Xenos Rampant

Dan had a coupon with Osprey and got me a copy of the Hot New Rules, Xenos Rampant. So I gave them a try today with my 15mm "Firefly in the Expanse" kit. It seems I don't have as many Belter guerrillas as I thought. Or UN Marines. Loads of Martians though.

But I tooled up a 24 point Belter detachment and tried them against two different MMC detachments. The points values of basic heavy and light infantry are deceptively low. Once you start adding upgrades the units become expensive. I tried a Recon team (That's "Scouts" in old money) with sniper (giving them a range out to 24"), infiltrator (free move before first turn) and Fire support (they can call in off board fires on an 8+ that hit on 4+) which ended up costing 9 points! My MMC Force Recon marines in the power armour were 10 points per fireteam; elite infantry plus mobility (adding 4" movement for a total of 12"!) and armor piercing (reduce target armour by 1).

Belters

• 2x teams heavy infantry with antitank and guerrilla
• 1 team heavy infantry with guerrilla
• 3x teams light infantry with guerrilla
• 1x support weapon with armour piercing

MMC TF 1

• 2x teams heavy infantry with antitank
• 2x teams heavy infantry with assault
• 1x Recon team with sniper, infiltrator and fire support

MMC TF 2

• 2x elite infantry teams with mobility, heavy weapons and armour piercing
• 1x heavy infantry team with antitank

Of course, writing this out I realize I forgot all about the heavy weapon upgrade, any 6s rolled cause 2 hits instead of one. That could have inflicted a few more Belter casualties. Of course guerrilla allows them an additional +1 armour upgrade in soft cover. Not there this much soft cover. Maybe I should save the points for something else next time!

If you've got the rules, then you'll notice I'm giving some units upgrades the rules don't allow. But carrying a missile launcher seems to be an antitank weapon to me. 

For both games I played the "VIP Extraction".

The Target. An important scientist just going about his day

Belter guerrillas move through the cargo dump, trying to keep out of LOS

Belter heavy infantry with antitank upgrade

Recon team on high ground

MMC platoon advancing to contact

Recon team calls in a fire mission on Belters by the ship, killing two of them.

Belter partisans have grabbed the Target and are hustling him away!

Covering the exfil

MMC fireteam advancing cautiously

For game two, the Belters won the roll and had a dilemma. Defender picks table edge, but Attacker moves first. So the Belters rotated things 90 degrees, hoping that the longer fields of fire might give them a chance against the power armour.

Belters advance over the hill

TF 2 advances from the other hill

Team 2Bravo secures the flank downtown

Team 2Alpha snatches the Target

"Contact front!"

Hustling the Target away to the extraction point. His 6" move slowing them down.

2Bravo caught in a cross fire. Support gun on the hill takes out 2 of them and fire from the guerrillas in the workshop takes out a third.

Belter partisans rush forward

2Alpha stops to fire and kills 3

2Charlie performing overwatch on the hill has taken some casualties while engaging two teams of Belter heavy infantry across the valley.

MMC exfiltrating off table with the Target suffering 5 casualties while inflicting 10.

So far, so fun. Will try vehicles next I think. Or maybe the Orbital Drop scenario on my Forward Operating Base.

I should get out the glue gun and some bark mulch and make more scatter terrain though. Finish the buildings I started a few year ago too.