DEFCON ZERO Preview and Test Play

I had the opportunity several months ago to meet J. Reid Denton, the man behind Covert Intervention Games' forthcoming DEFCON ZERO.  It's a modern combat game that hopes to offer fast-playing yet realistic gameplay.  I met up with Reid at The Games Tavern in Chantilly, Virginia not far from Washington DC.  

In the spirit of disclosure, I've previously corresponded with Reid via email and have volunteered to be a Beta tester for DEFCON ZERO.  Both Reid and I are military veterans of deployments to the middle east with the U.S. Army, and I agreed with much of the game design philosophy that he laid out in this podcast (also available here).  So I've been excited for a while about this game.

I'm posting two write-ups below, but here's the Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) for a first look at DEFCON ZERO:

- The game uses a unique mission cards system for each player which provides victory conditions based on mission type. There are four groups of missions - Offense, Defense, Enabling and Stability with several missions within each group.  Cards from within each of these categories provide varying missions, so a Defense card could task your force with delaying enemy forces or blocking their progress entirely.  Your opponent doesn't get to see your card, so they don't know what victory conditions you have and vice versa.  So you may be giving your opponent victory points without knowing it, and vice versa.  In the missions played below, the victory conditions influenced the way we played.

- The general flow runs on an action-reaction scheme that allows competing units to attempt an “interrupt reaction” against the force with iniative in a roll-off based on Capability Rating.  Capability Ratings provide a die type to roll, from d6 to d12.  

- The weapon ranges are scaled in cm for effective ranges.  Weapon ranges are what they are in real life in meters (it's a military thing), scaled to the models, with a centimeter on the board per meter in the world.  Your minis' movement will be measured, accordingly, in centimeters instead of inches.  It's a small nod to realism, and in a world where maximum ranges for rifles end at the scale equivalent of 50 meters or so in many less realistic games, I appreciated it. 

- Options for combat optic-equipped shooters which create a bonus to shooting that amounts to a +1 on their rolls, effectively allowing a 3+ to have a chance of success against the opponents Combat Rating.  I've struggled with how to incorporate the benefits of optics into my homebrew rules or in-house rules for other games, and this is a good way to do it that I hadn't thought of.

- The casualty mechanism creates urgency all its own.  Regulars take a d12 roll (place the die next to the downed mini) to count down one digit each turn to dying, while irregulars die off or disappear pretty easily.  This plays well with the realities of modern combat and how many casualties first-world nations are willing to accept.  An insurgent force offensive raid mission against a civil affairs unit on a stability mission can quickly change character entirely into a mad scramble to prevent Coalition fatalities.

- DEFCON ZERO handles grenades uniquely.  As I wrote separately in this other post, I've been experimenting with my own homebrew rules and the grenades are different there than in other systems.  In Savage Worlds or any other number of systems, grenades have a blast radius.  In Force on Force, an under-barrel grenade launcher adds an additional die of firepower to the fire team.  I've always thought that this underplayed their effectiveness.  DEFCON ZERO provides a special template which covers blasts, back blasts, measurements, and more which Reid designed.  I don't have a picture of the template, but it's clear that Reid has put some thought into how grenades are and aren't effective on the battlefield. (Hint: You don’t want to be in the lethal radius and ensuring you keep your 10 meter distance between troops is absolutely critical to not get fragged!)

Test Play 1:  We secured a table and set up a rural desert scene where a U.S. Army infantry squad is guarding a compound at a key road/railroad intersection that insurgents assault.  My mission card provided traditional defensive incentives - points for enemy casualties and keeping enemies from advancing to my end of the board.

Here's the compound where the Americans are in the defense.

Here's a close-up of the compound, showing the U.S. troops on alert on the roofs of the compound and behind sandbags.

Here's the approaching insurgent fighters, with most of them shielded by a hill that's the last covered and concealed position before being exposed to the American troops.

Here are some aerial shots taken with Reid’s phone in a proprietary application that mimics the appearance of a drone feed.  Reid’s day job involves combat simulations for the Department of Defense.  Did I mention that this game is built upon serious simulation of battlefield conditions?

"Cobra 31, we have UAV visual on your location."

"Cobra 31, looks like you've got company over the hill.  We're tasking the UAV to get a better look."

"Yup, two squads of fighting-age males with small arms approaching."

"Looks more like three squads.  Stay frosty - it's coming your way."

"Thanks for the heads-up!"

As the insurgents crest the hill and move to assault the compound where the Americans are quartered, they lose initiative to the Americans are exposed to an overwhelming amount of firepower and are dropped to a man.

After a recovery/first aid roll, a couple of the insurgents recover.

Another group of insurgents crests a different hill, and lose another initiative contest.  They pay the price.

A third group of insurgents move to engage the American troops, and take significant casualties.  Half of the squad fall, but enough remain standing to return fire against the U.S. outpost.

