We had our normal Wednesday night game between David K and myself. Given David had not been part of our test gaming last weekend I was keen to try some of the changes we had made to the modern rules we use on someone else. The game set up and mission was similar. Capture the insurgent warlord.
The scenario assumed that the conventional force were aware of the building used as barracks (jump-off points) and in which building the warlord was located.
Insurgents – figures from Eureka Miniatures.
David K’s insurgent force had a standard Tier 2 organization with 5 additional sentries to be placed wherever the insurgent player saw fit.
The five sentries from Irregular Miniatures.
The S.W.A.T. force by the “Assault Group”.
The S.W.A.T. force consisted of a Senior Leader, 2 four man teams with a junior leader and a designated marksman, and a sniper team.
The game was held at night with five groups of civilians scattered around the shanty town. These were static throughout the game although we should think about a random move system. The one used in the new “Gangs of Rome” rules by Footsore Miniatures could work well. The conventional force commenced with a morale of 9 and the insurgents with a morale of 11. David K placed his sentries and the game began.
The S.W.A.T. leader deployed a fire team and a Junior leader on the South West corner and the sniper team on the western games edge. The location of the civilians was causing problems as it would be difficult to take out the snipers without being so close to them that they might raise the alarm.
With the sniper team now in a good position the first sentry was dealt with.
The squad then moved into close assault with the second sentry.
He was quickly dispatched but not before the noise counters were building up. With a third being added as the S.W.A.T. team hid the body and with a fourth in play due to the sniper shot detection seemed a distinct possibility. Fortunately the first sentry rolled a one and light up a cigarette which meant he would continue to look in the wrong direction. The second rolled a three and also turned away from the action.
The third team was deployed on the northern edge and immediately “pinned” (caused one shock) a sentry in the open. This caused a problem for David K as without any leaders on the board the shock could not be moved leaving the sentry unable to do anything. We will need to work out how we will handle this situation.
The sniper rifle was now completely out of position and was ordered by the senior leader via radio to move to the eastern side of the board and take up a position on the eastern most insurgent drop-off point. The southern squad moved with the Senior leader to close assault a sentry near the compound housing the sleeping insurgent Warlord.
Again the sentry was quickly dispatched but not before the civilians within close proximity caused a role on the collateral damage table dropping the S.W.A.T. morale by one. With 7 noise markers in place, 2 for the attack move, one for the close combat, 2 for the civilian noise and 2 for the sniper team movement, it was inevitable that the sole operational sentry would notice. Finally he stopped smoking and came under the control of David K but unfortunately he did not roll high enough to cause the alarm to be raised.
Simulating a situation where he was aroused enough to investigate what was out there without being able to determine if it was civilians or the enemy that caused the noise.
The insurgent leader (David K) has several options with the sole sentry in action – he could have run to the compound to raise the alarm yelling all the way but he chose to charge towards the northern S.W.A.T. team instead. In the end this was probably the key decision that changed the course of the skirmish.
The ensuing close assault saw the final sentry go down but not before he caused a “man down” to the S.W.A.T. Another drop in morale to the conventional forces!
The insurgents used a command dice to end the turn, causing a roll on the “man down table” with only the limited medical expertise of his colleagues available (+2 to the dice) he very quickly slipped into a T4 category. The S.W.A.T. group were very quickly dropping in morale so the Sergeant ordered the fire team and their leader he was with to close assault the remaining shocked sentry and the sniper team to continue with their orders to take the drop-off point.
Disaster!!! As the shocked sentry was attacked with his last action in life (with just one dice) he took down another “infidel”. The conventional force were now teetering on a knife edge with only one more drop in morale left before mission creep steps in and they are forced to withdraw with their causalities. A quick use of a command dice from the insurgents cause another drop in morale to the S.W.A.T. forces but an immediate use of a command dice from them prevented any roll on the morale table. With the Sergeant present the following man down determined that the wound was only superficial.
With all of the sentries now dealt with the S.W.A.T. commander set about placing his teams in position to prevent the insurgents from rushing out to protect their warlord.
With all drop-off points now secured the warlord was on his own.
A “dynamic” entry saw the warlord overwhelmed, then in an instant a knife flashed and another S.W.A.T. member was down!!! Captured but still defiant his actions caused another automatic drop in morale putting the S.W.A.T. forces again teetering on the edge of “mission creep”.
The last few phases saw the help for the injured S.W.A.T. team member arrive and the warlord being escorted away. The final action of the S.W.A.T. team leader was to end the turn causing the loss of all three drop-off points reducing the insurgent morale to three.
Aftermath.
The operation was a near run thing with the S.W.A.T. morale needing to be managed quite closely. Fortunately for myself I had sufficient command dice to be able to prevent morale dice rolls when required.
Seizing the insurgent drop-off points meant the insurgent leader was on his own representing a situation where his men were in an alcohol or drug induced stupor or receiving warning of the attack had left him to his fate!!!
I think we are almost there with this one, with only a few more changes required. With the small amount of play testing thus far I am reluctant to make mass changes in case the situation we find ourselves is more of an “outlier” rather than a regular anomaly which needs “fixing”.
