Osprey set up Tomorrow's War and Force on Force demos, along with our Series and general military titles in our booth at ORIGINS:

Origins booth front 062211Origins booth left-side 062211

Micropanzer supplied a gorgeous diorama of an urban sci-fi battlefield along with awesome painted miniatures of aliens and marines. The Micropanzer Assault Hounds vied with the fallen mech as particular favorites among convention-goers.

Origins Tomorrow's war aliens charge the marines! (minis by Micropanzer)

The scenario began with a USMC fire team reaching a fallen mech. They set up a defense and began to download vital intel data from its onboard computer. However, aliens noticed the marine approach and closed in from three sides! The aliens moved up and the marines attempted TQ (troop quality) rolls to react so they could try to shoot first. In some of the demos, the aliens took a lot of heavy fire and one or even two squads were pinned with heavy casualties. This shows how the game mechanic breaks players out of the I-GO U-GO pattern of most minis games (both players take actions in the same turn). The aliens’ slugthrowers had a lot of trouble hurting the power armored marines, partly because the fallen mech offered such good cover. Soon the aliens opted to move in to try a close assault!

Origins Tomorrow's War aliens about to follow-up charge

In most cases the first alien charge made it to the marines, but casualties from the marine defensive fire often weakened the first or even second squad to the point where the marines were able to drive them off after a furious melee.

Origins Tomorrow's War 2 squads of aliens charge marines

When this happened (or even when the marines drove off the 1st & 2nd alien squads) the marines were at times overwhelmed by waves of aliens since the number of dice the marines were rolling went down by one every time they fired or fought in a round of melee. Melee is brief and furious in the game, and the scenario would often end with either all the aliens captured, killed, or routed, or with the marines captured.

I’m going to try a marine assault scenario to take advantage of the great 3D urban landscape Micropanzer built. Since the marines can be equipped with jump packs it’ll make a much more fluid, tactically advanced scenario.