Alright, first test game is go. X-COM vs. Sectoids.
Chain Reaction 3.0's terrain generation tends to make things a little sparse.
Just generated my squad. The Star (My player character) is bordered in gold. I may have to rearrange the Attributes table, it uses 2d6 which I'm pretty sure doesn't actually roll each result with equal probability and it seems weighted toward bad attributes. Almost everyone had the same three or four (There are fourteen total) and most of them were bad.
I generated a Scout crew, but didn't bother placing a UFO (Though I have a terrain piece for the Medium Scout ready and can easily make the rest). That's two Navigators (The guys with the red sunburst), Rep 3, with pistols, and five Soldiers, Rep 2, with rifles. This shouldn't be too tough. We have better range, better skill, and since I'm going to be inserting through those woods we have the terrain advantage too. The only thing the sectoids have is firepower. Coveralls don't protect against plasma and their guns are really strong.
Normally in a solo game enemy forces would be resolved through PEFs (Potential Enemy Forces). They're figures (My Maptool module uses radar blips as a token) that move around in a semi-random way based on die rolls, and if one comes into LOS you roll dice to see what's there. Sometimes it's nothing, sometimes it's aliens. I'm not sure how I'm going to wrangle that quite yet so for now I'm going to just play both sides and deploy fixed numbers of forces.
I put the aliens in the stand of trees by the road. The purple thing (It's an eye but you can't see it from this range) means they're hidden. X-COM, being the attackers in this mission, start off-map and enter the board on their first turn.
First initiative roll, X-COM 6, aliens 5. Initiative represents who jumps to the attack first, so slower units may miss an opportunity. To represent that, only figures with a Rep equal to or higher than the Initiative roll (Or figures in a group with a leader who can move) can move in a turn. With rolls like that, no one can move.
Second roll, X-COM 1, Aliens 3. Aliens go first, and since they're all in groups led by Rep 3 navigators, they all move. Sectoids with rifles move into better positions and overwatch. They designate a swath based on their T rating and get a bonus to their In Sight rolls if someone comes into LOS within the swath.
X-COM moves forward through the woods, not much to see.
Round 3, Initiative 2-5. This is what I mean with the initiative. The aliens had an opportunity but missed it because they're Sectoids and they suck. Not that there was anything for them to do. Team A moves in, Team B, on top of the hill, starts getting into overwatch position.
The little wings on Corporal Dongs means he's a Team Leader. I also forgot to add Hidden markers to the agents. They're all hidden.
Round 4, X-COM goes first. The guy with the SAW on the hill sets up for overwatch with the swath on the lower part of the stand of trees, then Cannon guy fires an explosive round right in that shit. He rolls a 6 to hit, which with his Rep 4 means his To Hit is 10 which means all the Sectoids in the grenade's radius take a hit. When a grenade goes off, you roll 1d6+R, and the result determines the difficulty of targets hit (So if there were two sectoids, one in cover and one in the open, and you got an 8, the Sectoid in cover would be safe and the sectoid in the open would be hit). So all the sectoids roll for damage. Explosive cannon rounds are Impact 3, and because the Sectoids have Big Head, the Impact is effectively 4.
When you hit somebody, you roll 1d6. If it's below the weapon's impact, the target is Obviously Dead. If it's above the Impact but below the target's Rep, he's lightly wounded, knocked down, and has to get back up next turn. If it's above the Impact and Rep, the target's Out of the Fight (OOF), badly wounded and incapacitated. Incapacitated agents have to be rescued if you retreat or they're considered captured by the aliens (Which gives them victory points, or whatever. I haven't actually started on campaign rules). Incapacitated aliens can be captured at the end of the game if you win, but because of their physiology and immune systems and such, they'll almost certainly die before you can get them to containment. You'll have to use the stun launcher, which incapacitates without injuring.
Long story shirt, two of the sectoids are incapacitated and two are killed. The surviving three begin backing off.
Round 5, XCOM wins, aliens can't move, Team A moves out of the woods.
Round 6, same thing, though I have an idea for the aliens to turn this around if they get some lucky rolls.
Round 7, nope. I'm thinking about increasing the Rep of sectoid navigators and engineers to 4. Leaders are rep 5, but without them the sectoids almost never get to move. I throw them a bone and have Agent Dongs move around the treeline to see where they are. The Sectoid Navigator spots him. It takes an In Sight roll (2d6, measure the number of dice below Rep) and gets one success, meaning it Snap Fires. Snap Fires aren't as accurate, and despite getting a 7 and an 8, he doesn't hit. Agent Dongs fires in reaction and kills him.
Round 8, The last alien with a pistol comes up to the edge of the trees and shoots at Agent Dongs, misses, he shoots back, they exchange fire for like an hour because I forgot about received fire tests (You take another 2d6 vs Rep test when someone shoots at you or a nearby ally. Depending on how you roll you'll either fire back or take cover) and eventually Dongs wins. The last alien tries to cross the road to the other stand of trees but Dongs sees him and snap fires, misses, they exchange fire again (I didn't remember Reaction Fire until after this round) and amazingly THE SECTOID HITS AND DONGS GOES DOWN, with an Obviously Dead. The Sectoid finishes his move and sets up overwatch for the treeline. He ain't going down without a fight.
The black and red skulls are Obviously Dead, the red and white are Out of the Fight. The little exclamation mark is how I designate grenade landing spots. The northernmost Obviously Dead is Agent Dongs.
Round 9 the agents move in.
Round 10 the agents reach the edge of the treeline.
Round 11 nobody can move.
Round 12 everyone can move. Agents go first. Sgt Dongs, and Agents Dongs and Dongs exit the stand of trees and the Last Sectoid snap fires, though he can't actually hit anyone with snap fire because he's Rep 2. Sgt Dongs leverages his Born Leader attribute to prevent his allies from running away (The plasma gun outguns assault rifles so they probably would have run back into the woods). They all fire. Oh no, poor Sectoid.
Sgt Dongs fires his autocannon and knocks the last sectoid OOF. Mission accomplished, only one death. One death, that's barely X-COM!
My thoughts right now: Sectoids are really fucking weak. I may have to increase their numbers or something. Furthermore I'm thinking about removing the Big Head attribute. Sectoids are shitty enough without a unique attribute that makes them easier to kill. Rep modifications are in order so they can actually move occasionally.
Later today I'm gonna put Sgt Dongs' squad in a more serious situation. Maybe an assault on a downed Snakeman Terror Ship. Yeah. That'll be cool. I need to actually put the agents in danger.
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Topic: X-COM Tabletop Wargame (Read 5414 times)