CoTGB: Smugglers vs Warbots

It was time to play Challengers of the Great Beyond again at the Southern Battlegamers club. I planned to run a force of warbots against a rag-tag smuggler type grouping run by Martin. The warbot force was using the sample list in the book, being;

Cyborg leader (Primordial Beast): 4 slots

Sentry gun: 3 slots

Robot sidekick: 1 slot

4 x light warbots (Cadets): 8 slots 

Martins smuggler crew were;

Psi-Knight leader: 4 slots

Bounty Hunter: 3 slots

2 x Starport Thugs: 6 slots

1 x Proud warriors: 2 slots

1 x burden: 1 slot

This is an image of the warbot force. Due to the great secrecy the smugglers carry out their operations in, I did not get an image of their starting line up.

We rolled for the complication and got "the macguffin redux". This is a tricky scenario, probably better suited to a more stealthy force like the smugglers. Both players put a clue token on their half of the board, and whenever a unit moves over a token, it is removed. From the 4th token removed, there is a chance it will be the "final" token that has the artifact that must be taken off the table. The trick is in the timing of uncovering the tokens - if you reveal all the ones on your half of the board, you give the game to the opponent, as they will be guaranteed to find the artifact on their half of the board and easily win the game.

The initial set up is as follows;

The yellow discs are the clue tokens. Of interest was a group of starport thugs finding a cozy home at a franchise outlet of Morebucks Slurpdregs franchise;

Anyway, the smugglers won the first initiative and the psi-knight leader using the leap psi skill leapt across the table from his position at the side of the morebucks building straight into a group of light warbots. The warbots used opportunity fire, inflicting 1 hit on the psi-knight, however, the melee was a fizzer - the psi knight must have been distracted by the flesh wound and completely missed.

In the following turn the warbots won the initiative and the cyborg leader, with its great movement ability, charged into the psi knight, the position shown below;

The fight was again quite defensive, with the psi knight parrying all attacks while failing to inflict anything back. As a side action, other warbots fired upon their foes, but missed as the starports thugs are quite evasive. Even the sentry gun failed after unleashing a volley upon the morebucks building.

In the next turn, where the smugglers won the initiative, the psi-knight pulled off a telling move. Using the "speed" power, giving the opportunity for two actions, he broke off from the fight and revealed the first token on the warbots side of the board. With the second action, he charged into another group of light warbots with a view to entering the building behind them.

Below is the result of the fight;

The left image shows the initial attack and the roll of the psi knight - with 6's counting as double hits for a plasma sword wielder, that came to 7 hits, a total wipeout as seen on the right. The warbots did attack first with 4 dice, but being mooks against a martial artist, they scored no hits in return.

The warbots has a lot of work to do. They won initiative in the next turn and opened fire again on the morebucks building, where the thugs had climbed to the roof to get the next clue token. The gun scored 3 hits. The cyborg also charged the psi knight in an attempt to end his reign of destruction - with the fight again being a stalemate and no wounds on either side. The smugglers, losing initiative, did a lot of manouvering, with the proud warriors moveing to position to attack a group of light warbots, and the bounty hunter being revealed next to a clue token. The position shown below;

The next turn was critical to the outcome of the game. The smugglers won initiative, and were able to reveal the rest of the clue tokens on their half of the board. With the 4th token revealed, this was a big gamble. They had to roll a 5 or 6 to have the 4th token being the artefact, on a failure, the warbots get into the box seat for victory as the artefact will be on their half of the table. As it was, the bounty hunter, on revealing the 4th token, rolled a 5. There were only two things that could stop the smugglers winning - the group of nearby light warbots, and if the cyborg could win and be freed from the fight with the psi knight.

The proud warriors charged, losing one figure to opportunity fire, but rolled well in the fight, wiping out the warbots with 6 hits, amazing rolling, as can be seen by the picture. Again the fight between the cyborg and psi knight resulted in a stalemate. The cyborg, being a "primordial beast" could not break away from the fight, so the psi-knight just had to keep it pinned in melee.

In the following turn, the victory dance of the proud warriors was short lived, as a unit of light warbots opened fire and wiped out 4 figures, leaving only 1 remaining.

However, it was all to late as there was no one to stop the bounty hunter exiting the board and running off with the artefact. The game was over by the 6th turn with a victory to the smugglers. In terms of casualties, the smugglers lost 5 proud warriors and 3 starport thugs (8 squad figures), while the warbots lost 12 cadet figures.

The smugglers force worked to its strengths, the psi knight was able to take a clue from the opponents side of the board to get a chance at their end of the board, and the bounty hunter was able to appear at an opportune location to get the 4th clue. The main hitting unit of the warbots, the cyborg, was able to be kept engaged by the psi-knight while the smuggle force was free to reveal clues. Though, had they failed to succeed on the 4th clue, the game could have turned out quite differently. So a near run thing in the end, a good game!