Lost Platoon-- Mogadishu

Recently purchased "Day of the Rangers" by Force on Force.  Great reference book and I like the morale and skill checks in Force on Force.  The activation/reaction gives me a headache but I love the activation rules for Combat Patrol.  Why not combine them?  Here then is my first attempt at Force on Patrol!  All activation is through my modified activation rules, all shooting done as per Combat Patrol, all morale checks done as per Force on Force.  ( Shooting at vehicles would be done as per Force on Force if there were any vehicles.)  The scenario is right out of Day of the Rangers except I substituted my rangers for theirs.  Thus Lt Concepcion becomes the convoy commander and Sgt Chin is squad leader of the Ranger squad.
Lt Concepcion  Son of a wealthy family/ proving he is tough.  Gambler/ govt.    Gr III
Sgt Chin  from a small town, joined after HS   Pragmatic/ position    Gr I
Cpl Krynawski  orphaned/trouble with the law  Jovial/wealth           Gr I
Cpl Street   factory worker from Detroit   aggressive/greedy              Gr O

Lt Concepcion is driving in Malaysian APCs with his squad and a squad on engineers.  They get lost on the way to a shot down helicopter and ambushed.  the APCs are destroyed.  They have to rescue the wounded driver and hunker down for 8 turns until relief arrives.

Initial set up.  Cpl K is behind the APC with the LT.  Sgt Chin and Cpl Street are behind.  Engineers are this side of the APC.

Sgt Chin pointing towards the source of fire.

Somali gunmen come running from all directions.

Initial fire from Somalis hit Cpl K and he goes down.  The LT comes to check.  Fortunately a bullet only grazed his helmet!  ( Rolled a 6 on the first aid chart.)

     Sgt Chin directs Street's half squad to lay down fire while Cpl K's team tries to free the wounded driver.  They couldn't get him out!  ( 2 D8 rolls where I only needed a 4+ and I couldn't get it.)  Finally LT Concepcion comes over and they get the driver out just in time!  

Meanwhile the engineers blow a door so a MMG can set up inside. 

Another engineer team assualts a building.  They actually make a capture!

Cpl K covered by a SAW peers around a corner before advancing!  His team would take out 3 more somalis. 

On turn 6 a Little Bird ( in the dark it looked like a Huey!) Clears the first floor roof! 

The somalis made a couple more fruitless attacks but the platoon was in good shape when the relief column arrived.  They sustained no KIA and captured 1 Somali gunman. 
Post game Sgt Chin is interviewed by the battalion CSM and the CSM is impressed.  Despite the win the squad holds judgement on Sgt Chin. 

I liked mixing the rules.  I like the way morale checks work differently on irregulars and regulars for FoF.  It felt like we were facing hordes of gunman.  Will still work on the morale rules but think I am on to something.

Enjoy!

Joe

Somali Ambush

Half way done with formatting Grunt's Forward.  Biased opinion but it looks pretty good and think you guys will love it.  With 16 African's painted it was time to take the 10th mountain division into Somalia. 

Lt Concepcion leveled with Sgt Chin, " The Pakistanis are nervous taking out the food convoys. We need you to go out and give them a hand.  Protect the convoy but by all means protect yourself!  Not sure if you will get much help.  We will have gunships overhead if you run into trouble."  
 Scenario is "Ambuscale" from the upcoming Grunt's Forward.

Forces  ( pretty fake to have Pakistanis and US on the same convoy but it was interesting.)
1 HUMVEE with 50 cal.  5 soldiers including Sgt David Chin. (Elite)
Sgt Chin   Son of a banker went to junior college briefly before enlisting.  Pragmatic/Position  Gr I
3 food trucks driven by somali drivers that will run at the first gunfire.
1 car with 4 Pakistanis and a Gr 0 leader.    ( Green for shooting but normal for morale.)

It was decided that Sgt Chin would take the lead and the Pakis would close up the rear.

The Convoys rolls along.  So far so good!

A LMG opens up from a rubbled building

Sgt Chin deploys his team and the LMG is quickly neutralized.

The Pakistanis are also shot at.  A sniper keeps them pinned down. 
Several Somalis try to reach the trucks but are forced back into the buildings by the helicopter. 

Sgt Chin leads his team to the enemy strongpoint.  Two quick grenades leaves three somalis wounded and they make their break out the back.  Sgt Chin did not feel he had enough force to cover all exits. 

The convoy continues to the distribution center without loss!

Quick game which ambushes usually are.  Either the initial strike works or it doesn't.  The Somalis rolled up minimal forces.  They were:
1 LMG team with Gr 0 leader
1 Squad ( 7 AKs) with Gr I leader
1 sniper
That certainly helped Sgt Chin. 

It also showed that Grunt's Forward will work post Vietnam.  Have played three scenarios out of the book and all have gone well.  In addition, Combat Patrol works for the modern period too.  Wish Buck will give me some stats for HUMVEEs though!

Enjoy

Joe

A beer factory in Africa.

