Wednesday 28th July saw the 4th game of Star Wars Chain of Command. Finally, the powerful AT-ST made it to the table, although I think the Empire would have preferred to have a Force User. The Scenario was downloaded from the Star Wars CofC Facebook Group.
Scenario
The Rebels have managed to escape the Empire attack on Hoth and have split their surviving forces over several secret locations. The Empire have tracked one group of Rebels to the deserted trading planet of Roth-Erham. The Empire have sent an assault force to attack the Rebel base and capture its fortified bunker to enable them to obtain details of the locations of the other Rebel bases. Phil & Dave again played the mighty Empire and Mal and Steve the plucky Rebels. The game was hosted over Zoom (and reported) by Rob.
Game
The game started well for the Empire. Clever placement of Jump-Off points gave them a deployment position only yards from the Rebel base, which they quickly entered, with a few casualties on the way from Rebels firing from the woods east of the bunker. It was starting to look like this could be a quick Empire victory.
The first squad of Stormtroopers started to advance behind the barracks towards the bunker, whilst a second squad followed close behind.
To stop this advance, the Rebels deployed a squad and senior leader behind the bunker, which advanced on the Stormtroopers and started a firefight. This didn't go well for the Empire and the squad was quickly wiped out.
Meanwhile, the feared AT-ST started to advance down the table, trying to get into a position both to suppress the Rebel fire from the woods and blast open the door to the bunker.
The Rebels deployed an RPS-6 Rocket Launcher Team in the woods, their only defence against the AT-ST. Its first shot hit the advancing AT-ST, forcing it back a few yards, but unfortunately did no real damage.
A squad of Imperial Scout Special Forces and a senior leader deployed east of the rocky plateau and started to move around its north edge to try and flush the Rebels out of the woods.
The Rebels countered by deploying Luke Piewalker and a Mk II Blaster Team in the woods to provide protection from the Scouts, however, both are ineffective against the AT-ST’s armour.
Unfortunately for the Rebels, fire from the AT-ST took out the Rocket Launcher Team, leaving the Rebels defenceless against it. They therefore retreated to the rear of the woods, leaving the AT-ST free to advance towards the bunker.
The Empire advanced a Jump-Off point into the Rebel base and immediately deployed their last Stormtrooper squad.
Luke then took the Rebel squad around the south edge of the bunker to support the first squad, and the firefight against the Stormtroopers intensified. Luke used his force abilities to good effect, allowing him to re-activate one squad’s heavy weapon team to pour devastating fire into the Stormtroopers, who started to take heavy losses.
The Stormtroopers tried to find cover, but were quickly outnumbered by the pursuing Rebels.
Meanwhile the Empire’s Scouts entered the woods and engaged the MK II Blaster Team, whilst the AT-ST started to open fire on the bunker door, scoring 2 of the 3 hits required to breach it.
The Scouts struggled against the significant firepower of the Mk II blaster, taking significant losses.
Back at the barracks, with nowhere to hide, the few remaining Stormtroopers were quickly routed.
This left the Empire with just their AT-ST and a couple of heavily outnumbered Scouts on the table, and their Force Morale reduced to 2, with the Rebels still on 6.
Although the Rebels had no effective weapon against the AT-ST, they could easily finish off the Empire’s Scouts, and capture sufficient Empire Jump-Off points to reduce their FM to zero. Therefore, after over 5 hours of play, a Rebel victory was declared.
Post-Game Analysis
Initially it looked like the Empire’s rapid advance into the Rebel base would achieve a very quick victory. However, the Rebels had several very lucky Command and Attack dice rolls, which slowly started to swing the game their way. Several double 6’s on their Command dice, and Luke’s force power allowing him to re-activate his heavy weapon team, allowed the Rebels to dominate the firefight behind the barracks.
The Empire soon started to run out of Stormtroopers, and with no force user of their own (Darth was busy crushing Rebel resistance elsewhere in the galaxy) their attack quickly stalled.
Although the AT-ST was packed with a formidable array of weapons, it was hard to activate and slow to move, both hampered by poor dice rolls. With better rolls it could have been a game changing weapon.
Both sides need to consider deploying more of their arsenal of vehicles and weapons in future games (pretty please).
The dominance of the Empire has taken a bit of a hit, but the Empire will strike back! Another Star Wars game will be planned for the near future.
Rob
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