Malaya -Xenos Rampant Style

[mothman]

Tonight’s skirmish saw us indulging in The Malayan Emergency with the unusual step of using Xenos Rampant rules.With the type of warfare it was I found the rules a bit slow especially as this was there first outing.

[CapnJim]

Oh cool.  We used Xenos Rampant for a WW2 fight, and it worked pretty well!

[mikedemana]

We are using XR for Sci-Fi this weekend. What was the aircraft? Visual representation of off-board support?

Mike Demana

[mothman]

Yip.El Presidente was given it as a Christmas present so he thought it fitting to include it in the game if selected under the rules.We didn’t and went for an SAS squad

[Sakura]

The aircraft is a Beaufighter Ten.  Apparently the roman numeral marks had been replaced by this era.
The aircraft was used as a Fighting Vehicle with Flying ability.  As the aircraft could not possibly see anything in the jungle it could only react to a visual signal from one of the ground units.  As an activation a ground unit could use smoke, flare or balloon to identify a target square which the aircraft could then hit in a single pass across the battlefield.
The jungle was laid out like a chessboard so that units moved and fought from square to square.
From my point of view as umpire I thought the whole concept worked quite well but the players did not seem to be having as much fun as I had hoped.  To be fair there were some odd inconsistencies like the SAS as Elite troops being the only unit that could not Firefight.  And the insurgent Recce units firing at with better Shoot value than British regulars.

[mikedemana]

I like the square idea, though I have never played Square Bashing or similar rules sets. Did units move 1 square when they activated with a Move Action? Was one square away normal range and two Extreme? 

I agree some stats in Xenos Rampant are head scratching. We are actually doing a Sci-Fi XR game Sunday… 

Mike Demana