We put on a big game of All Quiet at the Fall-In! convention in Lancaster, PA last weekend. We had around 3,300 points per side and we ended up with 4 Martian players and 3 human players. A couple of them had played one or two games, but the rest were novices.
The scenario had a long line of trenches packed with American infantry, backed up by some British infantry in a woods, and then a large reserve force of armor and Rough Riders were in the town to the rear. In between were three dug-in Anti-Tripod guns. The Martians attacked in two groups. One would make a frontal assault on the trenches, while the second group was assumed to have moved around the human flank and would come rolling in at right angles, bypassing the trench line. They had two slavers and a lot of drones and Lobototons, two grenadier tripods, about 5 scout tripods and about ten assault tripods. We started with the first Martian force very close to the trenches, with the explanation that an early morning fog had prevented the Americans from seeing them sooner (although they could hear them coming).
There were four objective points, two in the bunkers along the trench line, one near the anti-tripod guns, and one back in the town. Victory would go to whichever side held the most objectives at the end of 6 turns. To hold an objective you had to have a unit within 6" with no enemy units within 6".
We used command counters and each side had 17 of them. We considered the Americans in the trenches to be hidden and gave them blip counters even though the figures were on the table. The Martians had to hit and kill the blip counters before they could fire at the infantry (unless they revealed themselves by firing).
The sides rolled for initiative and the Americans won. As the Martians appeared out of the fog the order to open fire was given!
I'll apologize for not being able to give a blow-by-blow description of the game, but it was too large and I had to assist the new players with the rules.
The humans moved first and they expended all 17 command counters in the first turn to hurry forward their reserves!
Their fire wasn't terribly effective, although the machine guns in the trenches mowed down some of the lobototons and drones that were uncomfortably close to the trenches. Against the flanking force, a long range salvo from the mobile howitzers blew up one of the scouts with the first shot.
During the Martian turn they used some of their command chips to fling the drones into the trenches to dig out the pesky humans. This proved very effective and a huge gap in the center of the human line was cleared.
On Turn 2 the humans won the initiative again and rushed forward their reserves.
They brought as much force as they could to bear against the slavers, but to no real effect. They fire against the flanking force was far more effective. One tripod blew up, which in turn cause another to explode and several other tripods were damaged.
During the Martian turn they continued to clear out the trenches, although one slaver dashed forward toward the Anti-Tripod guns.
On the other flank the tripods and grenadiers seeing the huge mass of Rough Riders approaching (7 units of them!) directed all of their fire against them, killing quite a few.
By Turn 3 the American reserves were starting to threaten the Martian's right flank. A lot of fire continued to be directed at the slavers but again to little effect.
The Martians were also finding that humans in trenches are VERY hard to dig out if you don't have the right weapons. At one point a single American stand was holding one of the objectives and four tripods (none of which had Black Dust or Green Mist) spent three turns firing at it before they finally killed it and took the objective.
Over the next few turns a wild melee broke out in the area around the Anti-Tripod guns. The Martians threw everything they had against them but only killed one. (At one point a batch of drones assaulted one and the Martian player threw 4 ones!). One of the slavers blew up and took a lot of drones with it and several other tripods were destroyed—one by the remains of the Rough Riders. Human losses climbed quickly, too.
On the last turn the Martians dashed a scout into the town to grab the objective there, but the American moved last and managed to move forces up to contest not only that objective, but two of the others—a big advantage to moving last!
The final tally was the Martians holding one objective and the other three being contested. So a minor victory to the Martians!
So, we managed to take seven novice players through a big game for 6 turns in only 3 hours. Everyone appeared to have a great time. Oh, and Ernie Baker, himself dropped by to watch for a while! All-in-all, a very successful game!
promised pictures!