Have managed to get in a couple of games this month.  Am fine tuning the leadership rules for Combat Patrol and must say, Buck did a great job.  These are now my go to tactical rules.  I wanted to see if they could handle modern combat.  Buck published a free supplement about a civil war in the UK during the 80s.  There was enough info in there that I thought it would work.
But first, my parents visited and my Dad and I tried out Combat Patrol in room to room fighting.  It worked very well!

The russians are in!!  ( Now I will have to paint the inside of the building too.)

Now back to my modern game.  I did not run Platoon Forward with this. The Central African Republic 1996:  French forces are sent into the country to protect europeans and their interests.  Unpaid soldiers of the president start to loot.  They drive out to a beer factory, take it over and proceed to loot the beer.  Now I dont have french foreign legion troops ( but I will now have to get some) and I only had 16 africans so my taliban had to pitch in.  I must thank Mr Richards for providing this scenario taken from the Society of Twentieth Century Gamers; Issue 69 from 2010. 

French forces  12 Legionanaires, 11 assault rifles and 1 SAW.   2 Gr III leaders, 1 Gr II leader and 1 Gr I leader ( who was the LT on his first mission.)
Bad guys around 40 men with a mixture of rifles and automatics.  1 Gr II leader and 2 Gr I leaders.

The factory manger and his family are in one of the villas on the left.  The beer factory is the big building on the right!  The hedge is actually a chain link fence.  French enter from the bottom.

3 sentries out front while the rest of the folks load/drink beer.  ( they were moving so it blurred the picture.)

The first two teams breach the fence undetected

They move quickly to search the houses.  ( Historically there were no guards on the hostages.  They tried to stay out of the way.)

The covering squad starts to lay down fire.

The technical only gets one shot off before it explodes!  ( I guess it wasn't light beer)

The first truck tries to make its way out to freedom!

A LCPL halts it

Meanwhile the manager's family is located and sent to the rear with the LT.  

The rest of the team moves forward, blowing up another truck and capturing two prisoners.

The last mobile truck makes a break for it; this time covered by some troops.  ( Sorry I hadn't based my leader yet.  That has now been corrected.)

Freedom and free beer for 1 truck and 12 Africans.

The FFL had one incapacitated who lived but was evacuated to France.

The game played great and it really represented an elite force against a small one.  The Gr III leaders were able to +1 to their die and any rabble without a leader was automatically a 1.  ( Remember my normal deck has 3 "6s" and only 1 "1" card.  In addition I added several blue cards to only be used by the legion.   Guess I will be buying some FFL troops from Peter Pig.  They can also double in Viet Nam.

Enjoy

Joe

The Breakout!

Have been working on a new scenario for Platoon Forward.  It is entitled "Breakout" and consists of you getting your men back to friendly lines after being cut off.  ( Think Steiner in Cross of Iron.)  Of course totally avoiding combat isn't real fun so you will run across something while you try to dodge patrols.   Here is my final playtest.
A second thing I tried is moving Platoon Forward down a level to make it more like Squad Forward.  Here the platoon leader would be an NPC.  I don't want to keep track of all ten men in the platoon for picked the two NCOs and two privates.
Vietnam 1967.
Sgt Lawrence's squad strayed too far from the LZ  and when the NVA attacked they were cut off from the LT.  They waited until dark and decided to try to slip past the NVA back to the LZ.
Characters  ( Rolled up using the tables in Grunt's Forward)
Sgt Lawrence  Gr I   Drifter before he found a home in the army.   Gambler and greedy
Cpl Black       Gr 0   Storeclerk from a small town before drafted.  Conformist/ position
PFC " Moose" Edwards   Stereotypical big kid from the midwest.  Very cheery and religious
Pvt "Mongoose"Smith   Son of a migrant; grew up in slums but volunteered for the army as he believes in the American dream. 

2 4 man teams each with a thump gun.  1 M 60 also attached.

Forgot to take a picture of the board.  US moves from right to left.  there is scattered jungle throughout.  One house in the middle and swamp/heavy jungle on the left.   There is no turn limit but reinforcements come in 3 turns after the shooting starts.

1 Squad moves out!

The patrols are all dummies but they spot a supply cache next to the house.  They are seen and a firefight erupts. Lawrence's boys get the better of the fight with the second hit killing the NVA officer. ( Mongoose can't hit a thing however! ) One unnamed PVT is KIA with a headshot.   Lawrence tells Black to get his fireteam close enough to blow up those boxes.  The team moves to within 40 yards and ...

Moose hits them with his thumper!

Job done the squad needs to get back to the LZ.  One man is hit in the abdomen on Black's fireteam; leaving no one behind a two man carry is instituted.

Two man carry-- Moose can almost do it himself!

Bad guys show up at the top on the table.  1 A and 1 B blind. 

The squad moves along the road so they don't get lost in the dark.

Moment of truth!  The board edge is only 60 yards away and the squad is in soft cover.  Results for the enemy could range from a full squad plus MMG to nothing.  Guess what?  I roll Nothing!  ( unlikely but possible.)   The squads links back up with their platoon after destroying some NVA supplies.  They had 1 KIA and 1 WIA.

