More Firefight ~ This Time it's Enforcers!

Another game of Firefight and this time, as the title says, it was against a force of Enforcers. I expected these guys to be quite tough and they were. But I also expected them to be few in number, which they weren't because they had a bunch of GCPS Marines with them to make up the numbers.

I set up my "abandoned, rundown, overgrown mining operation in a jungle" terrain. It looks okay even if it's a little unimaginative. But it does provide plenty of cover for fire and movement.

My opponent was another Ian (who's surname I don't know). He's taken me though a few games of Dux Bellorum previously so this time I took him through his first game of Firefight.

We set up, my opponent got the initiative and we started. The way initiative is works is you roll a d6 to work out who deploys first, then the last player to deploy a unit is the second person to activate a unit on the first turn. In subsequent turns the player who last activated is again the second person to activate in the next turn.

Anyhow, I got quite a few pics of the first couple of turns but I then got too involved and forgot to take pics.

Colonel Fank Phraxus looks on with insolent calm.

Initially we both opted to move our troops into position with very little effective shooting. I maneuvered a couple of marine squads on the left and made a beeline for the central objective but my squad got pretty much shot up and suppressed.

I did manage manage to reduce the suppression on my central squad and got them into the objective (the central habitat hut) with some back up from a Mule Transport carrying a couple of veteran marine squads.

Unfortunately a hidden enemy heavy weapons squad with a couple of flamethrowers advanced toward the objective supported by an Enforcer Strider. I was doing better on the left with my heavy weapon rocket launcher laying some serious hurt on an Enforcer squad lurking near the elevated landing pad.

The very dangerous flamethrower squad in hiding.

Unfortunately, for my guys they met a flamey death and the objective was once again unclaimed. But I also managed to damage one of the Enforcer Striders with the thermal rifle mounted in the transport. Not enough to kill it but enough to hurt.

Elsewhere, my marines were getting pretty shot up and suppressed and their own shooting wasn't doing much against the Enforcer's armour. The same is true for my mortars. Hitting but killing very little. Tough little swines!

Combined shooting from my transports' guns and the squads inside it destroyed the enemy flamethrower squad but after a couple of turns of shooting the Strider eventually took down my Mule and the veteran squads inside had to abandon their ride. One of them again took the objective but accurate fire from another Heavy Weapons squad (this time with rocket launchers) took them out and the objective was, once again, up for grabs.

The Strider moved up to blast my other veteran squad and did a pretty good job of it but my laser cannon took aim and melted the mechanical beast and the operator into molten slag.

But there was another Strider on my right, so I brought in a squad of Rangers (Drop Troopers) from reserve. They took a shot at Strider #2 and hurt it pretty badly but got shot up pretty badly in return (I forgot that they could have laid a smoke screen). They eventually destroyed the Strider but the were wiped out by small arms fire.

This is the stage where I forgot to take photos...

My remaining couple of veterans were charged by a single officer armed for close combat. It took a couple of turns but they eventually lost (again, that good armour defeated my best efforts).

During this time there was shooting and movement on the left with both of us taking casualties. My Strider kept advancing and eventually advanced right up to the enemy, shooting up and heavily suppressing Enforcer unit in the center, taking out another and smashing the GCPS mortar squad. All this without taking so much as a scratch.

One of my marine squads managed to drive of the heavily suppressed Enforcer squad in close combat. What was a decent effort would have been better if I'd remembered to add their bonus dice into the mix!

Anyway, the game was coming to a close. The objective I'd taken twice was captured by the hated enemy and there was nothing I could do about it. The other two objectives were also taken and I had no hope of winning this one.

The last act of the game was the infamous Close Combat Officer jumping onto the back of my Strider in the hope of bringing it down. But he failed. Ha, H, Ha...

The insolent fool!

All in all another good game - Thank you Ian.

By playing a different opponent he did some things that neither I, nor others I've played have tried before and it opened my eyes to some different tactical options. Sometimes you play and get use to what you're doing without looking further. This was only my third game using my GCPS and I've found that, for me, they are not as easily understood as Asterians' which fit my usual style of play much easier.