Gates of Antares Battle Report: Strike on K'ara Nine scenario one and two

This past weekend I had some free time so I set up a half table and tried out the first couple of scenarios from the Strike on Kar'A Nine set.  I'm already familiar with Bolt Action and Konflikt 47 but I decided to try the starter scenarios to get the feel for it from the ground up.

The first scenario (appropriately enough called Escape and Evade) has three C3 strike troopers trying to get across the board while two teams of AI troops are trying to stop them.  As its one of the intro scenarios, only some of the rules are used.  No pinning, no hand to hand, no command checks... just movement and shooting.  One of the Algoryn teams was able to quickly take down one of the strike troops but the other team didn't fare so well as the two remaining strike troopers teamed up and gunned them down.  With no one to stop them, they literally just ran across the table to rejoin the other members of the C3 force.

This was a good introduction to the mechanics but there were a couple of instances where pinning and command checks could have come into play.  I do think that this would be a good start for someone unfamiliar with the basics of the Bolt Action activation system and since the first scenario went so quickly I decided to play the second one as well.

The Algoryn AI open fire on C3 Strike Troopers as they move through open ground

This scenario (called Weakness?) features two three man C3 units facing off against two five man AI units, with all of the units getting spotter drones.  The AI objective for this mission is to eliminate the C3 units, while the C3 supposed to either get one of the units onto the AI side of the board or destroy one of the AI units as they are trying to determine the overall strength of the Algoryn force.  Now the first time I played this, I missed the second part of the C3 objectives so it instantly devolved into a firefight with the AI troops in cover and the C3 troops getting mowed down as they tried to cross the board.  I was kind of disappointed by the end of the game but decided to try it again using the full rules to see how they would change the feel.  It was at that point that I reread the objectives and realized that I'd made a pretty serious blunder there.

C3 forces from Bastion take cover from the Algoryn AI.

Whoops!  It turns out that using all of the objectives instead of just half of them added more to the game as it wasn't just the C3 walking into a flurry of mag fire.  It was cool to see pull in the command and pinning rules as well as they definitely add another dimension to the game play.

Next I need to assemble my third squad of AI troopers so I can give the third scenario a try.