I recently picked up several of the Fistful of Lead rule sets, a simple yet flexible and fun set of skirmish rules. The standard FFOL rules are designed for small skirmish but they do have their Big Battles book, which is what I tested out with a couple of friends. The rules are adaptable to just about any era but this time, we tried it out as a sci-fi game.
Years ago I had picked up a number of the old Void game Junkers figures which for some reason were designed as sci-fi Romans. These inspired me to come up with a "Rome Never Fell" background for this game.
Thus, it is the year 2773 Ab Urbe Condite with the Roman Empire still the greatest power in the Solar System. It faces only a few great rivals: the Han Empire, the Quechua, and Magna Gothia. This last state is arose from the Germanic tribes who were unable to migrate into the Roman Empire and who were the The Romans were able to keep the various Germanic tribes from migrating into the Empire and pushed them back into what we know as Russia where they expanded into Siberia. Currently, Rome is at war with Gothia over control of the large Central Asian buffer state of Chorasmia. The Romans had overrun most of Chorasmia when the Goths intervened.
In this game, a force from the Royal Gothic Army with remnants of the Chorasmian regular army and some local partisans have been sent to retrieve a reknown scientist who had found refuge in a Zorastrian Fire Temple in a small oasis. The Romans had gotten wind of this and sent a strong force to retrieve the scientist themselves. To win, the scientist had to be found and escorted off a friendly table edge. The scientist was in one of the four buildings in the oasis. Each time one of the player's units entered a building, we rolled a dice to see if he was there.
The Gothic force consisted of three 5-man squads, a commander, Houbet Theodoricson, and an assassin, Die Valkyrie.
Their Chorasmian allies consisted of one squad of regulars, two groups of partisans, a commander, Tigranes Bey, and a Hibernian renegade sniper, Dimma.
There were two contigents of Romans. The first consisted of two 5-man squads of legionaries, a mountain gun, a commander, Centurio Valens, and a gladiatrix, Nova.
The other Roman contingent was made up of two 5-man legionary squads, a 3-man squad of gladiators, a commander, Tribune Carinus, and a gladiator hero, Crixus.
Both sides were allowed to secretly place one land mine. The Roman mountain gun found the Chorasmian mine on the first move, losing two crew members.
Despite this, the Romans advanced rapidly into the village.
The Chorasmian regulars ended up stalled in a face-off with the Romans over a goat pen.
The gladiator squad rushed the advancing Goths who went into cover.
Domma climbed a roof of one of the buildings hoping to set up a sniper position. However, Nova was waiting for him and after a fierce fight, killed the rebel Celt.
The Romans had gathered around the Temple itself and a partisan squad charged them but were wiped out to a man.
However, this distracted from the Goths who advanced toward the Temple.
The Valkyrie was unleashed and seemed to devastate on Roman squad. However, the luck of the gods was with them and their losses were soon recovered. (FFOL uses a card mechanism that not only controls initiative but also acts as special events. In this case, the Romans drew a card that allowed them to recover the two casualties they suffered.)
The Goths charged the wall surrounding the Temple and drove the Romans back.
But not before the Tribune discovered the scientist hiding within the Temple itself.
With the Romans preparing to withdraw, the Goths made a final push.
The last Gothic reserves were thrown into th fray.
A partisan squad amazingly won a close combat against the Romans and drove them away from the goat pen.
The Chorasmian regulars were now free to advance but discovered the Roman land mine and were routed.
Nova single-handedly destroyed the last of the partisans.
Despite heavy losses, the Romans held the line. The Goths were reduced to firing their grenade launchers at the retreating scientist, hoping to gain a tie by killing him. Despite repeated landing hits on the target, the Goths failed to kill him. Tribune Carinus was able to get the scientist off the board with one hit point remaining.