The insurgent return fire knocks out two U.S. troops.  I recommend clicking on this photo - it shows two 12-sided dice for the casualties, which are the turns remaining until the casualties are out-of-action/dead.

We ran out of time to run this game to completion, but it gave me an opportunity to see how the mechanics work.  

Test Play 2:  I went back the next day and we were able to run a more complete game.  I was playing the Americans again, but this time against regulars from a middle eastern nation that had vehicular support.

In this instance, I had victory objectives associated with screening - merely reporting advancing enemy unit locations to my higher headquarters earned victory points.  As the report below shows, a fair amount of my marking of enemy positions ended up happening with tracer rounds, not radio reports.

Here's the battlefield from my viewpoint.  I've arrayed a couple of squads in buildings anticipating an enemy advance, with a Gustav recoilless rifle and a machine gun team for extra support.  I've got an M113 in the rear for CASEVAC/Casualty Collection Point.

View from my lead squad leader's position on a rooftop in the center of the board and overlooking a key road/railroad intersection.

View from my machine gun team's position on a rooftop on my right flank.

I picked up  victory points for reporting the advance of this technical and T-72 tank.  I failed an initiative roll when the technical crew spotted my guys, but the DShKa gunner missed when he opened fire.

Enemies advancing across the board.

The lead enemy squad crested this hill, but one of my squads won initiative and shot it up.  The casualty count-down markers are next to the downed soldiers.

The enemy technicals also crested the ridge and paid the price - one was immobilized, the crew on the other wiped out and marked with the red smoke you see above.

My center squad falls off overwatch.

The enemy tank scored a hit on my machine gun crew, necessitating first aid for the downed soldiers marked with d12s here.

My Gustav crew pops up and fires at the enemy T-72, scoring a hit and immobilizing it.

I advanced a squad leader and fire team up the left side of the board using cover and concealment.

State of my side of the board after several turns.  I had racked up a few more victory points for reporting enemy advances at this point.

View from my M113 as it prepares to advance and provide some .50 caliber support.

The enemy infantry squad is still lying out in the open bleeding out, and the squad leader tries to run away.  My guys shot him down before he could get far.

More casualties for enemy infantry at this compound on their left flank.  They've got a mortar team in the compound - on-board artillery that could make a big impact in this fight - but they haven't gotten their act together to successfully employ it.

The fire team I moved up the left side of the board gets inside of a building.

More U.S. troops advance, this time up the center of the board and across the road-railroad intersection.

The enemy mortar finally gets into the game and lands fire on my squad in the center.

We had to wrap up the game at this point, but I played enough to have a feel for the game.

Exit thoughts:  DEFCON ZERO provides a relatively streamlined version of modern combat that's built on the bones of a realistic simulation.  This realistic simulation, however, is accomplished without the minutiae of a role-playing game level of detail.  The mission cards, and the fact that you don't know exactly what your enemy's goals are, provide an additional touch of realism and a fog of war element that I enjoyed.  There's some on-board marker maintenance, such as turning d12 casualty markers down one number at the end of each turn, but no paper tracking of the game beyond victory points.  I enjoyed the play-tests and look forward to seeing the finished product.

HHH Modern Warfare Testing Session 1

I've been busy with creating my own set of rules that bridge the gap between a pure skirmish and mass combat, something that could handle a platoon or so of regular troops, with the possibility of mixing in character (PC) heroes and vehicles or other heavy-hitters.  Tentatively named Heroes, Heavies, and Hordes, my system uses traditional d4-d20 numerical progression.  I've used these rules to play Modern Warfare:  Alien Invasion, Chapters 1 and 2, but I'm still working out the kinks.

I started my first play-test with just the 'hordes' portion of the rules test, trying out the conventional ground combat to ensure that the basics work in this system before adding anything else.  Before I can add superpowered characters, psionic powers, and suits of power armor to the mix, I need to make sure that it can handle modern ground combat.

For the scenario, two squads of US Army troops (total 18 soldiers) will square off against six insurgent sections of seven men each, with the goal of rescuing a downed pilot stuck in an insurgent-controlled area.  Here's the layout:

 

 US Army fire teams on either side of both of the roads.

 Downed pilot in need of rescue.

 Looking down the road on the right...

 ...and the left.

 An early round of fire knocks out most of an insurgent cell and chases the surviving two fighters out the back of the building

 

Turn 2:

 US fire team at bottom lands effective fire on the insurgent cell at top center of frame as US forces trade fire, but don't advance very far.



Turn 3:

 Insurgent cell fires on US fire team making a break across some open ground, at far end of shot.  They failed to connect and the Americans capitalized on poor insurgent marksmanship.

 Turn 4:

 Americans in building at left take casualties while dishing out some fire on the insurgents at right.  The green stress markers reduce unit efficiency as they accumulate in the turn.  The orange markers represent wounded troops, the red markers dead ones.

