Sunday, April 16, 2017

And now for something completely different

Yesterday we all gathered at Wendel's home to play a game that is completely outside our comfort zone. This was a modern game using the Osprey 'Black Ops' rules. I have to say that I like the uncertainty of the card activated play. It makes the game move along as well as being exciting and uncertain.
The scenario was a rescue attempt by three separate groups trying to save a person of importance being held by a Somali like warlord and his minions.
The players were our host Wendel, who ran the Warlord and his minions, Bill who was U.S Special Forces, Jamie who was members of the standing army for this war torn country and myself as an Italian counter terrorist force. Wow that was a long sentence.
Her are a couple of pictures of the playing area. I did not take any others a s the game was very engrossing and exciting.
 
You can see that Wendel has been engaged in a very large project having built all of the buildings from scratch. Well done!
Each player entered from a different side of the table and none of us knew where the hostage was being held or where any troops were in the area. It was night time and everyone needed to roll for spotting. Noise played a big factor in being spotted and alerting the camp. If the hostage holders were successful in hearing us or spotting us they could the raise the alarm.
The game play was great as it had a very Hollywood feel at the beginning where we could move about in the dark taking out sentries without raising the alarm yet we were not assured that this would not happen. For most of us shooting was very risky due to the great noise factor but my band were equipped with silencers and suppressors for our weapons giving my team a large advantage or so I thought.
As you look at the second picture, my team entered on the right side across the river. Bill entered from the side by the bottom of the picture and Jamie came in by the upper left corner.
We had to move about searching the buildings that were marked by poker chips that were numbered. Wendel had corresponding chips that indicated what was in the building if anything.
So each group went about searching for the hostage and eliminating guards as we went from house to house. My group had a devil of a time trying to kill the terrorists even when we surprised them in their sleep at point blank range. My die rolls were terrible while Wendel displayed an amazing ability to roll 5's and 6's all day! The only thing that saved us was our near silent weapons.
While I searched my area and found a few sleeping minions Bill working in his area found the main barracks and a large group of minions sleeping inside. To get into the building he went up on the roof area and entered through a second story tower. You can see this building in the lower right hand corner of the compound in the second picture.
Meanwhile Jamie's team was working it's way into the center of the compound searching houses and eliminating guards. At this time a fortuitous event took place. While I was searching a building near the center of town I found the hostage, killed his guard and was ready to get him off the board to victory.
Then all hell broke loose!
While entering the barracks Bill's team opened fire on a couple of terrorists creating enough noise to set off the general alarm. The compound became a beehive of activity and none of it productive to my cause. All I wanted to do was sneak off the table!
A general firefight broke out all over the compound with everyone's teams taking hits. I started looking like my team was in the shower room from the movie 'The Rock' and we were not the guys on the second floor.
This was another likable part of the rules as now in an open fight everything moved quickly and it became very hazardous to anyone involved.
Well to make a long story short I did not get the hostage out of the complex. I did manage to kill the
Warlord but it would have been up to Bill or Jamie to get the hostage out. Sorry Jamie but my money would have been on Bill if the game went a bit longer as he had more team members left and was in a good position, but real life called and we decided to call the game at this point.
So in conclusion I have to say I would recommend these rules for modern combat on a one to one level. We did not get bogged down in too much detail but there was more than enough to provide suspense and action.
Take care and as always thanks for stopping by.
Greg
Oh yes I left out the part where I made a dastardly attempt to take out a couple of Jamie's team members who were in the path of my escape route. Sorry Jamie.

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