace the silver screen.

All hope was not lost, however.  If Fireteam Charlie could make a solid blow on the right flank and a quick push for Wally, the day could be salvaged...

Yeah, this doesn't help.  Technically, this is the start of Turn 5.  After tallying up the Allied VPs gained through POW, KIA, and heavy casualties inflicted the score stood at 11-0.  With no way of scoring more than 10 VP (3 for contacting Wally, 7 for getting off board by game's end, and all this with only 4 remaining combat effectives), I conceded the game.

Post Game Wrapup

The major turning point actually came in the second turn when the USMC/Ladies lost the initiative never to recover it.  That was a real backbreaker in that it  forced the USMC/Ladies to keep reacting to events rather than driving them.  The total inability of the USMC/Ladies to win a Reaction contest wasn't helpful either.  Again, the well trained force just didn't have the drive or motivation, and paid dearly for it.

Before playing this scenario, it seemed like the general consensus around the internet was that this scenario is overly balanced in favor of the USMC/Ladies, but now that I need links to those reports, all I can find are reports that it's a close game and evenly balanced.  Go figure.  At any rate, we didn't find the game overly balanced.  A few dice breaks either way could easily have turned the tide of the game.  While it's hard to tell after just one game, it also seems like the Ladies/USMC could have benefited from a more aggressive strategy as well.  We will be punching up the terrain a bit and playing this again next chance we get.

Oh, and hey, the crunch in this report is pretty light, but if you can think of anything we might have done wrong here or rolls we might have missed, feel free to let me know.  This was only our second game, and while it went faster than the first, it still feels like we're missing something fundamental in our play.

Tomorrow's War AAR: Test Drive

Took the Tomorrow's War ruleset for a little test drive over the Labor Day Weekend, and figured what I haven't figured out.  Now I know what sections of the rulebook need a good re-reading.  Here are some quick notes on the game.

I have 20 each of the lizardmen and humans, so we set them up as two forces with Quality and Morale at d8 for everyone.  The lizards deployed in two squads of two fireteams plus a couple of 'platoon' leaders, while the humans went with three 'squads' of six men each with a couple of 'platoon' leaders.  Guess this battle was fought late in the war when attrition had reduced the number of effectives each side could put in the field.

The mission was simple for both sides, secure the perimeter of the mining station.  Whichever force had more men alive inside the perimeter at the end of turn six would be the winner.

End of Turn One - Positioning.  The lizards make straight for
the prize, and the humans begin a more
conservative pincer movement.

Middle of Turn Two - First Contact.  The marines get the drop
on the lizards.

End of Turn Two - Both sides have a unit inside the perimeter.
Red arrows indicate a firefight.  The humans get the better
of the first round of combat, trading one dead marine for
three seriously wounded lizards.

Middle of Turn Three - Turning Point.  The humans close assault
the larger lizard force and it goes horribly wrong.  The lizards can't
break the charge, but make up for in it melee.  The lizards
don't take a single casualty, and capture two POWs.

End of Turn Three.  The humans move up on the left and
keep up the suppression fire on the right.

End of Turn Four.  The marines on the right flank move into thicker cover,
to no avail.  They do nothing to the lizards, but receive three more
casualties.  The squad to their left falls back in response
to the overwhelming advance of the 2nd lizard squad.

End of Turn Five - the Better Part of Valor.  The humans quit
the field, rushing the casualties from squad one to
MEDEVAC.  Lizards victorious.

While the troop quality and numbers were even, the lizards had more and better support weapons.  In the end, they were simply able to put a lot more lead and lazer blasts in the air, and that made the critical difference.  If we play this again, I'll probably give the marines some sort of light armor to compensate and give them more stopping power.

Post game wrap-up.  Guess we'll have to put the
\terrain and figures back in the box later.