[GZG] GZG ECC XII: Saturday Evening AAR

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E: Assault on Hoth   GM: Phil Pournelle (nods respects)  Game: Modified
DS2

Scenario:
Imperial Walkers on their way to Echo Base on Hoth. Rebels trying to
slow
them up to let the transports escape. AT-AT and AT-ST with stormtroopers
coming in, attacking to destroy shield generator to let Vader and more
troops come in. Veers leading. Rebel snowspeeders, infantry, and turrets
defending. Luke is in a speeder. Leia is in command center kicking butt
to
move evacuation along.

Early on, the paired rebel speeders decided to take the battle to the
AT-ATs
as far down the table as possible. Out they went. Early attempts were
made
to attack at range to avoid AT-AT air defenses. This tended to produce
poor
results. Rebels started trying to kill chicken walkers (AT-STs) with
turrets
and GMS from troops. AT-ATs used close formations for mutual support.

Early game looked like Imperial walkover - no real hits from Rebels,
turrets
being blown up by AT-ATs, and things looked bad. First snowspeeder shot
down
(by odd circumstance) - Luke Skywalker. AT-AT turned toward him,
tauntaun
SAR dispatched, snowspeeders attacked walker and killed it from close
in,
braving air defense, but it dropped troops.

Several walkers dropped stormtrooper missile teams to shoot at speeders.
Rebel losses mounted, but consolidations were taken and attacks were
pressed
despite the cost. Soon, 2 chicken walkers and 3 AT-ATs were down. By
this
point, about five or six of about 11 turrets were down, all on the side
with
the shield generator. General Veers was already dead.

Chicken walkers overran infantry positions, losing one to final
defensive
GMS fire, and then chased infantry away with RFAC and missiles. Turret
fire
(to everyone's amazement) eventually killed the 4th (second last) AT-AT,
but
again stormroopers were dropped. Luke came under blaster fire from
stormtroopers and snowspeeders tried to take the pressure off him with
tailguns, but to no avail. He ended up rushing to attack enemy infantry
with
his lightsaber....

More turrets died. More infantry died. Stormtrooper infantry shot down
more
speeders. The final AT-AT fired on the shield generator ineffectually,
but
he had the shot. Then the remaining snowspeeders blew him away. A turret
killed the last chickenwalker and there wasn't much more to be done for
the
Imperials. The shield generator would stand until another Imperial Wave
could be brought from orbit.

On the pathetic side, Leia had done a crappy job and only the complete
halting of the wave saved the day for the rebels, as only two transports
(out of about 12 where the Falcon was 5th) had managed to launch by the
time
the shield generator came under fire.

On the tragic side, Luke Skywalker was killed in HTH combat with
stormtrooper squads. I guess only Imperial Storm Troopers could be that
precise. Ben was right.

I did point out that Luke didn't do much in ESB or even in ROTJ - the
heroes
and destroyers of the Empire's war machinery in those movies were Wedge,
Lando, Nien Numb, Han, Leia (still around) and the Rebel Commandos with
some
fuzzy bear help. So Luke's loss was not so bad.

Leia would just have to go to Dagobah and become the Jedi eventually and
lead the NJO after ROTJ.

The battle was considered a minor victory for the rebels (would have
been
major if not for Luke's death).

A well run game, with slightly odd dice mechanics. Phil needs to do a
bit
more 'typesetting' to make his charts more user friendly for himself!
But
the game was interesting and fit the genre well enough. I think Luke
should
have had some force points to cheat death, but that's just a minor
flavour
point.

It *felt* like Star Wars. I *felt* with all of the 1s we rolled on the
Rebel
side (crazy) that the ground was shaking as the inevitable defeat
approached. Then we had a miraculous turn around powered by our attempts
to
save Luke and making our attacks suicidally aggressive on the AT-ATs,
much
like in the movie. And the Imperials, if given one more round or better
luck, could have blown the shield and our transports would have been
screwed.

So, all in all, an excellent game. Nice job Phil!

TomB

-- 
http://ante-aurorum-tenebrae.blogspot.com/
http://www.stargrunt.ca

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