How about I actually run a game?

Hey,

So you know how I've been painting up a bunch of little dudes? The whole point is to run some games with them. And this weekend, that's what I did.

I hang out with a group called Boston Trained Bands and they run regular Saturday morning games out of the Hobby Bunker in Malden MA. So since I had the rules and the troopers and they had some terrain to loan me, I ran a game for them.

This particular game used the Force on Force ruleset form Ambush Games (published by Osprey) and this particular scenario came from their Road to Baghdad sourcebook. From the scenario description:

Umm Qasr, Iraq March 22, 2003

Elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) entered the port city of Umm Qasr to secure the port facilities. On March 22, at an administration building near the harbor, a patrol got into a small firefight that quickly became an intense gun battle as Marines sought to surround and eliminate the enemy threat.

In this particular game, the American players have to clear out the Iraqi players from the various buildings around the port. They gain points for each group of Iraqis eliminated and for being in complete control of the board by turn 8. On the other side, the Iraqis get points for each American trooper they wound/kill, managing to remain on the board for 8 turns, and points if the Americans accidentally destroy port infrastructure.

So here's the set-up



The Americans enter from the bottom of the photo. The Iraqis are scattered throughout the various buildings and are considered hidden until the Americans spot them or the Iraqi shoots at the Americans. That large building near the top with the elaborate front is the Admin building.

Things got hairy very quickly:



The Americans sent a squad to the northernmost building to clear it out and form a flanking fire base. The thing is, Force on Force isn't just "i go, you go", when your opponent is moving, you have to opportunity to declare that you'll take a shot at him while he's in the open (or shoot before he shoots you or run away before he can shoot you, etc.). The American player had an advantage in the .50 machine gun team he'd set up on Overwatch. Overwatch lets you interrupt an opponent's interrupt. It sounds a little complicated but it actually worked out pretty smoothly.

In any event, the machine gun team didn't react in time and the Iraqis managed to inflict a couple of casualties. Then the machine gun team ripped into them. However, the Iraqis are pretty highly motivated and held fast.

The other thing to note is that while the Americans suffered two casualties, when their status was checked at the start of the next turn, it was discovered that one was perfectly fine and the other had only a minor wound that didn't impair his ability to fight. The Americans have body armor and their superior training lets them roll d8's vs. the d6's that the Iraqis roll. What this all means is that it's very hard for the Iraqis to hurt the Americans which is why they get so many points for individual American troopers while the Americans have to wipe out whole squads of Iraqis before they score.

Meanwhile, on the southern half of the board, a line of Americans advanced on a building, anxious to determine if there was someone hidden in the building directly in front of them. Sadly, it was just a decoy, but they didn't learn that before a nearby high-rise lit up:



This particular high-rise contained the Iraqi's heavy machine gun team and they let rip into the Americans. The result was several seriously wounded soldiers that had to be evacuated back to the starting line for CASEVAC. The group in the high-rise also managed to shut down the American's .50 cal weapon team and was becoming a right nuisance.

One of the American fireteams decided to throw caution to the wind and rush the building in front of them to get more cover:



Now they had a protected spot to shoot at the Iraqis in the high-rise. You can also see that the Iraqi teams in the Admin building have finally been wiped out by steady fire from the Americans and now they're advancing on it to close the pincer. You can also see the Iraqi team on the lower right that had also been giving the Americans problems but compared to the heavy machine gun, they were the lesser of two evils.



At the start of Turn Four, an M1A1 Abrams showed up to help. It arrived sporting some battle damage (I dropped the turret when I put the model on the table -- eeek!). However, it didn't really do too much. They fired a round into the high-rise in an attempt to drop the building, but it plowed into the basement and didn't really affect it. Meanwhile, the Americans had closed in and a round of volleys from all the fireteams quickly cleared the high-rise. After that, there was only a little mopping up to do and the Iraqis were driven from the board.

By the end of Turn 4 the game was over. All that was left was to tally up the scores. The Americans achieved all their objectives. However, they'd suffered quite a few casualties (two dead and five seriously wounded). Beyond that, the Americans had been a little careless with their fire and had destroyed some of the Port's facilities (strangely, it was the MP40 grenades and not the tank rounds that did most of the damage). That all added up and the Iraqis won a Pyrrhic victory 19 to 15.

It was a tough fight all around I continue to be pleased with the Force on Force ruleset. There were a few rule goofs here and there. The important ones for me to remember for next time are:

• You can't combine units to form larger fireteams. This isn't as attractive when you remember that...
  
• ...you can't have more than 10 dice in your attacking firepower pool. The large Iraqi cells could generate a pool of 14 dice easy, but that just means you can keep your firepower high despite the inevitable casualties you're going to take.
  
• Insurgents check for casualties just like regular army guys do. I was just eliminating them. Some of them could've stayed in the fight a bit longer.

There were probably some other things I screwed up, but those were the most notable. Anyway, everyone seemed to have a good time and were interested in trying it again, so we'll see what we can do. Maybe something later in May or June.

So that was fun
Tom