FUBAR the First

It's been a month and more of painting and terrain-making, so sorry for the lack of posts. But rivers and palm trees and Space Marines and Saxons and Ruritanians and Vietcong and marshes and ANZACs and fake Imperial Guard and Jacobites and more Boer War stuff have all been joining my little tin family, so I hope you can forgive me.

In today's first ever FUBAR game, Bishop (Second Class) Octavian and his clerics face off against the murderous Vryheid Totenkorps – villains so deadly that they don't even let their painters finish them before they hit the table!

Clerics

Bishop Octavian – Elite, 5+ Armour, Assault Rifle

Fire Team One – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Two – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Three – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Four – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Vryheid Totenkorps

Fire Team Alpha – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 4x Assault Rifles

Fire Team Beta – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, RPG

Fire Team Gamma – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, RPG

Fire Team Delta – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Epsilon – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, LMG

Here at the hamlet of Mortimer's Croft, the two sides come into contact. The Totenkorps are looking for death and mayhem, the Clerics to defend the civilians (who have already fled).

Totenkorps behind the fields, Clerics in the jungle.

Seizing the initiative, the clerics began their move forwards.

Clerics take their first building.

Nonplussed by their fellows' swift advance, several Cleric teams refused to budge, staying on guard for any Totenkorps trickery. Unsupported, the Clerics in the village take fire. Outraged, Octavian urged his men forward, laying effective fire down on the Vryheid left flank.

Octavian in the house!

The battle began to slow down into a firefight, both sides inching forward under suppressive fire. Finally, the fire team on the Cleric left flank moved from the jungle, and in a daring assault wiped out half the Totenkorp team that had been edging round to outflank the hamlet. They followed this up with a howling charge that sent the rest of them screaming down to hell's gates!

Forwards!

Secure the area!

At the same time on the other flank, the Totenkorps made it into the unoccupied building, threatening Octavian's hold on Mortimer's Croft.

The Totenkorps advance.

The bishop's leadership was exemplary; under his stalwart command the clerics kept up such a terrible rain of fire on the Totenkorps that their attack was driven to ground, and then driven out entirely, only to be replaced by Vryheid reinforcements. These men proved much more canny and determined, holding on to their toehold with grim fanaticism from behind their blood red masks. In the end, Octavian decided that a great gamble was all that could be done, and charged them. It was a bloody and gruelling combat, but in the end the Clerics were victorious through sheer weight of numbers.

The Totenkorps had lost four times as many men as the Clerics at this point, but their dead-eyed pride would not let them quit the field. So it was that they stood among the blood-stained corn, chanting their morbid songs amid the religious percussion of fire, falling one then another in the grim satisfaction that their scarlet-toothed god was pleased with their deaths.

The end of play.

Overview

With 20 kills to 3, this was a definite and total Cleric victory over the Vryheid Totenkorps.

FUBAR certainly lives up to its quick, fun and easy reputation. It would have been more interesting had the activation rolls not been so uniformly dire, but them's the breaks. It was good that even in such a simple system, within half a game I was cursing myself for not having exploited tactical nuances properly.

The lack of morale other than suppression was a little disconcerting, but I'm not sure why since Crossfire is one of my favourite games. I certainly enjoyed the suppression system, which forces a pick between using more effective squads and getting battered ones back on their feet. It just felt like there should be some retreating somewhere!

Man of the Match: Fire team Four, who started slowly on the Cleric left, but eventually dealt the coup-de-grace to three enemy fire teams – wiping out one entirely on their tod.

I'll definitely play FUBAR again, but maybe with a little more preparation next time. For instance, the cluster of buildings, so useful in Force on Force, really dragged the game down with their +2 armour bonuses against fire.