Force on Force AAR- ‘A Few Blocks of Hell’

This Monday’s game night I umpired a game of Force on Force for Bill (Boss of Under Fire Miniatures) and Brian (Brush Wars blog).

As we’ve not had many games with the rules I decided to run the first scenario from the main rule book: ‘ A Few Blocks of Hell’ as a good way to get into the swing of infantry combat.

The board as seen from the US start line. Their objective was to take the two tall buildings on the back row.

The game was an interesting one- it went very much in the favour of the US (commanded by Bill) his superior Troop Quality to best effect. However a couple of bad rolls and a redeployment from Brian’s insurgents changed all that.

The scenery is a mix of my own scratchbuilds with a few resins as well. The US figures are all from Britannia while the insurgents are a mix of all sort with Liberation and Britannia predominating.

The US fireteams move up.

Bill’s left flanking maneuver reaps early rewards.

Brian consolidates his two teams that had taken casualties.

A team of Syrian jhiadists on overwatch- soon to play a critical part in the game.

First US casualties.

Brian takes more hits as the US continue to advance.

At this point in the game Brian made the decision to move his best units (Syrians) from the US right of the table to the center; this proved to be critical in stopping the US advance.

Jhiadists on the highground.

The firefight goes back and forth, but the superior numbers of the insurgents seems to carry it.

A rather messy end to the game- lots of close in action and everyone try desperatly to take each other captive. Sadly the insurgents dragged off 5 wounded Americans- a black day for the US army….

All in all a really good game- swung back and forth. All three of us had a better grasp of the rules by the games end. Next time I think I’ll move theaters to Chechnya as my Russians haven’t been on the table for a while. Also I’ve a few ideas regarding reinforcements that I want to try out.

Cheers,

Pete.

Falkland War era Brits.

Given we’re in the year of its 30th anniversary I’ve decided to get a small collection of figures to re-fight the conflict- the main inspiration was in fact last year and a scenario in the Force on Force rule book. It was the first war I can remember- I distinctly remember the coverage on John Craven’s Newsround (I was only young in ’82). I’ve got a small selection of Argentine figures already- a mix of Stonewall/ Combat miniatures and Platoon 20s so I looked around for some suitable opponents. CP models/ TDQ have released 2 really nice packs so I decided to add them to my collection, I’m a big fan of their ranges. http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/index.htm

I bought 3 packs, each of 6 figures: 1 pack of SAS with mixed weapons, 2 packs of Squaddies with SLRs, 7.62 Bren and Sterling. THe figures come with a choice of heads and optional backpacks/ Bergens. So I did the SAS with wool hats and the Squaddies all in helmets but one group with Bergens. I gave them a quick paint job- the closeup photos of them are a bit unforgiving and my rendition of DPM could do with a bit more green but I’m happy with them on mass.

Urban Dystopias Project

One of the wargaming ideas that inspired me to blog were the various civil unrest projects set in the UK out there. I’ve always been a big an of alternate history ideas and gaming civil war or something very close to it opens up the possibilities of more to a standard evenings game than army ‘A’ lines up to fight army ‘B’, I’m imagining something very close to an insurgency but with more of a civilian feel to it. I’ll have a think about my own background- I’m tempted to develop it in 2 periods- the classic grim 80s and something set the year after next that allows me to explore more modern concerns.

When I read the Force on force main rule book (published through Osprey http://www.ospreypublishing.com/ ) I was very impressed with the way the rules handled mobs of civies. My original idea was to have an insurgent group using the cover of a riot to attack a target. The security forces player would have to deal with threats on 2 levels- crowd control and counter insurgency. For pure Riot control games I found a set of rules from Jim Wallman ‘Civil Disorder’ that should do nicely ( http://www.jimwallman.org.uk/wargame/index.htm ).

To this end at the Sheffield Triples show I bought a selection of riot figures from both Irregular ( http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/ ) and Stonewall (http://www.stonewallfigures.co.uk ) as well as some Riot policemen. I also got some sabot style bases to mount them on. When there are painted I’ll put some pics up.

RH models ( http://www.rhmodels.com/ ) does a nice range of armed civies including some new releases with British style weapons- I’ve got some already but I’ll be adding to my collection soon. The Hobby Den ( http://www.thehobbyden.com/ ) over in Ireland has just released a Shorland Armoured Car, it saw service in Northern Ireland, I’ll pick on up to beef up the options available to the Security Forces player.

Scenery was proving to be the biggest headache for me- all my Urban stuff is pretty heavily ruined which isn’t really suitable (unless I come up with a very apocalyptic backstory). However the excellent Winter of ’79 blog ( http://winterof79.blogspot.com/ ) provided the solution- a range of affordable Card Models ( http://cardmodels.web.officelive.com/default.aspx ). A quick poke around the net revealed other free models, normally aimed at Railway modellers that will be suitable. Filling my 6′ by 4′ table won’t be too expensive after all.

On the subject of blogs there are 2 others that have provided a lot of inspiration: England Prevails ( http://englandprevials.blogspot.com/ ) and Un- Tied Kingdom (http://untiedkingdom2011.blogspot.com/ ).

Operation Goodwood Megagame

I’ve finally got round to uploading some picture from my phone to my PC. Amongst them were a couple of shot I took of the Operation Goodwood Megagame I played the other month. For more details see here: http://www.megagame-makers.org.uk/

My role was as part of 272nd Infantry Division, we took our historical role defending Caen. We took heavy causalities but in the end held on to the town a day longer than in real life- mostly due to Corps command being more than generous with allocating support (elements from Das Reich SSPz Division and a lot of Nerbelwerfers). I really enjoyed the megagame concept- best explained as a double blind boardgame mixed with a free kreigspiel.

Apologies for the flash- my photography skills with a cameraphone and laminated maps don’t mix.

In other news: Ambush Alley’s Cold War Hot and Ambush Alley scenario supplements arrived today. Had a quick flick through them- am impressed so far. Hopefully they’ll give me the impetus to sort out my Vietnam and Cold War projects into some sort of order.

Afghan National Army

Just finished painting these two fireteams up. they are 20mm figures from Under Fire Miniatures (http://www.underfireminiatures.com/index.htm).

As usual I speed painted them- probably not done all the fine detail justice but they’ll do for the table top when I get them in a game of Force on Force.