Lincombe Barn Wargames Society Alien Squad Leader Tournament

A couple of Sundays ago, the club held its annual ASQL tournament. This was the first one that I'd taken part in, so it was something that I was looking forward to a lot.

There were eight of us taking part and the format meant that we would all play three games using 150pt armies, each one on one of five different tables against a different opponent. The terrain was pre-defined and the encounter would be a simple Pitched Battle, with points for the number of stands destroyed, plus the number of hits caused to the rest of your opponent's army. The result would them be translated into a share of 50 points, 25 each for a draw, and a sliding scale of points depending on the size of a win.

I'm not going to go into each battle in any great detail, because I was obviously not watching the other games too closely.  There was a variety of different armies on display. There were two Outlaw Gangs and one each of Human Cultists, Alien Imperials, Human Imperial Strike Force, Hive Mind, Cyborg Enslavers and Victorian Imperial (full descriptions are in the ASQL rulebook).

Here are the five tables;

None of these would give any particular advantage to any single army but in some cases the terrain would prove to be a major factor in deciding the outcome of the battles fought.

I took quite a few pictures, and I'll try and let them tell the story where possible.

These Cyborg Enslavers look remarkably familiar. Good thing there won't be many staris to climb!

Victorial Imperials, resplendent in the uniforms of a long-lost Golden Age of Empire.

The first of the Outlaw gangs, all equipped with various sorts of vehicles.

The Human Cultists, a.k.a. House Slytherine.

Alien Imperials. These were mine, a blend of high tech and scary monsters (no super creeps, though)

These are the Human Imperial Strike Force, a small but tough army.

Part of the other Outlaw Gang, vehicles with heavy weapons and lots of gangers.

The rather worrying bugs of the Hive Mind.

A special mention for this terrific scratch-built Outlaw Gang heavy weapons truck.

Now a fairly random selection of battle shots.

Victorians vs Hive Mind

Cyborg Enslavers on the "march".

 Victorians vs Hive Mind

Alien Imperials vs Outlaws

Alien Imperials vs the other Outlaws

Alien Imperials vs Hive Mind

Human Strike Force (not sure who they are fighting)

Extermination guaranteed.

Outlaws striking a pose.

Victorians line up against those damned unsporting Outlaws.

 Hive Bugs skittering into the attack.

Outlaws again.

And finally, my Alien Imperials in action against the Hive Mind. I actually won this game by a large margin, mainly by staying in the built-up areas, to neutralise the Hive Flyers, and blasted anything in sight. My Trained Beasts also did good work in hand-to-hand combat.

So, how did it all play out? Well, I fought both Outlaw gangs, drawing in an inconclusive opener against Alex S and losing badly against Clive. He knew that he had to stay out of range. I decided to stay in a built-up area, nothing happened, so I tried to tempt him out into the open. He  shot up my Primitives and stayed out of range of my Heavy Droids. I decided to go for broke, attacked and took a lot of hits, suffering a heavy defeat. However, a good win against Owen's Bugs ensured mid-table anonymity for my army.

The big surprise was how well the two lots of Outlaws actually did. Clearly tougher on the table  than they appear on the page.

The final standings were;