Heavy Gear battle report

Well horribly late is better than not at all right?

Anyways, last Tuesday, the forces of North and South joined up against the evil tyrannical grasp of Earth and the Colonial Expeditionary Force (CEF). Or what this means is myself and my friend LeadLegion teamed up against another mutual friend for a game of Heavy Gear. I'll say right now this took a while, as not only is it on a club night, so there's a bit of chat with people you only see once a week, there's also the fact that neither myself or the other player (the regulars of the game technically) get many games in, so it was a bit of "how do you do that again?". Also it was LeadLegion's first game. Still he'd read the rules and that helped.

Anyways force composition comprised the following.

North:
1 Fire support squad, comprising 2 Grizzlys, 2 Hunters and 1 Jaguar.
1 Strike Squad, comprising 3 Jaguars and 2 Hunters
1 Mammoth Strider

South:
1 General Purpose squad, comprising 3 Jaegars and 1 Black Mamba (they were the honour guard)
1 General Purpose squad, comprising 3 Jaegars and 1 Command Jaegar
1 Fire support squad, comprising 3 Spitting Cobras and 1 Jaegar
1 Infantry Squad

CEF:
1 GREL Platoon in HPC-64s (Hover APCs basically)
1 Light tank squadron comprising 2 LHT-71s
1 Heavy Tank squadron comprising 1 HT-68 and 2 HT-72s

Now, I had found out our opponents army list in the day (as we'd all worked them out in advance, so we started chatting during the day), and was suitably terrified of the fact he had 3 Heavy tanks. Still, we decided to sacrifice our lives dearly in service to Terra Nova, and began set up, after choosing objectives and support.

The set up.

The initial set-up, the guy on the right is the CEF player. 

The Terra Novan forces set up on the right hand side in the above picture, while the CEF were on the left. The Heavy Tanks were set up in the middle, with the HT-68 off to the left of his side (up in the top left in the picture). His light tanks were also deployed in the centre, while his HPC-64s were deployed behind the large hill in the bottom left. His GRELs were already out.

Our forces were deployed, with the Northern strike squad in the right hand side (top right of the picture), the fire support squad infiltrating into the woods (bottom of the picture) and the mammoth taking up position in the small town in the centre. And yes none of my stuff is painted. LeadLegion pretty much had all his painted just to show off. Swine

Southern forces had the two general purpose squads deployed on the right hand side (top right) while the fire support squad were just the other side of the river from the town. The infantry were deployed in the town. Then battle commenced.

Turn 1:
We got the initiative, and instantly began pouring fire into his heavy tanks as much as possible. LeadLegions fire support squad opened up on the HT-68, and managed to damage it, removing it's sturdy box (basically ablative armour). So would begin the long process of wittling the tanks down. His tanks moved up, and began opening fire, heavy particle cannons blazing trails, and managed to cause damage to the southern fire support team. Meanwhile eventually his HPC-64s started moving towards the town, round the hill. My fire support squad emerged from the woods, and began laying down rocket pod fire on them, damaging one and destroying another. My Mammoth also joined in pouring fire into the HT-68, lightly damaging it.

The most important part of this turn when both sides decided to call in a lot of support, intending to try and cause massive damage. We locked two heavy artillery bombardments onto the position of his HT-72, as they'd managed to log jam themselves between the bridge and the buildings. A medium bombardment was called in against the HPC-64s, while the CEF player called in a heavy bombardment against my Mammoth.

And it was a result. Another one of the HPC-64s went up in a ball of flame. The 2 HT-72s suffered damaged, though not enough to adversely affect them greatly, one of them losing its sturdy box, and the other suffering light damage.

My Mammoth managed to lose it's 2 sturdy boxes, and suffer light damage, so took quite a beating, but thankfully kept going.

Turn 2:

Cunningly I decided to take the photo from the other table end, so it's all reversed now.

Our opponent got the initiative, and started moving his heavy tanks again. Reaction fire from my strike squad, and LeadLegions fire support squad, managed to finally destroy the damaged HT-68, which ditched in the middle field, while his HT-72s took to the river and began doleing out punishment, reducing the southern fire support squad to 1 Jaegar.

My fire support squad, emerged further from the woods and pounded the HPC-64s with further rocket fire, destroying not only the whole squadron, but the army commander with it (this is important, as it means he no longer has access to command points for re-rolls and activating things out of sequence etc). Cheered by this victory we began the slow march forward.

His LHT-71s had advanced up the river and began scanning the bridge (one of his objectives). They then nipped behind our lines and began dishing out punishment. However, we weren't without return fire, with my Mammoth opening fire on them, while both of LeadLegions general purpose squad moved to allow his rocket pods to get shots in, which eventually destroyed one, and damaged the other.

Unfortunately we had to call it a night at that. It had taken a long time to set up, with deciding objectives, support points etc, so I think next time we play we're going to sort it out by e-mail prior to the game to save us time. Also we weren't clued up on the rules which didn't help.

Technically the Terra Novan forces won, as we had completed more of our objectives, that of certain key gear squadrons surviving. However had we played longer the CEF player would've garnered points by having his LHT-71s leave the table with the recon data.

Still, it was a great game. There's talk of getting a game over the Easter weekend were we can take more time over it, and play it out. And next time I'll take more photos. Promise. I seem to have landed the role, as LeadLegion isn't allowed to handle his wife's camera, due to him perpetually dropping things.

Apologies for the slight sketchiness of the details. I'll maybe try and take brief notes, though it's difficult to do, and get a game in during the say 3 to 3.5 hours we get in a club night, depending on how long it takes to eat and chat.

Thanks for looking.