The Battle For New Terra (Part 3): A 5150 Campagin

Here is Part 3 of my Transatlantic campaign game of THW's 5150: Platoon Leader. I have built everything I needed to play out of recycled materials found on the rig, and scrap parts from the metal junk baskets.   

Location: New Terra
Mission: Attack, Destroy all PEFs
Star Army Investment Level: 5
Hishen Investment Level: 2

Troops.
Locke: Star, Rep 5
Rocket Launcher, Rep 4
Plasma Rifle, Rep 4

Squad 1
Leader, Rep 3
Troops, Rep 4

Squad 2
Leader, Rep 4
Troops, Rep 4

Squad 3
Leader, Rep 4
Troops, Rep 3

Board Setup

 This mission, Locke kept Squad 3 in reserve.  Locke, the two weapon teams and squad 1 all enter the table in section 8, triggering PEF checks all the buildings from sections 7, 8 and 9. Each of them no spawning any enemy.

Squad 2 entered the board on section 7, triggering PEF checks in the building in Section 4. This also results in no enemy.

At this point, the 3 PEFs are generated via the normal rules, Section 1, 2 and 4. all get one.

PEFs are formed.

Squads moving up the street.

Next turn, results with all the PEFs moving towards someone. The PEF in 4, moves into the building and triggers an insight test with Squad 2. Bad case of nerves.

Locke and Squad 1 moves forward and triggers an in site test with the smaller building in section 1, getting a result of a full squad.

Locke and troops were able to react first, and very quickly dispatched the Hishen squad. After finishing moving just a little further forward, they triggered the last two PEFs in sections 1 and 2. One was a bad case of nerves, and the last one automatically requires a roll on the reinforcements  table.. resulting in a big fat "Nothing"

Star Army Wins, and this results in the moral of the Hishen being reduced to zero and automatically ending the campaign.

-------------------------------------

Final thoughts..

 All though not clear in the rules, the rules do say that for PEFs that fail to produce anything when approaching a building, says that if you enter that building after you need to resolve the PEF again in the building. But it doesnt say to lay a PEF counter down, I have been placing blue tokens on it to remind me. Going forward, I will treat these as a special kind of PEF, that you need to clear in order to obtain the victory conditions of the attack mission. I had 4 blue tokens on the board and I just ignored them.

The low IL of the Hishen did hamper things a lot. As I rarely got any spawns. But Its a good level to allow you to learn the game. I increased it to 2 this game, but as luck would have it.. I got seldom got the PEFs to actually trigger, although I had a ton of re rolls.

Again, I would like to say if you are just starting to get into wargames/miniatures this 5150 Platoon Leader is an ideal ruleset due to the simplistic nature. Although its too simple for me in the big picture tho.. not enough variety in the results. But, 5150: Star Army, although the same basic game concepts, with its more detailed rules, a little more clunky rules offers me a pretty good game complexity that I like.. Picture it as Platoon Leader as 5150 Basic, while Star Army is 5150 Advanced. I have yet to try 5150: Battalion Commander.. That one is on my list to try out hopefully in a few weeks.


 

Battle For New Terra: A 5150 Campaign. Part 2

This is part two of a campaign game of 5150: Platoon Leader by THW that I am playing while sailing across the Atlantic for work. Making everything out of things I was able to scavenge from the recycle bins. It may not be lead, it may not be painting, or fancy terrain.. just good old simple gaming :)

 
Battle of New Terra:
Mission: Attack
Investment Level: 3
Enemy Investment Level: 1

Locke: Star, Rep 5
Platoon Asset 1: Rocket Launcher; Rep 4
Platoon Asset 2: Plasma Gun Rep 4

Squad 1: Star Army
Leader: Rep 3
Troops: Rep 4

Squad 2: Star Army
Leader: Rep 4
Troops: Rep 4

Squad 3: Star Army
Leader: Rep 5
Troops: Rep 4

With the ruse foiled by Lockes last recon mission, the Star Army now decides to strike out at the invading forces. Locke and his platoon, along with his special weapons team are ordered to attack. Lockes mission is to move 3/4 of his troops of the board sections of 1,2 or 3.



