Space Command - home of wargaming & strategy simulation

AERONEF

MARS ATTACKED! BATTLE REPORT

An Aeronef scenario by Commander Dave B.

My first Mars game was serendipity. A friend came to stay from China. He's an excellent modeller and I had just to put him to work! Like most of you, I hoover up the odd bit at B&B's. I had some gw gothic ships and a two odd American fleets with the intention of doing a minor power Full Thrust fleet.

If you haven't seen the amazing Mars stuff from the South London Warlords you must have been in deepest Limpopo. I suggested to Dave (Yep, Dave's rule the Universe!) that we could do something similar in Aeronef scale. With their examples as a guide, and the design sequence in the Captains Handbook, we set about converting the ships. This was done with the addition of plastic rod, milliput, and screw covers. We tried sails, but ran out of time – maybe next game!


Aeronefs over Mars

Terrain

Scenery is my old red terrain from Purbeck. Not only a local company, but possibly one of the best! No other foam tile system is reversible as far as I'm aware. I included the first of my Land Leviathan Germ's (GZG) figures just to add flavour. The just released GZG polyhedral shelters made excellent forts. Paint work was a little too good, as you just couldn't see em!

mars!


The Martian ships were designed to reflect all the variables possible under the rules. The locals were old gas shooter ships upgraded. Just to help out, I threw in a few Japanese.

The invaders were split into smaller fleets: assault ships, loaded with electro guns bombers with, well, bombs, boarding boats packed with Martian Marines ready to storm aboard any opponent.

The plot was simple and uninspired. The locals are patrolling their city, the invaders are intent on capturing it. Just for effect, 7 Japanese Nef's are coming to the rescue. Lots of (slow) ships with new weapon systems the game went fairly slowly at the start. The bad guys come streaming in and the defenders rush to the attack. The Japanese attempt to head the bad guys off at the pass.

Electro guns packed into a hull are quite effective en masse. The big converted proved so slow and easy to surround that it simply wasn't worth it! Looks good, though!

The bombers waddled around at the rear and took out a fort. I think these will get a makeover.

The boarding boats are fun. Please note the stat sheets include crew – you need this for boarding actions and treating losses like any other system works.

Fighting against human ships is interesting, if they can keep the range they should be able to outmanoeuvre their opponents and use their slightly longer range to good effect.

Next time we will use the new inch movement rate. Later on, land leviathans will storm in. The idea is to have the locals supported by size 5 Brit Nefs, with new “colonial” production walkers using the GZG walker and the invaders French and “old” Earth invasion era walkers from Brigade. The webmaster has a fine collection of Kallistra hex terrain. This includes mountains and the trench system/ Using these, I want to create a city on a canal, with mountains behind.

As far as I'm aware, this was the first Mars game played at club level. If I'm wrong, tell me!

Watch this space for more on Mars!
The invasion begins
Mars attacked! The invasion begins


preparing the defense
preparing the defense


Japanese arrive
Japanese arrive

hold the line
hold the line

capitulation
capitulation!