We tried
a new mission type for our latest Force on Force game, a special operations
team extracting an enemy VIP in the Middle East. In this case, it's a
scientist with deadly WMD knowledge who the terrorists would rather kill than
surrender to the Americans who came to retrieve him forcibly.
This game
took place at night, with visibility limited to 18 inches for the terrorists,
who lack night vision goggles (NVGs). The eleven operators are d10 Troop
Quality, d12 Morale, and the terrorists are d6 TQ and d10 Morale. The
four-man team moving with the scientist, the transport team, suffered the
Dependent penalty and could not make a Rapid Move. The overwatch team was
set up outside the compound ready to move back to the extraction vehicles at
the far end of the board. The vehicles
were being guarded by three female operators that eldest daughter wanted to
paint while her brothers were painting. Eventually, she'll have five of
them, so they'll be Fem Force Five, but until she finishes a couple more they'll just be the
Fem Force Three.
The
chances of the terrorists sounding the alarm increased with each turn - roll a
d6 and get a 6 on turn 2, get a 5 on turn 3, and so on.
Here is
the compound where we had just liberated the scientist over the dead bodies of
his two guards.
The plan was to take the back road and avoid detection. The overwatch team began to move, but a unit
on the roadside saw them, and we knew we were in for a long night.
The overwatch team exchanged a round of fire
with the enemy fire team that had identified them, and the whole neighborhood
was alerted. We shot all but the leader of the squad, but took a casualty of
our own - one of our men was wounded but living.
That
brought their reinforcements moving toward us.
The
ensuing round of fire gave the overwatch team another casualty.
The
overwatch team pulled back behind the corner of the objective building and made
successful wound checks at the beginning of the next turn – no wound for one
casualty, a light wound for the other.
The
overwatch team quickly recovered and went on the offensive, laying low the
enemy fire team blocking the transport team’s movement.
And both teams moved out of the target compound and into the
street…
Another group of terrorists emerged to confront the
assembled fire teams, but got shot down in short order.
Of course, this just brought more terrorists out of the
woodwork…
Another terrorist cell encountered the firepower of the two
fireteams, dropping a number of fresh casualties on the ground.
More importantly, however, we had to worry about enemies
lying in wait on the rooftops along the extraction route.
The terrorists also got their act together and called in a
technical that came barreling down the road.
The technical, however, didn’t last very long.
After picking their way through the neighborhood and several
more exchanges of fire, they reached the extraction vehicles being guarded by
Fox Force Three.
Post-script: This was
a closer game than the above report really shows. On several occasions the advanced first aid
chart that elite troops use in Force on Force saved the operators. Both fire teams were slugging along with
wounded troops and were a bad roll away from mission failure on several
occasions. I feel like this was about
the limit for Troop Quality d10 regulars versus TQ d6 irregulars. The game system really does balance differing
troop types well.