GENCON 2014 Robotech RPG Tactics Battle Reports

[Phaze]

GENCON BATTLE REPORT!

Thursday Night – Battle for Macross – Game 1.

After a short training session on how to play the game we played a trial game to get everyone acquainted with the rules. At the end of the trial game, we started the scenario. The Zentraedi armada attacked the city in waves. Their objectives, as with any well planned military campaign, was to lockdown communications, flank and overwhelm the enemy’s positions and sent the enemy into disarray. The UEDF triggered an evacuation to the hardened shelters; used for typhoons, tidal waves, and the inevitable alien attack.

Zentraedi Primary Objective: Destroy the communication tower and complex (the large building with antennas). In actuality it was a civilian television antenna on top of the World Peace Tower Office Building, and not for military use (other than emergency alerts). 48MDC to take it down.

Zentraedi Secondary Objectives: 1) Disrupt enemy operations by determining their objective and stopping it. 2) Gain control of the battlefield by eliminating opposition.

UEDF Primary Objective: The Hospital Staff was caught off guard by the attack and has delayed getting civilians to the Hard Shelters. Provide cover for the retreating civilians as they leave the battlefield.

UEDF Secondary Objectives: 1) Engage the enemy and prevent further damage to the city. 2) Defeat all Zentraedi forces and gain control of the area.

Units on both sides had already engaged in battle, so units on the field were not at full strength.

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Zent Forces: 1- Zent Attack Squad, 1- Zent Attrition squad, 1- FPA unit not squad(Canonists…yes, I know…FPA didn’t show up until later, but I wanted to do something different to show off the different weapons systems)
UEDF forces: 1- Area denial squad with leader (diminished to 1 Defender and 1 Tomahawk). 1- Armored Squad with leader (2 tomahawks), 1 – Valkyrie squad with leader (1 VF-1J, 2 VF-1A)

Zents came out hard against the building, but took heavy losses from the Destroids as the Zents were focusing firepower on the tower. By round two the building collapsed, but most of the battle pods were destroyed. The Veritechs hunted down the Glaug and its pods as they were threatening the Hospital. The civilians (6 counters, 1 MDC each, representing 5 civilians each) left the hospital and started to run to the edge of the board protected by the Valkyries, but immediately ran into the FPA. They were engaged by the FPA that ravaged two of the Valkyries. At the beginning of round three, the FPA got initiative and finished off the other Valkyrie and all of the civilians (to the Zents, everyone is a military combatant) in a hail of missile fire. The Armored squad came around the corner, saw the horror of the mass civilian casualties, and released everything into the rear arch of the FPA, bringing her down. The UEDF then cleared the battlefield of remaining Zent Forces.

At the end of the day: Score: Zents 3 (Primary Objective + Secondary Objective), UEDF 1 (Secondary Objective)

Friday Night – Battle for Macross – Game 2. (Otherwise known as ‘THE BEST GAME EVER’)

This was originally planned as a Robotech RPG game where the players had pre-gen characters of a squad of infantry sent to assist in the evacuation of the Hospital. The final battle was to be against a full size Zentraedi that had crawled out of his destroyed battle pod (the previous night’s game set the stage perfectly). Due to an error in the posting of the game, it was listed as a Tactics Game, not an RPG, so I was ready for anything.
Players arrived and unanimously voted for a tactics game! YEA! City rebuilt and away we went… Only objectives: Defeat the enemy.

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Zent Forces: 2- Zent Attack Squads fully loaded (1 Glaug and 9 Battle pods each). Reinforcement rules apply.

UEDF forces: 1- Area denial squad with leader (diminished to 1 Defender and 1 Tomahawk). 1- Armored Squad with leader (2 tomahawks), 1 – Valkyrie squad with leader (1 VF-1J, 2 VF-1A). Counting Kills for the leaders apply.

WHAT A BATTLE! Each side hit each other with everything they had. At first the Zents looked like they had it in the bag, taking out two Destroids and a Valkyrie quickly. Then the dice failed them and the UEDF managed to remove both Glaugs from the attack squads leaving a hand full of Battle pods, but also paid the price by losing all of the Valkyries. On one side of the board, 4 pods stomped the remaining Tomahawk, and on the other side the Defender finished off the remaining pods of that attack squad. It was a showdown in the streets as two remaining pods bounded across the table (length wise) to attack the last remaining Destroid unit, the Defender. Both in heavy cover and smoke, just inches apart, separated by some short buildings exposing just the upper part of their bodies, they rolled initiative. Defender Wins. He spends his only command point to rapid fire on the two Pods, but he needs 6+ to hit (D6+2 Gunnery vs. Defense 6 +2 Hard Cover). He roles his first shot…. 6!!!!! One pod down. He rolls his other shot … YES! 6! The wounded Defender (3 points left) brings down the last pod for Victory!
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That will be a game we will talk about for a long time. The next morning, I went by the Palladium booth to cash in my discount coupons on the Rifts UE and BOM, met Kevin (again) and was surprised to learn that everyone at the booth heard about the game last night because the players came by just before me and raved about the game. Way cool!

At the end of the day: Zents 0, UEDF 2 -- Total Score: Zents 3, UEDF 3

Saturday Night – Battle for Macross – Game 3. (Otherwise known as ‘THE BEST GAME EVER – Part 2’)

Wow… same scenario. Very similar results.

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They pounded each other again! The dice failed on one side, then failed on the other. The last round as time was running out…It was the Defender (Yes, the same Defender) vs. three battle pods, staring each other down from across the board. The battle weary Defender almost cracked a smile when the Pods turned and retreated. The players, worn out from so much excitement, declared the game a draw.

At the end of the day: Zents 0, UEDF 0 -- Total Score: Zents 3, UEDF 3

Sunday Morning – Battle for Macross – Game 4. (IN SPACE!)

