First game of AT-43: Therians versus Red Blok

Mike D and I had our first AT-43 game this last weekend, and in general we had a good learning game (so it was fun, but lots of learning and rethinking things like table setup and army composition).  Mike D played the Therians -- advanced humanoids who rely on technology for both their own bodies and the "golems" who fight for them.  I was playing Red Blok -- more or less space Marxists (OK, "communists"), and my army, the Children of the Hammer (from the "Frontline" collective), emphasizes fighting vehicles and battle suits.

In the opening rounds, the Storm Golems (his rank and file troops) swarmed over and through the ruins of the Frontline Collective.  Larger Assault Goliaths (see on in the lower right) supported them with accurate and powerful long-range guns.

As the Golems and Goliaths entered on the flanks and moved north towards the Blok forces, the Large "Omicron" Golgoth - the most powerful unit on the Therians side, claimed the main central street and moved north, firing its long-range guns as it came.  One of my striders (large walker tanks from the Blok) tried to rush across the main street further north, towards my table edge, but the Omicron bombarded it and it fell before it could make the cover of the other side.

On the east flank of the table some of the Therian "overseers" started to spontaneously generate automated striders called "Hekats".  Here one charges my command model - the Strider called "Hetman."  The Therian ability to generate this model was rough, as my guns had to be focused on this more immediate threat than the real targets, which were the overseers.  Luckily, Mike D only has one of these models, and so his ability to make them was hampered!  In the top of the pic, my Nakolvany Strider finally finds a position to open up with its MGauss cannons at Storm Golem Infantry.  After its barrage only two were left, but they immediately began reconstituting themselves.

Behind the charging Hekat, Mike D planted a Golgoth, which is a Therian strider with an array of weapons.  He then reinforced this Golgoth with a second one, and this became a major front in the battle.

In the center, a unit of my Kolossus infantry (armor suits) took up a covered position in the ruined library.  They stayed here for much of the game, firing against the Omicron and the Hekats generated by overseeres in the center.

My commandos supported the Kolossus units where they could.  In this battle, even the elite infantry with their Gauss weapons were next to useless, as the enemy was so well armored.  My force, it turns out (I bought all minis without having read the rules), is really good against soft infantry.  Against the very hard Therians, esp. a force with lots of striders and assault troops, many of my fighters just couldn't cause enough damage.

The Storm Golems and the Assault Goliaths rush forward at the end, nearly making it to my table edge and claiming the center of the board.

Here they swarm past the statue of the Hammer Comrade - the mythological figure for whom my force is named.  This constituted my loss of the center and right flanks of the field.  The battle had gone well on the left flank, however, and wehn we called the game we were even on victory points, and I had a good chance of completely claiming the left/east flank.  Nevertheless, most of the board was under Therian control, and so the field went to Mike D, even if the VPs were even.

All in all the system seems to be fun and I am looking forward to another game.  It does, however, move a bit slow, which is probably our fault for playing long ways on a 6' table!  The fastest unit on the board moves 20cm, which (as many of you know) is quite slow.  The game is really set up to be more 2D for terrain, with a much smaller table.  In the next encounter we will shorten the table considerably.

The other real learning moment for me was the realizationb that, unlike 40K, smaller weapons have no chance of punching through the armor of larger opponents.  This hit hard because some of my largest units were anti-intantry Striders, so I found myself in the disappointing position of having big burly models that couldn't hope to damage the Golgoths, or the Omicron, or even the Assault Goliaths.  The two units that I could hurt with these tended to stay behind the larger units, and so I just didn't have anything to do with some of my bigger models.  This, of course, means that I have t think about my force composition a bit more.  It also means that we should follow the rules of the game more closely.  We judged vistory on how many enemies we could wipe out, whereas many of the published scenarios base it more on battlefield objectives.  I think playing with these objectives would give some of my weaker units (the commandos, those striders, etc.) something to do, even if they are not taking out Therians.

We both had a fun time, and it was nice to get a game in after a good deal of planning on the part of all of the members of the WTWA (the west Texas group that is all doing AT-43 stuff).