Three way split

After last week’s walk down memory lane I acted upon Phil’s desire to try multiplayer “AK47 Republic”.

The game ended up being more extemporised than I intended as I spent my free time over the weekend “re-sheduling” than organising the game. My first idea was to have two players a side with 550 points, one run through the political chart for each side on 100 points, and play standard attackers defenders.

As it was we only had three players, with Ian & Phil putting in a showing. I put together my & Ian’s armies, using the Dictatorship list, one with a professional helicopter (Ian took that one, - for all the good it did him).

The table area was about 7’ x 5’, so bigger than normal, but not twice the size. Still big enough to make it worthwhile buying trucks to get about. I decided that we’d all be attackers, with one objective being the road junction in the middle of the table, and two players coming on in corners with the third coming on in the middle of the opposite side. Everyone was happy with the set up as long as there was no ganging up so we all had an interest in the game until the very end.

All things considered it was an excellent evening’s entertainment with its fair share of thrills and spills and outrageous fortune.  Mostly on Phil’s morale dice. He had bought a new pack of Pink Piggy dice at Salute, having been assured by Martin that they were “This year’s colour”. They proved to be a sound investment.

The progress of the game was a bit disjointed in some ways. With three people involved all fighting each other the narrative was a bit disjointed. Even with the pictures I can’t remember exactly what happened. I do know that the objective proved to be a death trap and changed hands three times, finally being held by Phil’s last tank.

Ian's starting units. Chopper & militia - what else do you need?

The game started with the usual arrival rolls. I got on four units as did Phil (my professional infantry didn’t make it) but Ian only managed two, one of which was his helicopter. Phil’s late arrivals were his heavy armoured commander in chief unit.

Traffic jam at Phil's entry point

 Phil was the first to get to the road junction, with his motor cycle cavalry charge. He paid for that by coming under fire from my tanks, - although his cavalry survived as a unit until the last move by a stunning series of morale rolls. My tanks, on the other hand, performed the “Three Ones” morale trick and disappeared half way through, having taken a hit from Phil’s helicopter (which then ran away).

Phil's truck with lots of troops and RCL barrels.

The highlight for me came early in the game as I shot down Ian’s professional helicopter with a militia HMG technical, double 6 v a 2. He then failed his saving roll. That militia unit did really well for me, inflicting damage on anything that came near them and even seeing off a close assault.

Gottim! Ian's chopper starts to smoke

Enough smoke for you?

Tactically the rest of the game was hit and miss. My other truck mounted militia unit barrelled down the road with some high movement dice and did battle for the cross roads, holding it briefly before coming under withering fire and being forced to retire, leaving a fair sample of smoking trucks behind them.

My militia in trucks, tanks and mortars storm forward.

Fight at the cross roads

I eventually succeeded in getting my regular mortars into position on the hill top (rolled a lot of 1s and 2s for movement), - a similar tactic to that adopted by Phil although his were closer to his base line. My shooting was bit better than Phil’s and I did a fair amount of execution ranging across the board. Phil silenced them with an infantry assault across open ground. Mortars without small arms support are a bit vulnerable to that, and my professionals let me down a bit but rolling a series of 1s for movement that meant they arrived too late to save most of the unit. On the positive side it made a change from them rolling the 1s for morale checks.

Close asaaults on Mortar Hill

Phil eventually seized the cross roads with his armour unit. Ian got on all of his reinforcements in the end, but in his eagerness to get into action committed the cardinal sin of bringing his truck mounted infantry into the range of an RCL and suffering vehicle loss from that quarter. His tanks finally got on and in the last move of the game, together with a militia unit hiding in a village rolled a series of 11s to knock out or pin all but one of Phil’s armoured vehicles. 

Phil's armour after Ian's onslaught

 The game ended after eight moves and three and a bit hours of pretty intense combat.

My plucky militia survive a close assault

 For victory points we rolled 3 dice each, and counted the objective as 30 points. We then gave everyone the points for the destroyed enemy units. Phil came out winner and we all congratulated ourselves on an enjoyable evening’s entertainment.

If we were to do this again I’d make a few changes, but all things considered not much. 

It has been fun to get the African toys out again and push them around. Phil has also done a bit more work on his army, so perhaps we should do a bit more over the next few months to ensure he gets them finished.

BTW the roads are strips of spare shed roofing felt. Nothing goes to waste.