Finally, my first Only War session…
For better or worse, I only had two players: my wife, playing Weapon Specialist Aubrey and my young son, playing Sergeant Cutter. (Yeah, we're a family of geeks). To round out the squad, I effectively gave then 6 NPC guardsmen, who spent most of the scene acting as Comrades who could recieve the Sergeants Sweeping Orders.
How the scene played out… During the approach, Sergeant Cutter realized that the shuttle was under attack and readied his squad. Once they landed, he ordered his men out to defend the crashed ship. On disembraking, they spotted the orks approaching and took up defensive positions around the shuttle. The sergeant (whose dice were hot) noticed the burning engine. Since they didn't have anyone with Tech Use in the squad, I ruled on the fly that there was a Tech Priest in the shuttle. The sergeant went back inside and with a successful Command test brought the Tech Priest out to work on the engine.
Meanwhile, Weapon Specialist Aubrey rushed forward toward the nearby ruined buildings, taking fire from the advancing gretchen. S ergeant Cutter emerged and ordered his squad to secure the base. He rushed up to assist Aubrey. A vicious battle ensued. One well placed frag grenade from Aubrey took out the grots and squigs, but the Runtherds proved tougher. Even with their combined fire, it came down to hand to hand with the orks. Aubrey was critically wounded, but Sgt Cutter managed to take out the Runtherds with his chainsword. At that point, I ruled the squad has secured a heavy weapon position and their covering fire let Cutter drag Aubrey to safety.
All in all, it was a fun session. I was frankly impressed by my son's command abilities (I guess all those Dawn of War games he's played on the computer were good for something). As scenarios go, obviously I had to tweek things to fit my group but doing so wasn't hard to do and actually worked quite well. I have trouble keeping track of all the various modifiers, ranges, distances, etc, in the heat of battle… but it didn't hurt the game.
I think everyone is going to be buying Dodge with their exp. It's just a no-brainer. Awareness would also be handy.
We're going to continue the scenario and I'll report on how it goes.