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One of my main wargaming friends came over to help me put up a blackout blind. I say “help” when, of course, I mean they would put it up whilst I stood around making polite conversation and the tea…my DIY skills being poor in the extreme.

Whilst we were drinking our first cup of tea, we considered how much time we had allocated to the blinds-putting-up task and how much time we had, and calculated that we could fit in a quick wargame as well. The question of which to do first was considered for a nanosecond before the obvious “game first, blind later” answer presented itself, so we immediately repaired to the wargames room.

It had been a long time since we had played Quadrant 13, the company-sized sci-fi game using the basic IABSM engine that I wrote for the Lardies, and I had an army all ready (painted during lockdown) that had never been on the tabletop, so that ended up being our choice: I would take the virgin Astagar (space snakes originally from Critical Mass Games and now available from Ral Patha) and John would take the seasoned Protolene Khanate (also Critical Mass but augmented with Dark Star’s Garrhul and Khurasan’s Raug).

The Forces and the Field

The Astagar force consisted of the following:

  • Company HQ

    • 1 x Big Man

    • 2 x Heavy Cannon

  • 1st (mechanised) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man

    • 3 x Assault Infantry Squad (each 10 snakes and including a flamer)

    • 3 x APC

  • 2nd (mechanised) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in a Volos Assault Mecha

    • 6 x Astagar in Viperia Powered Armour Mecha

    • 1 x Astagar ECW Specialist in a Viperia Powered Armour Mecha

  • 3rd (armoured) Platoon

    • 3 x MBT

The Protolene Khanate force consisted of the following:

  • Company HQ

    • 2 x Big Man

    • 1 x Hunter ECW Specialist in Ayame Khan battlesuit

  • 1st (Scout) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in Scout Ayame battlesuit

    • 2 x reconnaissance infantry in Scout Ayame battlesuits

  • 2nd (Assault) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in Predator Ayame battlesuit

    • 2 x assault infantry in Predator Ayame battlesuits

  • 3rd (Hunter) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in Hunter Ayame battlesuit

    • 2 x infantry in Hunter Ayame battlesuits

  • 4th (Hunter) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in Hunter Assault Ayame battlesuit

    • 2 x assault infantry in Hunter Assault Ayame battlesuits

  • 5th (Hunter) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man in Hunter Marrock battlesuit

    • 2 x infantry in Hunter Marrock battlesuits

  • 6th (Garrhul) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man

    • 2 x Garrhul infantry squad (each 10 Garrhul)

  • 7th (Raug) Platoon

    • 1 x Big Man

    • 2 x Raug infantry squad (each 12 Garrhul)

The battlefield was a rugged piece of land studded with hills and clumps of alien foliage. In the centre was the landing site of a large ship, possession of which was each sides’ objective.

The Battle

The Result

The delayed arrival of the Astagar MBTs and infantry seemed to have worked in the snakey’s favour, catching the Khanate’s main force in the flank: an accidental pin and assault from the side tactic.

Although the battle was by no means won, the Khanate commander ordered a retreat at this point. After all, he still had the blind to put up!

It had been a great and fast-moving game, and really good to get the Astagar onto the table top at last. More games of Q13 will follow!