Tropenfieber

A while ago, Dan and I played an introductory game of One Page Rules Grimdark Future Firefight set in the lush jungle of Tropica IV.

Dan played his Blood Ang…, erm sorry, … Blood Brothers. And, I used my entire collection (7) of Prime Brothers. We both fielded 300 points of heavily armored space warriors.

We used the latest version of the one page version of the rules.

Setting the table

The 3×3 table was crowded with jungle terrain, impassable rocks, and a centre piece of multi-story ruins on a hill. We defined the jungle as difficult terrain granting cover when a miniature would be inside it. If a unit would stand behind jungle terrain, line of sight would be blocked. That approach would promote a healthy mix of tactical movement, shooting, and melee combat.

We rolled 3 objectives to capture and deployed our troops within 6″ of our home edges.

Paired with the Predator soundtrack and jungle sounds, we were ready to go!

Hacking through the jungle

In the first round, our Blood and Prime Brothers slowly advanced through the difficult jungle terrain. Dan took advantage of the narrow 1″ wide paths winding through the thick undergrowth.

Shooting turned out to be very difficult in the thick undergrowth. Constant cover bonuses on Defense rolls and tough and well armored warriors, made it very hard to land successful hits. That would change, once our troops were in the open on the center of the board, where one of the objectives was located on the top of the ruins.

My battle plan was to move with one soldier to capture one of the objectives in the jungle, while moving the rest around the ruins. I would then send one or two units to the top of the ruined building, while the others would keep Dan’s Blood Brothers at bay by engaging in close combat and shooting at them. I forgot, that the Blood Brothers’ captain was equipped with a jetpack and that one of his soldiers had the strider rule. But, more on that later.

In the second round we both had the ruins surrounded. I had more soldiers in the open around the ruins than Dan. That proved to be advantageous and disadvantageous at the same time.

Heavy combat and more and more casualties started to occur during the 3rd round.

Dan started to close in his troops around the ruins. More and more fighters started to become stunned.

The decisive round

Until, the fourth round, when Dan captured his second objective at the top of the ruins when I was left with only one. As mentioned earlier, I underestimated his flying and strider units, all ignoring terrain. Dan’s Blood Brothers simply had to move up the ruins and dominate the last objectives.

Thus, the game ended in a 2 to 1 for Dan. Congratulations to Dan for winning his first ever game of One Page Rules Grimdark Future Firefight set on the famous jungle world of Tropica IV! Shame on me …

Rum and cigars would have been more appropriate sponsors of this game.