Attack on Selenia

Battle 3 of the Artemesia Campaign

Despite the rebel's raid that drove off the battleship Crusader, Federation forces landed on the planet Artemesia and advanced toward the city Selenia. Their goal was to capture the rebel headquarters.

Contending forces
I am using the scratch-built units I created a week or so ago.

• Federation - 2 infantry battalions, 1 battalion of power infantry, 2 regiments of armor, and an artillery regiment (missile launchers). Federation forces have control of the skies and can call on air support.
• Rebels - 4 infantry battalions, 1 regiment of armor, and 1 artillery regiment (missile launchers)

The Rules

I am using my homegrown rules set, which is a mash-up of Song of Blades and Heroes and Memoir '44. I'll add commentary about the rules as I go.

The Battlefield

I painted my unit bases a shade of dark orange. I envisioned them duking it out on an alien planet. To match this, I cut out a 12" x 18" piece of orange cloth and divided it into 2" squares. The purple "woods" are made from a sponge. I don't yet have any alien hills so I used my standard hills. A couple blocks serve as buildings. The purple space ship (furthest row) represents the rebel HQ.

The Battle
This will primarily be a pictorial account, with occasional, additional comments.

Federation forces land outside Selenia and advance on the rebel HQ,
Federation air attacks wipe out rebel infantry on the right.

The rules borrow the activation system from Song of Blades and Heroes, where you roll 1 to 3 dice. Each success allows the unit to take one action (such as moving or attacking). One possible action is to call in an air strike (although an army will have a limit on the number of air strikes it can use).

Note that I am using orange buttons to represent hits. I think I will paint the tops black so they look like explosions (and will stand out against the orange background).

Federation forces pound the rebel armor (center).
The Federation elite armor swing along the left flank.

So far in this battle, the rebels had horrible activation rolls. In the first four turns, the rebels turn ended on the first unit. As a result, it looked like the Federation would win an easy victory. But the tides of battle can change quickly.

But a rebel ambush and the accurate gunnery of the rebel armor drive off the Federation tanks.

Another possible action is to launch a guerrilla ambush. A unit will appear out of nowhere (the black stand on the left) and launch a surprise attack. It will then disappear at the end of the turn. In this battle, the rebels had the ability to launch 3 attacks.

Federation armor continues their advances.

The Federation attacks seem to be paying off,
The rebel armor retreats from the hills.

Rebel counterattacks wipe out the elite Federation armor.

The rebel counterattacks (including an ambush) continue.
The Federation armor is destroyed.

Then the rebels begin pounding the Federation power infantry on the hill.

The power infantry deploys force shields.
The Federation infantry now takes the brunt of the rebel attacks.

And another possible activation is to raise force shields (represented by a half circle of translucent plastic). Essentially, these work like sandbags in Memoir '44.

At this point, it seemed unlikely that the Federation could secure its goal. However, I had no set conditions for a rebel victory so I decided to press on and see what the Federation forces could achieve.

The battle is interrupted when Catzilla demands attention.

Finally, missile and armor attacks rout the rest of the Federation infantry

With only one unit left, it became clear that the Federation had failed, so I ended the game.

During this battle, the rebel armor regiment (afterwards known as the Devil's Own) won renown due to its devastating attacks on Federation forces. One reason for its success was judicious use of the Rally activation. If successful, Rally allowed a unit to remove one hit. The DO rallied a few times during the game, keeping them alive long enough to strike deadly blows on the Federation.

Now repulsed, the Federation forces will need to regroup, and the campaign will continue!