Last night, Neil and I had our first playtest of the rules (which are 85% complete). Interesting game involving a relief column of Felid infantry (four foot platoons and a platoon of heavy APC-mounted veterans) being intercepted by a fast-moving elite force of humans in buggies (some armoured weapon carriers) supported by a swarm of UAV drones.
The Felids punched on to the table really quickly, and got 2/3rds of the way across before they slowed down in the face of a curtain of enemy Blinds occupying low hills. The Felid scout platoon started to work its way around the flank, but then got hit by a drone attack.
The UAVs appeared out of nowhere, blew a squad to pieces, then disappeared straight up into the air before any claws could find triggers! A firefight then developed between the Felid Scouts and a platoon of human mobile infantry, with the Scouts losing another squad but inflicting some casualties in return.
Meanwhile, the three Felid heavy APCs deployed from Blinds. Two of them reserved dice in case of UAV attack, the third blew a buggy to pieces, driving the other buggies carrying the mobile squad into cover.
The drones then popped up again (well, popped down), this time going for the APCs. They fired on reserve dice, but found out that it was very hard to knock down an aircraft with what was in essence a hi-tech tank gun! Not impossible, I hasten to add, but they had no specific AA weapons, so their fire was ineffectual. In return, however, the drones found that autoguns and small rockets designed to pulp infantry weren't much good against heavily armoured APCs (and the Khurasan Lion Heavy Attack Transports are HEAVY!).
The APCs were knocked about a bit, but survived unscathed and now, not so worried about air attack, charged forward to try and punch through the curtain of Blinds in front of them.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Felid infantry had been moving forward under Blinds. One platoon smashed into the human Blind on the end of their line, discovering only a single infantry squad that was dealt with barely a pause to twitch the whiskers!
Unfortunately, however, this led to a bout of overconfidence elsewhere in the Felid line: another platoon charging forward but being spotted and then fired out when out in the open. Messy: bits of fur everywhere as casualties mounted and Awe replaced Shock!
The previously successful Felid platoon was then bounced by the drones with predictably nasty consequences despite attempts to drive the drones off by weight of squad fire alone. We called the game at this point, with the Felids retreating to regroup.
Robert Avery