Locke and the weapons team move and take the first middle building while squad 1 and squad 2 move up on each flank. Squad 3 moves up and moves to support Locke.

The first 3 buildings in sections 7, 8 and 4 turn out to be empty, while PEFs are generated in sections 1 (one PEF) and 5 (two PEFs)

 This caused a few things to happen, the 2 PEFs directly in front section 8, where the Locke and the weapon teams, were the first to trigger the insight tests and turned out to be just bad nerves. This left the last PEF in section 1 in LOS to both Locke and Squad 2. It turned out to be a full squad of Hishen troops.

In sight tests were made, and Squad 1 lost to the Hishen, while the Hishen lost to Locke and his team.

The Rocket Launcher managed to be the only team to get a shot to hit, and its 5" blast decimated the entire Hishen squad.


Squad 3 then move to the sector 5, while squad 1 and 2 moved up the flanks. Each time they triggers PEF checks on the buildings as they moved near them. With the Hishen investment levels so low, they all turned out to be nothing.

The reminder of the mission, Locke ordered all troops to dash off the field. Knowing full well, that now the only way enemy troops could spawn, is if his men entered a building or the Hishen got lucky on its reinforcement roll.

Squad 3 and Locke were able to make to the edge of the board with making several fast moves, while Squad 1 and squad 2 were both short, inches away from the edge.

On the last turn, the activation rolled turned up a seven. A 6 and a 1.. sure enough it was the Hishen that rolled a 6 and got reinforcements. Right next to the edge of the table, in sector 1 a lone Hishen rocketeer arived in the same building where the previous Hishen squad was previously blown apart.

Fearing the worst, as I have seen a RL in action just a few turns before, Squad 2 needed to get the in sight test, which they did. With the whole squad opening up, only 1 shot managed to hit!! I thought it was over, but the damage roll turned out to be a 6+ killing him outright.

With this last building being cleared, squads 1 and 2 leave the table to complete the mission.
Results:
Star Army Morale: 5
Hishen Morale: 1


I know I have been kinda lucky with the low investment levels of the Hishen. So on my next game I am going to bump it up to maybe 3.. See how different it will be.

So far, I am liking the 5150: Platoon Leader rules, as it deals almost entirely then foot based troops. So you do not vehicle models, or anything else for that matter. The rules are very fast once you understand them, as this game took me all of 30 minutes to play. Which, for me, being on a rig. I can get a quick game or two in before I head off to bed before the next shift.

Compared to 5150: Star Army, SA has a more serious feel to it and is considerably slower but it has much more detail and customizing to it. I would assume that Star Army was designed for those who like more complex games that involve a larger range of models.

 

The Battle of New Terra (A 5150 Campaign)

This is my first attempt of an actual real campaign game. The last few days I have been practicing with the rules and getting a rules down pat. Now its time to begin the campaign.

Controlling Star Army (Moral 3, IL 3) vs the Contesting Hishen (Moral 4, IL 1)

Patrol Mission. City Outskirts of New Terra, 0900
Mission: Recon sector and confirm if any Hishen have advanced into this sector. Avoid unnecessary casualties and return upon completion.

Locke moves his squad into the SE corner of town. His mission is to confirm enemy sightings in the area.
3 PEFs appear, sectors 1, 3 and 5. Sector 5 turns out to be the bad case of the nerves and nothing is there.

Locke fails to activate while the PEFs in sector 1 and 3 move towards him.

There are sounds of movement ahead that seems to be coming from the building, but again it turns out that there is only a few rats in the old warehouse.

Locke and squad moves towards the warehouse and no PEF is generated, meanhile a in sight check is made vs the last PEF. 2D6 passed, and its a roll on the enforcements chart. Total result:3 Nothing! Locke and his squad complete the recon with out incident.
 