Battle weary combatants on both sides continue the fight in the streets of Macross, when from above; the SDF-1 reenters the atmosphere and begins a descent to the surface. Then suddenly its fold engine engages. The pilots are disoriented and don’t know exactly what just happened. They find themselves in deep space surrounded by ice and debris that once was Macross City and the Pacific Ocean. Realizing that both friend and foe are still active, they quickly regroup and continue the battle in space.
I had to take some liberty with the rules on this one. From the RPG the Destroids were built with thruster packs that allowed them to maneuver (very slowly) in space. In RPG Tactics, Destroids are not allowed in a space battle. That wasn’t going to work for me… I think Destroids should be allowed but restricted in movement. After all, Destroids were used as mobile turrets on the decks of spaceships like the SDF-1. So I allowed the Destroids on the field of battle but restricted their movement to 1”, should they not be on a deck of a ship. Later scenarios, I will likely allow this and full movement if they are attached to the deck of a ship. They could still pay the Command point to double move. Also I included the rule about decompression on a 6.
First round was restricted to movement only, as everyone tried to regroup.

We actually had time for two games. The first was a learning game that went brutally fast, so we reset and played the scenario.

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Head on collision! Both teams used the movement, not to regroup, but to get into an attack posture. Pods blew up, Veritechs lost their leader early on to decompression, and both sides dove into two rounds on heavy fire. Only two units remained; a Tomahawk and a Glaug. Initiative was rolled… Under stress of battle the Tomahawk hesitated, and the Zentraedi Officer took advantage, firing all of his weapons into the Tomahawk. It looked like it might survive to strike back, as the damage was not enough to stop his walking tank. But on the last shot, something was breached, imperceptible at first then unmistakable. A hissing sound got louder and louder, until a torrent of air rushed out of his capsule removing his air and his life. The Tomahawk floated lifeless in space, as the Zentraedi Officer sped past. He fired up his long range communication system and sent out the coordinates of the SDF-1 to the Fleet still at earth. Maybe they could hear it, maybe they couldn’t. He turned his nose to the SDF-1 and began his attack.

At the end of the day: Zents 2, UEDF 0 -- Total Score: Zents 5, UEDF 3

Zentraedi wins the Battle for Macross. GENCON 2014

[Alpha 11]

Love it! Can't wait to get my stuff so I can play!

[Mike1975]

Great Report

[Phaze]

Dude! thanks! I had a great time. It was great to meet you. We got to get together again with an epic game. 2015?

[Spinachcat]

This is great news! The battle reports sound awesome.

[Shawn Merrow]

Sounds like a blast.

[Alpha 11]

As one of the players who got to play in games 2, 3, and 4 I have to say they were some pretty epic games. Thanks again for putting so much effort into pulling together a couple of sweet boards.

We also got to play with some of the production Destroid and Zentradi models and I have to say I was very happy with the quality. I've played a lot of different mini's games over the years and these models don't disappoint. Rules were straightforward and easy to learn, even the players we had that had never played a game with miniatures seemed to pick it up quickly.

I'm looking forward to getting the first wave of stuff from the kickstarter in the next few weeks and introducing some people in my local gaming groups to the game, Phaze has given me some great ideas on how to make it a more immersive experience for the players.

Good to hear another positive review on the mini's.

[JimmyB]

I think the Minis are amazing. I have been collecting miniatures for a good 35 years. fantasy and Sci Fi of all types.
And both Robotech and Battletech have always been favorites. But not only that, as a player of a certain "Bug" army
in a game that shall not be named. I have become an advid fan of plastics because of the customizability.
These minis have the ability to customize built in, and are literally miniature models. A++++ across the board from me.

As for the games at Gen Con. Awesome battle report Phaze, I was to busy running other games, so did not get to play,
but the buzz from the Robotech tables reached me during every session. And if I could participate in one of your
games before the open house, I would love to see how its done before running my own.

Kudos bud.

[Bad_Syntax]

Why was there only 4 demos for the 4 days of gencon, when each demo didn't last but a couple hours or so?

I really wanted to play one, but even a month+ out the tickets were already sold. On top of that, I had no idea where ya'll were, or even that it was a separate location.

Sucks I missed it I ended up spending most of my game time on Battletech

[Phaze]

Because 4 was all I could run. 4 Games, four hours each, one each day. The booth had their demos during the time the exibit hall was open, but I was the only MA that voluteered to run Tactics. As it was, Palladium had a difficult time, due to the delay of the container, getting minis in my hands to use for my games. But we managed well. Additional games may not have been so lucky.

These were planned way back in December, when it was still looking good for minis by June. As it got closer, it was clear there could be a real issue with minis. I was given assurances that minis were going to be available to me for use in my games. I had several conversations with both the MA coordinator and Palladium staff concerning this issue.

So these events were heavily planned and prepared. Dispite all of the adversity we faced, myself, the coordinators, and the palladium staff pulled together to get these games going and make them the success they were.

I am sorry you missed them, all of the Palladium games were in the Marriott in Ballroom 9. It was really cool to see all of the MAs playing the various games in one place. My table was always up front right by the door so if any on walked by they saw the table and setup. Got a crowd around the table everyday.

[Bad_Syntax]

I did finally hear about the ballroom, but I heard about it from the kickstarter comments section, not PB. I stopped by, but all I saw were RPG's being played so I left.

Heck, I'm still waiting for a sign that I can put in my local store advertising demo's to start getting people thinking about the game, and I'm guessing it would have been nice to have it outside that room 9 at gencon as well.

Oh well, guess i'm in a better position now to do my own demos than most folk Having so many battletech unseen also helps

However, the first demo I'm going to run I think will be Zentraedi vs the US Army (using GHQ miniatures).