Congo: The treasure of Makoko Mbe (game 3)

I was going to write up our second game, but it was simply a reversed players version of the 1st game. Not that new or exciting. Instead this is our 3rd game (2nd mission type). We played this the next day and another nerd came down island to join us. Rob/Codsticker took up the mantle of the opposing forces, with Doug kibbitzing and offering advice. 

 

 The mission this time is to get to treasure buried in the centre of the map. Inconveniently, the opposing forces are racing you AND there are fanatical warrior guardians protecting the treasure. Which is buried/hidden. Both sides march on from different corners and need to get to the centre mound, and spend some time trying to dig up the treasure. There is a time limit. VP's are awarded for defeating enemy units, getting the treasure, and (I think) escaping with the treasure. Everyone is in the deep jungle so they need to find some clue tokens which will tell them where they need to exit the table. It's a lot to do in a short period of time.  

This time the sultanate of Zanzibar slavers (boo hiss) are facing off against the white mans expedition (partially painted....boo hiss). Having learned my lesson the day before I tried for a mix of larger worse units, and smaller elite units (high-low mix I believe they call it when applied to jets). Unlike the previous mission where there was action almost immediately, there was a lot of movement initially. 

 

 

 

 Moving into terrain requires a roll on a hazard table unless there is already a FRIENDLY unit in there, or unless you have scouts. I think we were both pretty scared of the table....and rightly so, there's some situations where nasty predators drop onto the table to give you grief. This probably slowed us down a bit though. 

 

 

 

The 'fanatical guardians' also sounded a bit fierce so we tried to shoot them off the table, and we were both trying to get the other side to do our dirty work for us. Weaken the guardians so we could swoop in and poach the treasure. Needless to say when given an opportunity to fire at the enemy vs the neutral guardians we opted for the former. 

 

Once again it was interesting to see how the elite units could seriously dish out the hurt, but were glass cannons. The white man's expedition has some crack troops with ranged weapons, but they are only 3 and 4 models...so a single loss is notable. Then you ruminate about the value of using an activation on a reduced unit. The action economy is one of the main decisions in this game. 

 

 Once the guardians were worn down we started to charge in. Unusually, if you didn't destroy them you'd be thrown back (normally the victor drives the loser off); fanatical indeed. My trained zanzibaris, with a leader, try going in again while their flank is held with covering fire from the slightly larger unit to their left flank. The sikh soldiers in the background are coming off a bit worse for wear. 

 

It's not all roses for the zanzibaris though. The trained askaris of the expedition close aggressively with their enemies and had some incredible luck, managing to vaporize them. I set up a photo to remind me as they bayonet the last one standing.  

 

 

 

 

 

Blood spatter/dead markers show where the conflict has been most intense. There has been some lulls as the lead elements managed to destroy themselves, and sometime enough activations had been focused on them that the trailing forces still took time to get into combat. 

On the right flank the expedition and slavers had been playing cat and mouse around a cluster of jungles with their larger spear armed units. But now they are driving in on the slavers. Numerous 'stress' tokens (in white) have been accrued which debuff your units. If you get more than 3 or 4 (I forget) then each additional one simply removes a model instead. The spear unit (dark because they are only partially painted) is pretty brittle, but could definitely mess up a unit of, say, 4 figures purely armed with ranged weapon. Ah yes, the one in the bottom middle. This is there the card playing with initiative rank starts getting interesting. There is a 'priority' token that gets handed back and forth when their initiative rank is tied/matches. Player holding it can decide whether to go first and hand over the token, or go second and retain. 

The expedition goes in with a hail mary charge to try and edge out the slavers. Bow armed locals don't fair well against even 2 fanatical warriors and are thrown back. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Thank you for your service gentlemen' I cackle as I go in immediately after and destroy the defenders. The treasure is mine.....er....where is it? Start digging you fools!

 

 

 

 

 

Alas, darkness falls quickly in the deep jungle. The slavers are unable to locate the treasure, and the increased hubbub of the noctural animals and predators encourages them to leave. 

The turn limit being hit we count up points and discover the slavers have edged out the expedition by a couple of points. There was some big points to be had if they had another turn to find the treasure.  

I think the game was generally well received and Doug suggested that I should keep these minis and rules (I'm trying to thin things out these days). So that's a good sign. Not sure when CONGO will hit the table again, but I imagine that it will at some point.