So, as part of my 2010 resolutions, I planned to play more miniatures games. Since it’s still January and the wheels haven’t come off of this whole ‘resolution’ thing just yet, Lee and I got together to play a small game of Mutants and Death Ray Guns from Ganesha Games.
We got together at House of Heroes on Saturday afternoon and set up a small 3-foot square map with some simple terrain I had brought from home. We modified the rules a bit and didn’t randomly create our squads. We had four squad members each: a leader, two riflemen with assault rifles and we each had a specialist. I had a sharpshooter and he had a grenadier. The teams looked pretty equal to us (the MDRG rules don’t have a traditional ‘points’ system for making stats… the building rules should be coming out soon in a free supplement) and then we started playing.
Measuring range in Mutants and Death Ray Guns
The game mechanics are quick and elegant so things were moving fast. We were trading shots from cover, knocking each other down a few times, and then eventually there was a first kill. I think it was one of Lee’s troops, but I don’t remember completely. I really need to start taking better notes if I’m going to do more after action reports.
Lee kept playing aggressively and moving his units up. He killed one of my units and then started lobbing his grenades. My sharpshooter (easily my MVP of the battle) scored a gruesome kill on one of his riflemen and caused a morale check. His soldiers were made of stone I guess, because only one of them ran for cover a little bit.
His grenadier ran up and lobbed an excellently placed grenade that could have killed one of my riflemen and my leader, but due to my excellent defensive rolling (for once) they were just both knocked down. Had this gone poorly, the game would have been really short.
Soon after, my sharpshooter killed Lee’s leader, causing another morale check. On this check, his remaining two units completely stood firm. I have to assume that they didn’t like that guy anyway, and were glad to see him dead.
Then my leader died, and it was just my sharpshooter versus two of Lee’s troopers, a rifleman and the grenadier, who was now out of grenades and only had a pistol. The pistol didn’t save him, as my valiant sharpshooter was able to get the drop on him and shoot him when he was knocked down, killing him. Unfortunately, the plucky sharpshooter’s luck had run out, and Lee’s last rifleman got the drop on him.
We had a really good time and felt that the squads were pretty evenly matched. Lee played pretty aggressively, which I’m pretty sure helped him in the end. I think we’re both interested in playing again soon, maybe with squads of five.
atom smashing 
I have to agree that the agressive playing helped me squeak out the victory. Your sharpshooter was a big factor in the game also. I had to get my grenadier so close to be effective that I new he was a goner. I’m glad his sacrifice was not in vain…
When Pepe (I posthumously named him Pepe) ran out of grenades* he charged into battle with just his pistol, against a seasoned rifleman and a sharpsooter.
As they concentrated their fire on him, Hidey McHidesalot was able to get the drop on them and send them to the Hell of Dead Miniature Warriors.
* In retrospect, the fact that Pepe was only able to carry 3 grenades makes me think they were about the size of a small pony. Which is fine, unless you consider the comparatively small amount of damage they did.
Pepe was a good man. Not a great grenadier, though. But a good man. He had rather small hands and smelled of cabbage, unfortunately. But he was a good man.
He was also kind to the elderly.