Action at Anshan - KR-16 Campaign Game 2

With the Junker Insurgents suffering rather heavy casualties in the first campaign game, the Regional Defence Force felt emboldened to move into the Junkers heartland of Anshan. The following scenario is based upon this move by the RDF.

Scenario

The RDF have been contacted by Steve Chang about a Junker Civilian whose has information regarding the whereabouts of some JI weapons caches. Not all Junkers are fans of the JI, so the RDF must head to Anshan to get the Junker civilian out so that he can pass on his information. If they do gain this information, it could be a massive blow to the Junker insurgency...

RDF Major Victory

Extract the informant off the table via their starting edge.

RDF Minor Victory

Find the informant but leave the table with the data contained on a storage device.

JI Major Victory

Recover the informant and take him off their table edge.

JI Minor Victory

Prevent the RDF from achieving their victory conditions.

Junker Insurgent Forces - 550 pts (+/- 20 pts)

As this would be a game in a built up area, requiring searching of houses, I went with the following mainly infantry based force:

2 x Rocket Squads

2 x Sniper Squads

1 x Sniper Team

1 x Power Armour Unit

2 x Bullfrog pick-up trucks

Turn 1 - JI Initiative

From the off a Bullfrog loaded with Junkers raced off towards the central building in Anshan, where it deployed its troops ready to start searching the building the following turn. Another infantry squad moved off as well as the sniper team, but other units were rather reluctant to join in the 'seek and destroy' mission. 

For the RDF, their Pathfinders failed to move, forcing the infantry to leave them and deploy toward the Anshan outskirts.

Junker civilians move uneasily in Anshan as both sides start to deploy for their respective missions.

Turn 2 - JI Initiative

The Junkers Insurgents continued to move into Anshan, deploying quickly to start searching the houses. The RDF moved their Pathfinders forward, firing into Anshan, suppressing one JI squad.

Turn 3 - JI Initiative

With the JI nicely deployed for their searches, they found the informant in the second house, before the RDF had had time to even enter Anshan. With a hidden JI squad amongst the civilians using them as human shields to cover the search mission, there was little the RDF could do to prevent the JI from silencing the informant. With little prospect of gaining any victory points without risking taking significant casualties, the RDF wisely decided to withdraw from Anshan.

The civilian population cover the JI as they search the houses of Anshan.

Aftermath

Well a susprisingly quick and bloodless game after the previous bloodbath for the Junker Insurgents. So a few thoughts as always on the game:

• The speed with which the JI were able to reach Anshan in their Bullfrogs helped them get the jump on the RDF.
• Gaining the initiative each turn helped the JI, especially with this sort of scenario.
• Finding the informant in the second house turned the game massively in the Junkers favour. The RDF simply did not have time to get into the game.
• Having a Junker Insurgent squad hidden amongst one of the three civilian groups really helped them. The RDF could not be sure if and when they might be ambushed. Given this is part of a campaign, losses can become crucial very early on, as we saw in the first game.
• The civilians being able to move anywhere each turn meant that the RDF could not get any clear lines of sight to the JI, thus allowing them to search in relative safety.
• Michael was suprised at my infantry heavy force, expecting me to take a rocket Bullfrog along to threaten his Pathfinders. This is the fun part of a campaign, finding out what your opponent is bringing to the table. It makes you really think about your force and one that suits the scenario.

Despite it being a very quick game, it was fun to play and the campaign is starting to get a nice momentum and feel to it. The Junker Insurgents now have a very nice additional 100 points to spend on replacements or new units as they see fit. After game 1 this is most welcome.

As for the next scenario, we bounced around a few ideas, but have to wait for Michael to firm them up into something more concrete. Work and the Xmas period will mean that the next chapter of the campaign will have to wait until the New Year in all probability. This will give me time to paint up some more units as well as have a think on how to spend my VPs.