Tuesday, 4 January 2022

Containment Part 2

After receiving a distress signal from awoken robomen (read all about it here), a robomen strike force has reached earth and has landed an invasion force on several locations across the globe.

UNIT forces are responding and one detachment countering a force of robomen in the Black Forest (Germany) has brought along Dr Doofenschmirtz with his improved Enator, mounted on a vehicle supplied by the Bundeswehr.


My son again played the UNIT forces, while I played the evil robomen, who brought some more hardware to the battlefield this time.


UNIT deployment

Robomen deployment

UNIT had sent along an embedded reporter to capture the effect of the upgraded Enator.



UNIT forces advanced and scored a hit on one of the large spider tanks, but return fire immobilised the UNIT tank.


The mighty power of the Enator was unleashed on the Robomen.


But failed to make a dent in their machines.


Fortunately UNIT had more up their sleeve. Unknown to the larger public, Chuck Norris is a valued member of UNIT.

Chuck Norris hits 11 out of 10 targets with 9 bullets

Chuck lived up to his reputation by almost wiping out an entire squad of robomen. He emerged from his ambush location and expertly hurled a demolition charge in their midst.


The single surving roboman charged Chuck. Of course Chuck struck first and launched a series of karate blows and roundkicks, confusing (but not wounding) the roboman.


The roboman struck back and Chuck was bleeding! Enraged he willed his blood to clot faster and roundkicked the roboman until only a heap of small parts remained.

An average German forest contains 42 items Chuck Norris can kill alien invaders with, but he can also use his hands and feet.

On the UNIT's left flank, robomen units were approaching the Enatormobile, while UNIT forces were falling back.



Freddy Krueger squad reaches the road

After another fruitless attempt to destroy the robomen with the Enator, my son decided to just crush them under the wheels of the Enatormobile.


UNIT losses were mounting so my son called in his air support asset and blasted the robomen from above.


 




UNIT ground forces destroyed the remaining robomen and saved the earth.


We had great fun and I enjoyed watching my son trying to save his men, becoming frustrated with his malfunctioning super weapon (the Enator) and coming up with "lets just drive an armoured car over these robomen".

And of course the heroics of Chuck Norris, which made us both laugh.


Containment Part 1

While browsing some of my old stuff I found a skirmish scenario in an old Wargames Illustrated magazine which seemed perfect for a lockdown holiday game I promised my son.

The scenario is originally meant for Dr Who; Invasion Earth rules (which I'm not familiar with) but the author included stats and rules for use with the 40K game system.

The background story:

One of UNIT's secret storage and examination depots has gone silent. All contact has been lost. Fearing the worst, UNIT sends a special team of Containment troopers to investigate and secure the depot. The team is inserted by helicopter and is accompagnied by a scientific advisor: Dr. Doofenschmirtz.

From the air, the depot seems deserted. Apart from the flashing alarm light on the Lab and some large pools of blood, nothing seems out of the ordinary. So the team disembarks from the helicopter and scans the area for hostiles.


Enclosed storage area. Some doors are open, that is strange...

The Lab.

The Communications building

Medical unit


Dr. Doofenschmirtz

The containers in the depot were holding deactivated Robomen (actually Daleks, but I don't have any Dalek miniatures). One of them was accidentally activated after which it activated 4 others and killed everyone in the depot. The five were hiding and had to send a message using the transmitter in the Communication building with the hope of alerting a Robomen rescue ship. The Robomen could also wake the other, still deactivated Robomen by spending a full turn in contact and rolling a 5+ on a d6.  My son didn't know all this so he had to proceed carefully and try to find out what was going on. 😀

My son decided to split up the team and send one squad to check out the medical unit.


and the other one to check out the lab.


Positioning two troopers beside the door and the heavy trooper right in front of it, the sergeant ordered the door to be opened.


The lights were out inside. Suddenly the sound of whirring servo motors could be heard in the darkness, followed by a blast of searing light which left the heavy trooper dead on the ground with a large smoking hole in his body armour (and cries of desperation from my son who saw his best trooper killed right at the start...)


The Containment troopers returned fire and threw a handgrenade inside but the roboman survived it all.

While the other squad was checking out the medical unit, a roboman a emerged from the tent.


Years of training and expierence with some of the most dangerous enemies of the human race payed off. The troopers dodged the shot from the roboman and swung around to concentrate their fire on it.


After killing it they spotted another one walking to a closed container, opening it and moving inside the container.



The squad at the lab were still trying to kill the roboman holed up inside. They were unaware that another roboman was coming around the corner from the back of the lab building.


The roboman rounded the corner and fired point blank at the containtment trooper, but missed!


The troopers returned fire. With a saving roll of 3+, I thought the roboman stood a good chance of surviving the shootout, but...



My son decided the threat to his squad at the lab was too great and sent the other squad to the rescue. By the time they got there the roboman in the lab was dealt with however and the squad had gone inside with Dr. Doofenschmirtz.

Dr Doofenschmirtz quickly surmised what had happened and started to collect stuff from the lab to build an Enator capable of deactivating the robomen.

More robomen were being activated while he was working.


Robomen were now emerging from the storage area and moving towards the communication building, seemingly undaunted by the hail of fire the containment troopers were sending towards them.


Another one bites the dust..

Suspecting that the robomen were going for the communications building, my son tried to call in an airstrike (once a game) but it was delayed.

"Keep firing! What is taking Doofenschmirtz so long and where is that airstrike!"

Dr. Doofenschmirtz kep failing his required dice roll to put the Enator together, finally succeeding when it was too late.


A damaged roboman had reached the communications building and sent a message.

Finally the airstrike arrived.




The communication building disappeared in a ball of flames, killing the signalling roboman.

The containment troopers mopped up the remaining robomen, but UNIT HQ confirmed that a signal was sent.

My son wanted to do another game, fighting the Robomen army that received the signal and was coming to invade the earth. Will UNIT stop the Robomen invasion and save earth once again? Read all about it in Part 2 of Containment.