Great scenario!  There is a fairly wide range of forces you can encounter but I don't think it would be more than a stiff game.  This one was easy with a great deal of tension.  Tension was also created by the back story of my 4 guys.  I was always afraid one of them would get hit.  I do like dropping the level down to a squad and will probably try that again.
I plan to give the scenario to Rich for the summer special

For those of you that want to try this the only NVA forces I rolled up were:
1 NVA officer and 4 soldiers.  For more of a challenge add a patrol of 3 soldiers.

Enjoy

Joe

Meharisti del Fezzan with Commando forward

Happy Easter everyone!  Son home for spring break and we all had a great time.  Even played a game of Saga and two of Dynasty baseball.
Grunt's Forward has been with Rich for 10 months now waiting to be published.  As his business has grown he has had to change priorities.  I have decided to self publish it so we will see!  I plan to use Photohshop and Word.  Anyone with golden tips about formatting please send them my way.
A new project I am kicking around are scenarios focused on special operations.  This is tentatively called Commando Forward.  This smaller type of battle plays well with Combat Patrol.   My first playtest used the Italian camel corps in the desert.   The scenario is called "Observation".  A unit it observing the enemy when they are compromised by bad guys.

Lt Mandolin and Pvt Petrocelle were seconded to the camel corps for several "interior" missions.  The Lt was busy counting british vehicles when he heard his Bedouin sentries cry.

The Bedouin guards sound the alarm!

Two British carriers come to see who is snooping.

The camels are moved to safety.

The british deploy and a gunfight breaks out.  The Italians don't have much time as they need to make their escape.  The Breda LMG jams and then breaks ( Big surprise there.).  Lt Mandolin pins down the brits and then makes a dash for the exit leaving a 3 man blocking team.

The Italians make a break for it!

The rearguard under fire!

Both brens focus on the rearguard.  It is too much.

The rear guard succumbs to wounds while buying time for the rest to ride away!  

Great fun that took less than an hour!  Great initial playtest.

For those that want to try it I rolled up--
Lt Mandolin Gr II leader (can lead all forces)
8 Bedouins including 1 breda LMG and a Gr I leader.
Pvt Petrocelli

Brits
2 Bren carriers
7 soldiers and 1 Gr I NCO.

Enjoy

Joe






 

Counterattack in Lenningrad

Finally played Platoon Forward with Combat Patrol and my SS squad in Russia 1941.  This platoon has been successful and their platoon leader promoted to company command.  The scenario I rolled up was defend against counterattack.  Two platoons had attack into a factory complex and dislodged the russians. They had an ATG and one squad to defend.  My platoon was sent up to reinforce!
Characters:
Oberschar(furher)  Kehl    generous/wealth   Gr II    +1
Unterschar             Weiss  egotistical/wealth   Gr I
Schar  Kurtzon  nazi zealot/ wealth                                   Gr I
Schar  Vaughn  cautious/ wealth                      GrI

The battlefield including my new Crescent Root building foreground right.The Germans have one squad and ATG in the center factory.  Russians will enter from the left.  Our Platoon from the right.  Russians get a 3 turn head start.

Another view of the factory.

Platoon Forward gives the russian attack two prongs with the stronger one on the right.

Russian MMG sets up to give support.

The attack is launched!  The armored car top center it taking out by the now desperate ATGunners.

Russian infantry make ot down the top of the board.

The russian advance rolls forward.

But wait!  Kehl is coming with the platoon.

The ATR takes a shot at the White scout car.  1st and 3rd squads move to the factory.  2nd squad moves to their left to take on the russian MMG.

Covered by smoke the russians enter the factory ahead of 1st and 3rd squad. 

One gunner is killed and the rest hunker down at the far end of the factory.

The ATR strikes home!!!  ( Glad that wasn't a KV-1)

2nd squad is pinned down short of the MMG nest!

An epic battle occurs in the factory with neither side giving ground!  ( Picture taken with factory building removed for clarity.  Celtic cross signifies stunned troops)  UnterSchar Weiss is hit and his squad drags him back to the ATG.  Kehl shows up and takes Vaughn and 3rd squad  ( half squad) into the factory.  The battle hangs in the balance--- with a few well thrown grenades

the  russians retreat, weighed down by multiple morale markers.   The factory is saved!!!!!

Great battle.  When I designed the scenario that is the knife edge conclusion I was going for.  Oberscharfurher Kehl's leadership was key in getting 3rd squad moving. Am really happy with the tweaks I have done to the leadership rules.  Post battle Weiss is on WIA and will miss one mission.  3rd squad's morale is improved to NL.  Company is so happy that not only does the epic story make the rounds ( and grows bigger all the time!) but the platoon is promised either a MMG or MTR for their next mission.

Am still really digging Combat Patrol.  It plays smoothly and gives credible results using individual soldiers without bogging down.  I am also really happy with my Creascent Root buildings

For those of you that want to try this the USSR had
1 white scout car (green)  1 armored car (green)
2 squads with 2 Gr II leaders and 1 Gr I and 1 Gr I commissar
1 additional LMG teamm
1 MMG
1 50mm Mtr ( green)

Enjoy!

Joe