The Planet Tiritzil Is Fought Over By The Esteevian Federation And The Retrograd Union

 Mat and I are still working on our army lists for our next fantasy campaign (it generally takes six months to finish working out the campaign details!) In the meantime, I organized a small semi-skirmish SF game. I wrote the rules on the same day, and they need some fine tuning, but they worked.

SETUP 

The planet, Tirtizil had been colonized hundreds of years ago by Earthlings. The landscape had a combination of Earth and alien ecology. The more deadly native life and some recent alien incursions had depleted much of the human population. However, wealth was still to be found on the planet including vials of the distilled essence of some of the more useful alien life forms. There were three objectives for the two unions that had landed combat teams. I commanded the Retrograd Union, known for their garish military uniforms, apparently oblivious to the needs of camouflage.  Mat commanded the Esteevian Federation. 

  There were four units of similar strength but differing in detail. Mat and I rolled off to see which units we would get and also for which corners each unit would start on. This meant our forces were divided until near the end of the game. Weapons were generally laser rifles with unlimited range and pistols with short range. We didn't have multiple shot weapons, but all were counted as assault and turned heavy cover into light cover. All were capable of dealing with armor and robots but the latter were harder to harm and had multiple wounds. There were also cyborgs, slightly stronger than regular humans. 

   Units had a single robot or armored suit. Three robots also guarded the objectives and could attack anyone approaching the objectives. In addition, there were a couple of rogue zombie/mutants, a band of scary blobby aliens and some buried zombies about to emerge, at any moment, from the ground. The zombies were humans or aliens overcome by an insidious alien virus which had a kind of primitive hive intelligence. There was also an octopus monster lurking in a grove of alien plants.

   The random placements put the blobby blokes very close to one of my units. However, they took a few moves to get inclination to attack. 

  BELOW:  A strange edifice had been constructed by unknown authors upon a former government tower.

                                            The zombie horde turns towards the Retrogradians.

   Esteevians also were known to sport bright colors. The yellow was originally conceived for civilian use in recovery operations.

  The blobby blokes nearly catch one of my men already occupied against a scorpion robot crawler guard.

Retrogradians are sorely pressed by enemy troops, and here, the horrible aliens. They have, however, destroyed the robot scorpion.

  A Retrogradian combat suit battles an Esteevian turtle-bot. Above is an Esteevian cyborg flyer.

                                               Here is the scorpion-bot prior to destruction.

                                                      Esteevians move near the toxic dump.

                                                               Esteevians with turtle-bot

                                                            The Esteevian flying cyborg

                                             Esrteevian troops in camo designed for a different environment.

                                                                Retograd Union troops.

                                             Retrograd troops with cyborg and armored suit.

   Zombies on the hill and the alien blobbies head towards the outnumbered Retrogradians.

   Shooting exchange in which the Retrogradians (foreground) get the worst end of it from the Esteevians.

                                                                 A desperate situation....

   The game ended on move 12 and both of us had claimed an objective. However, my numbers were dangerously low, and the survivors were imperiled so I called the game for Mat who was about to exit the field with his unit which held their objective alien serum. 

PS
I forgot to mention that the Blobby Aliens were conversions inspired by ones I had seen on the Death Zap blog. They are made by using PVA, tissues, sand etc. to make an irregular shape over cheap plastic army men or knights with toothpicks for the pointy bits.