AVP: "The Reactor Room" - our first test game

Today I revealed my "Aliens" board game conversion (into a tabletop game) to my best mates. I brought all miniatures, markers, quick reference sheets and stats cards, we set up our 4' by 4' table and played the first scenario, called "the reactor room".

The idea behind it is the movie scene in which the Marines lead by Gunnery Sergeant Apone are going into the reactor room. Since they are ordered by their commanding officer Gorman to remove the clips of their pulse rifles, most of the soldiers only bear pistols. Some of them brought flamethrowes, while Drake and Vasquez secretly kept their mighty smart guns operational.

About half way in they are suddenly attacked by xenomorphs and the mission turns into a run for their lives as they try to cross the table and reach the safety of the APC waiting there.

We played the scenario two times. First time I dropped yellow, red and blue markers that indicate totally random spawn points for up to two aliens per turn. We did not use ammo capacity rules, no friendly fire and we did not make use of the "bonus bug" rule as I had in mind. I was wary that the humans might not stand a chance. To keep things short: the Marines made it through with all of their comrades, only one of them being wounded.

That lead to the conclusion that I need to treat the blue spawn point markes like regular spawn points (so, that's three new aliens each turn), adding the "bonus bug" rule if you roll a 0 and re-roll any further zeros that might occur, giving you a minimum of 3 xenomorphs per turn or a maximum of 6.

We then used the ammo expenditure rules and "friendly fire" if LOS runs over the base of a friendly model. Now, that was more of a challenge. We had A LOT OF FUN. This was truly awesome.

Now here are some pics (no real Aliens terrain yet) and random thoughts on them:

Marines starting position, the door on the upper right is the exit they have to reach. QRS and self made stats cards in front of the table. The "black hole" is supposed to be a stairwell (LOS possible but impassable terrain for models).

The coloured markers are spawn points, rolled for with a die in the same colour. A roll of 1-9 represent the appropriate marker, a roll of 0 results in an additional alien that is going to spawn randomly.

Marines, we are leaving. The first steps into the reactor room and the beasts are popping up everywhere.

Checking how far the Aliens are away to prevent them from being able to get into contact next turn.

Apone ,blasting his way through the enemy with his flamethrower.

The unfortunate Pvt. Frost is attacked by an Alien in close combat. Lucky guy - survives the Acid Splash that was caused when Drake killed the Xenomorph with his smart gun and 2 actions of careful aiming.

Apone and Vasquez running like hell to escpae the horde that follows their fellow Marines.

Drake is cornered so much that he needs to fire and fire again thus being un-able to keep up with his mates and slowly falls behind.

Apone turns around and gets ready to put his flamethrower into good use to cover the rush for the APC of the other Marines.

Into safety: the first Marines reach the APC...Apone stays outside, grilling everything non-human that is coming too close.

Almost over, the last miniatures are moved to the exit.

 

Game two, this time with more aliens spawning per turn and all extra rules. The Marines are under preassure right away as the first aliens are just around the corner when they are about to set their feet into the reactor room.

This game is going to be Vasquez' time of heroic stands...

"LET'S ROCK!!!"- Vasquez, putting the machine gun special ability into use and turning a whole bunch of xenos into pulp at once.

That lady survived two Acid Splashes unharmed, kicked two Aliens' butts in Melee when they tried to grab her and killed 3 xenomorphs with only one action shooting (machine gun special ability). Wo-hoo!! What an unbelievable amount of lucky die rolls.

Vasquez, facing her heroic end. She killed about everything thrown at her for the entire game until she finally was ovewhelmed by the sheer mass of xenos coming at her like a steamroller.