The Battle of Hoth

After filling our bellies with pork and assorted snacks, we were met on the field of battle. I should have known things weren't gonna go great for me when Chal asked, "Who wants to play the Empire side?" and I was one of the poor saps that was too slow to yell "Me!"...

 

The Empire Forces move into position.

The Empire Players.....smug smarmy bastards.

Rear Admiral Rob comes shooting out of the gate bringing the first snowspeeder out on the batlefield. This is the complete opposite of Rob's typical strategy of "I'll go back here and hide and you go fight those guys up there"

"Should we have let Rob Antilles go out there?"

"I don't know, he said he knew what he was doing"

Doctor Merkury follows Rob's lead and brings the second speeder out to the field.

Evan follows up bringing the third speeder to the formation. The speeders all immediately start laying down fire on the AT-STs in the hopes of slowing them down.

"You know the only thing protecting us out here is this trench and it's only made of frozen water right?"

"Yeah, it's better not to think about it"

 

FOREGROUND: Interior shot of Echo Base and Han and Chewie preparing the falcon for escape.

BACKGROUND: Doctor Merkury (Left) discussing colonoscopy options with patient. The patient went with the "Wide Awake, Inverted Plumber's Snake"

The first AT-ST was knocked off its feet, but not destroyed right away.

This was the first of many snowspeeder casualties

The Snowtroopers advanced over the hills just in front of the Rebel trenches.

More snowspeeders prep to join the battle.

"Still just nothing but frozen water here protecting us."

"Seriously man, stop talking about it."

The first AT-ST goes down.

Chal (center) from Iron Ivan Games ran the battle using Iron Ivan's upcoming Zero Sum Oblivion Sci-Fi rules. The rules use most of the same core mechanics as other IIG games (D10 based, Roll to hit, Roll succesful hits vs. armor to wound, deal out casualties, test morale if needed) but with a unique activation system allowing players to push troops to their limit to advance the battle.

Troop carriers waiting inside the wings of Echo Base as reinforements. When they eventually arrived on the scene the only thing they reinforced was the fact that rebellions are undertrained and poorly equipped to fight an organized army.

.....smug sons 'a bitches.

About three turns in we took a cake break.

Doctor Merkury's lovely lady, Andrea, made this awesome severed Wampa arm birthday cake complete with licorice muscle tissue and chocolate claws. It not only looked good, but it was delicious. I kept some that I'm gonna stuff into my facehole later tonight.

Back to the action. The snow speeders were tearing down AT-STs at an admirable rate....

...But they weren't coming down nearly as fast as the rebel troops and emplacements. We were getting hammered.

And we never even made a dent in the AT-AT walkers.

The Empire continues to close in.

"Mongo no understand tiny plastic man"

Our figurative hopes and literal snowspeeders start crashing to the ground.

"Is it just me or are those things getting closer?"

"Yeah, it's better not to think about it"

"Let's just keep throwing snowspeeders at them and hope that they stop bursting into flames."

A shot of the mounting pile of scrap accumulating on the battlefield.

"Look at my pretty hat made of fire"

Death Mountain. This is actually how stuff was getting taken out. Right in the same spot....I don't know why we kept moving over that spot.

"Okay, they're definitely getting closer"

"Stop talking about it!!!"

Luke Skywalker's snowspeeder was taken down. He was our last hope. Chal declared that Luke was magically teleported back to echo base because special characters can't be killed in vehicle hits (and secretly I think becasue Chal was afraid that Luke was gonna use his lightsaber to gut all three AT-ATs like so many trout). That was fine by me since Luke immediately got in his X-Wing and went off to Dagobah to begin his Jedi training, ultimately scoring a win for the Rebellion.

REBELS WIN!!!!!......eventually, in the larger picture kind of sense.

"Did you die of shame from our force's poor showing on the battlefield?"

"Yep, died of shame. You?"

"Yep, dead of shame"

After the Rebel Victory we let the Wampas out just for the fun of it.

The Wampas killed 8 stormtroopers out of 16, and the stormtroopers killed all three Wampas, but while that was going on, Han, Leia, Chewie, C3-PO and R2-D2 all escaped in the Millenium Falcon meaning that technically the Wampas won the fight

WAMPAS WIN!!!

 

But in the end, and as always, the real winner was David HasselHoth.