 Turn 5:

Same firefight, reverse angle - US fire team on right, insurgents on left.  The first aid skills of the US troops keeps their casualties in the fight, even if wounded.  The insurgent cell isn't faring as well.

 Same fight, insurgents getting wiped out.

 The insurgents closest to the downed pilot take casualties in a long-range exchange of fire.

 Turn 6:

 The same insurgent cell miraculously administers effective first aid and gets back up to fighting strength.

...and then a lucky grenade launcher shot lands inside the building and wipes them out.

Of the last two insurgents, one is killed by American fire, and the other is no match for the mass of US firepower on the board.

 

 

Lessons learned:

1.  I need to settle on a morale system.  As the game went on, I tinkered with different ideas about how to execute it.  The insurgent morale needs to be lowered for factions without leaders.  Leaders will add both initiative and morale bonuses to insurgent cells, just as they do to conventional units, but the insurgents will have lower baseline statistics and need leaders to try to keep up with conventional troops.

 

2.  I need to finalize my first aid system.  Still playing with how to handle this.

 

3.  Optics need to cost more.  Right now, rifles have 24"/48"/96" ranges, and the effect of all optics - reflex or magnified - is to double range.  This makes optic-equipped rifles deadly in the hands of conventional troops with adequate marksmanship training, and gives them a marked advantage over the insurgents.  An overwhelming advantage, almost.  At no point did the insurgents ever have much of a fighting chance after the bullets started flying.

 

4.  Grenade launchers need to cost more.  In Force on Force, they just add another die of firepower.  When you give them a blast radius, a lucky shot can be a game changer as it was at the end of this play test.

 

Overall, not a bad test of the developing rules, but I've got a ways to go.



Star Wars: Legion Test Play

Went to my friendly local gaming store with the boys recently to check out Star Wars:  Legion.  Here's my brief review based on a test play recreating the Battle of Endor.  The Empire and the Rebel Alliance clash over control of the bunker housing the new Death Star's field generator.

The forces:
- The Empire had two fire teams' worth of storm troopers, a three-vehicle unit of speeder bikes, and Darth Vader.
- The Rebel Alliance had two fire teams' worth of troopers, an open-topped mini-walker (like an AT-ST, but smaller), and Luke Skywalker.

The two sides seek cover and exchange fire.  The speeder bike trio, partially obscured by the tree trunk at left, advances on the Rebel flank.



The Rebel troops exchange fire with the storm troopers.

The speeder bike trio has already been reduced by Rebel fire, and then Skywalker jumps out and cuts down the remaining bike.

Skywalker seizes the initiative and jumps into melee combat with the nearest storm trooper unit, wiping them out.  You can see that the storm trooper team to the right of Vader has taken casualties from accurate Rebel fire.





Skywalker, however, proved no match for dear old dad.  Vader closed the distance and promptly cut Luke down.

Unfortunately for Vader, the rest of the Empire force has been destroyed by the combined weight of Rebel fire.  Now he has to brave the whole weight of Rebel blasters while closing the distance with the Rebel line.

Vader couldn't close the distance in time.  He almost made it, but a lucky streak from the Rebel firing line brought him down.

 

A quick run-down of my impressions:

- Unit activation runs on different command schemes that let a different type and number of units activate, and in different priority.  I generally liked it, and prefer it to 40k's system.
- The proprietary dice system is apparently a carryover concept from the X-Wing system.  It took a minute to get used to, but I thought it worked well from what I saw.

- The unit types played true to Star Wars orthodoxy.  Vader proved slow moving but a wrecking ball in melee combat.  Luke was more agile and still formidable, but unable to go toe-to-toe with his old man.  Rebels outshoot storm troopers but don't have the same armor and, hence, ability to soak up damage.

- I didn't get a chance to really ring out the possibilities that the vehicles might offer.  The small-ish board meant that the speed and flanking possibility of the speeder bikes weren't really in play.  And they proved surprisingly fragile in the face of Rebel fire.
- I'm not a fan of the scale of the miniatures.  The existing Star Wars miniatures used in the 28mm-ish Imperial Assault are much smaller than the Legion line.  For perspective, I'm of the mind that anything bigger than 20 or 25mm is ridiculous for anything primarily involving gunfire, and the 32mm/heroic scale figures in Legion go well beyond that.  I readily admit that they aren't as complex as 40k minis to assemble, and paint up quite beautifully.  I'm just not sold on the size, and was told that the AT-ST model will be as big as 7-11 Big Gulp cup.

Bottom Line:  While enjoyable and more nuanced than some other sci-fi fire team-based games, I personally didn't care for the large scale of the miniatures.  I don't plan to invest in the system, but won't be opposed to my boys getting in to it.