 

It appears that the rumored contact in the outskirts was nothing but enemy propaganda, as the sector contains nothing but shadows and silence. Not falling for the bait, the Star Army can send its troops on the full attack.

This was my very first game, with no contact what so ever. It was an easy win, but Ill take it none the less.

Making Due... 5150 Star Army

So....

I am on a transatlantic tow for work. We have been delayed another few days which means when I finally get home I will be pushing the 30+ day mark.

So craving a good game, I figured I would play a game designed by  +Ed TheTHWguy of #twohourwargames "5150" When I goto work, I always traveling with my dice, so all I needed was a table and some minis. I started with flat chits with scribbles on them and the spare bunk in my cabin as my board... next thing I know its a full on paper minis setup in my cabin using what ever I could scavenge from the rig.  Guess that was the miniwargamer in me.

I wonder what it will look like in 4 more weeks!

Anyways, this will gives me the chance to really dig into the game and rules as I really haven't played it enough since I first bought it, I should be able to put a good solo campaign together over the next 4 weeks.

5150: Star Army Basic Training - Target Practice

Ok.. 

So, the last few days I have decided to start to learn a new ruleset from Two Hour Wargames. 5150: Star Army.

What I decided to do was place a few figures on the table, set up a basic training area and start trying some of the basic mechanics of the game.

So, with volunteers from the Terra Nova PDF, a small squad entered into the training field and broke off into 2 opposing teams of 4.

Each team had is wearing Soft Body Armor and as a SAW weapon and a leader with a rep of 4, and for that matter, everyone was a rep 4.
Armed with the latest Non Lethal Electronic Weapons and Immobilization Harness Systems, the two forces faced off.

Blue Squad needs to run past the alley way to the other building across the street.

Green Squad lay in wait. Target practice is fun!

Blue Squad rapid moves across the street, the first two members enter the alleyway triggering an in site test from the green squads SAW gunner and regular. The rest of the blue squad move 2 more inches. Sadly for the Blue Squad, two of their members are left in the open. The site test was passed 2d6, so the green squad opens up. The SAW gunner fires 2 shots each, rolling a 12+4 and a 9+4 rep, two hits. The Impact rolls results in Knocked down for both Blue members. Which then triggers two out of the fight results. The second green squad member fires 2 shots at the lead guy, and 1 more at the leader. Scoring a 7+4 and a 2+4 (miss) this results in a second knocked down and OOF result for the lead blue squad mate..

This results in a man down test, which the Blue squad gets a duck back result. The two remaining blue guys are with in 4 inches of two down members so try and retrieve them. (This is where I get a little unclear of how this works) So far they rapid moved for 6 (they still have 2 more inches before they need to roll for rapid move) So they move their remaining 2 inches to pick up the wounded members, this triggers another in site test, and the end results were much of the same, the last two were out of the fight.

So the question I have from here is if they did manage to retrieve the two members with out getting mowed down, how would have the movement work out?

I am allowed upto 6 inches of duck back movement, do I used this allowed movement to retrieve my fallen members, or do I get to use the rest of my rapid move which I decleared earlier but never had the chance to use yet?

So 2 inches to get to the fallen members, and then the last 4 inches to move back to cover? 

or

Move 2 inches of my regular move (now at 8 total, do my rapid move test) and move the remainder of that, and then add in the 6 inches for fall back?

New Ruleset added to my collection -Two Hour Wargames

In my ever growing 15mm collection I decided to expand by picking some other rulesets. Somthing that is a little more optimized for solo play.

I have owned all things zombie for a few months now, but never had the chance to read through the rules until just the other day, it didnt take me long to see the value of this system.

So right back to THW I went and also picked up 5150: Star Army.

Im just now reading the rulebooks so maybe in a day or 5 I will have a small battle report to post. Until then, check out the website at

http://www.twohourwargames.com/index.html