My friend Shaun and I played a couple of games of Xenos Rampant this week, using some Ziterdes trench terrain I own.

The first battle was our introduction to the newly-purchased rules and played out fairly straight-forwardly although the night battle scenario rolled meant that gunfire was limited to 12”. My 20pt force included two large light infantry squads, a small primitive assault squad and the elite extra-heavily-armoured command team (2 large, golden-armoured killing robots). Shaun had a small recon squad for his commander, two large light infantry squads an a small berserk infantry close assault team of a couple of modified pit beasts. The scenario had me attacking to destroy three locations. I captured one and killed an infantry squad but I had almost no capability to attack and destroy the locations (I didn’t have anti-tank weapons or demolitions. Seems like this scenario depends on the attacker having either of those and I think you pick your team before rolling for the scenario so not ideal unless it is supposed to force you to pick a very broad spectrum of capabilities?)

I lost one infantry squad, the primitive squad and had the other infantry squad knocked down to about 2 men. My elite command team was I think untouched. I manage to kill one infantry squad, knock the pit beasts down to half strength but couldn’t damage any of the objectives before time ran out so I lost that one.

The next battle took place at the club. This time we had 30 point teams. Similar trench layout and we picked the encounter battle scenario. I ditched the primitive infantry, took a third light infantry squad and also a small heavy infantry team. All infantry had heavy weapons. Shaun also went with three light infantry squads, He bulked out his assault pit beasts to large (str 10) and, having fired at my extra-armoured elite team to no effect in the first battle he issued his light infantry with rhino ammunition (armour-piercing).

We both occupied our respective trench sections and generally advanced. I pushed one squad along the left flank, a second squad and the heavy infantry to the right and the elites and the third squad went down the middle. Shaun sent his pit beasts to hunt down my left flankers, he pushed his command recon squad and one light infantry squad down the middle towards the concrete bunker and attempted to move the other two infantry squads to cover my right flank attack but rolled a 3 on a shooting attack and finished his turn early. This would happen several times early in the game.

I got several units into 12” range to shoot at the recon troops in the bunker and managed to kill 3 as their armour is only 1 normally although 2 when fired upon and the trenches and bunkers give a +2 for heavy cover. Needles to say the command recon team scooted back and sent in some light infantry to occupy the bunker. On the left my light infantry bought the pit beasts under fire but only caused 1 wound (Pit Beasts ac3 +2 for trench cover). Next turn the Pit Beasts rolled for and got a wild charge, smashed into my light infantry and killed 7 for the loss of 1 casualty in return. The light infantry failed their morale and the remainder fled the field, although the pit beasts didn’t make their morale roll for their casualty either and were suppressed!

Elsewhere both sides got into range and began exchanging fire. All the squads had heavy weapons and so hits were caused. What started to take a toll though was the armour piercing ammo of Shaun’s troops. This helped to reduce the defensive bonus of the trenches and cause more casualties in my heavy and light squads than I could return. At this point my I sent my elite command squad (extra heavy armour - ac5) into position to assault the bunker. Another of my light infantry squads had attacked the bunker and routed a defending squad but were now down to half strength (2 men left). A lucky 6 on their morale roll meant they didn’t totally rout though. On my right both of us had squads knocked down to half strength and the weight of fire between them began to lessen.

Then the Pit Beasts entered the central trench leading to the bunker. The battle came down to whether they could evict my elite command squad. I threw the 2 men from my central squad into the trench to try to kill Shaun’s 2 recon troops but didn’t cause a hit. The Pit Beasts then wild charged my unlucky troops and chopped them to bits. This left my elite team to lay heavy armour piercing fire onto the Pit Beasts trying to knock them to half strength before their charge next turn. The blood-soaked creatures looked up and steeled themselves for that salvo only to see my elite team charging towards them. (Unfortunately my commander had the command trait which caused him to have wild charge and off he went). All was still good as my 4+ attack would be going up against the Pit Beasts’ 6+ defence, only for Shaun to notice that his berserkers had counter-charge! The Pit Beast’s eyes lit up as they saw their foes running towards them. Counter charge gave them their attack value which was 3+. They had armour-piercing blades which brought my armour down to four and he managed to roll 10 out of 10 hits at 3+. My command squad dropped to two strength points, failed morale and came fleeing back out of the bunker and at that I signalled defeat!

Fun games, fun rules, quick and bloody, especially close combat where trench cover wasn’t a factor and the reduced range helped the Pit Beasts close the distance without being whittled down. I think the other factor that swung the game was the armour piercing ammo issued to Shaun’s light infantry. Think I need to look for another commander.

Epilogue

Beep...butter….beep...milk...beep….toothpaste...beep… beep… ‘Its not working again Mr Johnson. This bloody, new self-service checkout is not worth the effort it took to get it installed….’. ‘It is built from an ex-military service module, Mandy. It was cheap, what did you expect? Now give me that bottle milk I’ll show you how to do it….’

...target initiated...beep…laser scanner recalibrated….beep….charge!!!!!...zap-bzzzzzt ‘..Mr Johnson?…..MR JOHNSON!!!’