Well… it’s been a while since I last did these. Like literally 18 months (18 months and 19 days to be exact) since the last time I planned, wrote and played an Ultramodern game set in Bazistan. A lot has happened in that time – “losing my cool” during that last game was the sign of something a little worse, I move 200 miles south and then we got stuck inside for almost a year.

But now? Well, I had the hankering to roll a dice or two. So why not take a step back to the fictional nation of Bazistan and carry on the story.

Background

It has been almost two years since the events that lead to the capture of Captain Amari of the AESA by elements of the Bazi Interior forces on the outskirts of Bazi City (see The House on the Corner). Alongside her and two of her Adenese colleagues, the capture of SAS Trooper Robert Chalk proved to be a political bomb, leading to the resignation of the Minister of Defence and (among other things), the collapse of the British government at the time. 

After being paraded on Bazi Television as spies, Amari, Chalk and others have been disappeared into a series of Military Prisons that the Bazi regime maintains. Bazistan has refused to return any of the prisoners while they are still alive. In the past year, the bodies of the two other AESA agents have been returned to the Republic of Aden’s government but there has been no sign of Amari or Chalk.

At the same time, counter-government forces in Bazistan have shifted to small scale open combat, especially around the second city of Alriyah. As the combat has increased in intensity, Bazi security forces have begun extracting important assets from the region. This has included the last two prisoners held in a secret prison. Thanks to dissidents in the Alriyah Police, British and Aden governments have been told that these prisoners are Captain Amari and Trooper Chalk.

In case you didn’t know, my games are set in an alternative universe where Yemen is actually split into two nations – the West leaning Aden and the monarchy ruled Bazistan (you can find. If you want more ways to tell it’s a fictional universe, the fact a scandal involving the parading of a British operative on TV actually causes the British Government to collapse.

Also yep, it’s time for a time skip. Last time the country was definitely at the tipping point but not quite into open warfare, mostly because most of the games I was playing were much more focused on small scale sneaky stuff or gradual skirmishing in the hills between Aden and Bazistan. This was mostly due to how my collection was themed, with larger forces not really existing.

Bazistan now, however, is in the early stages of collapse, mainly because having checked through my collection I realise I have plenty of figures that would be suitable for a larger set of games, possibly using Ultramodern or Chain of Command. With this larger size, it was time to turn the heat up a touch. Hopefully, we’ll be breaking out a few more insurgents and platoons of infantry to get into the fight.

Mission Briefing

UK Special Forces Command has drafted up a recovery plan. Taking advantage of the current insurrection taking place in Bazistan, UKSF has managed to infiltrate a small number of SAS operative into the region. As well as assisting the opposition forces, these SAS operatives have been on standby to attempt a rescue operation when Chalk and Amari were located.

Chalk and Amari are being extracted in a pair of Interior Ministry SUVs, accompanied by humvees belonging to Bazi Special Forces and regular Bazi Army forces. The convoy will be escorted by a Mi-35 Hind gunship. However, due to the current security situation, the gunship will only join the convoy once they have cleared the outskirts of the city.

This leaves a window of opportunity for the SAS to take advantage of. The element has discovered a possible ambush site in one of the city’s suburbs along the vehicle’s exit route. The goal will be to strike the convoy, recover the two passengers and then exfil the target area before any back up arrives.

I gave my Dastardly Regular Opponent the option to decide exactly how the SAS would recover the two targets and he chose a vehicle interdiction (the other option being a prison break). After a little bit of setup, and remembering the ramming rules in Spectre operations, it was time to break out the uprated vehicles and commit a traffic accident.

Forces

BLUFOR (the SAS) are rolling with a pretty stocked team of operators (as you’d expect for them planning an operation). The Ambush team (dressed in the desert robes) comprised of six Elite operators, armed with a mix of Carbines, suppressed MP7s and a combat shotgun. Knowing they would be up against vehicles and needing rapid armour penetration, the Carbines and shotgunner decided to use Armour Piercing ammo.

The BLUFOR support team of five Elite operators would take up overwatch positions. The key elements to this would be a heavy sniper rifle and medium machine gun (with an assistant), both set up on rooftops to create a killzone. For additional support, the team also has a medical specialist (to make sure the recovered objectives can be treated) as well as a UAV co-ordinator for overwatch. He also has access to a loitering glide munition just in case they need to blow the crap out of something. The team is definitely lacking in AT weapons, so having a contingency may be handy.

Finally were the BLUFOR vehicles. To create the traffic block, the shotgunner of the Ambush team would be driving an uprated civilian pickup, with improved engine and brakes, as well as a toughened front end (counting as a bullbar in the Spectre Operations rules). The extraction vehicle would be a white minivan, which would take the core team away quickly while the rest moved offboard to nearby transport.

On the other side, OPFOR were split into several groups. The main force was a convoy, comprised of two light humvees and two unarmoured SUVs. Both Humvees are armed with HMGs, but differ in their crew – the lead vehicle with Trained Bazi Army forces (with Assault Rifles and a MMG) while the rear vehicle was crewed by the Professional Bazi Special Forces.

Each SUV has four occupants – a hostage (either Chalk or Amari), a professional Operative from the Bazi Interior Ministry, a Professional Bazi Special Forces Operator and a Trained Bazi Army driver.

If the convoy runs into trouble, there are three tiers of response. The lowest level is a pair of Bazistan police in a civilian vehicle. These two are only militia fighters, but do come with G3 battle rifles stored in the car. The next level is a Bazi Army technical with four Bazi Army soldiers that is waiting to link up with the convoy. If it’s late, they will come looking for their objective. And if the SAS really cocks it up, well then a BTR-80a is following the convoy as a rearguard, complete with a squad of Bazi Republican guard.

SOP for the Bazi Army is to attempt to escape any ambush by pushing through. If held in place, the Bazi Interior Ministry operatives are ordered to eliminate the hostages. However, due to the situation in the Bazi government, not all Interior Ministry operatives are as loyal as they should be. A command roll may be required to see if their will holds…

Play-by-Play

We begin with the Bazi convoy speeding through the suburbs of Alriyah, bumping through the empty streets as the distant sound of gunfire fills the air, the sound of the dissidents being crushed by the Bazi Army.

The convoy keeps close together, turret gunners rotating left and right to cover the rooftops.

In a side street, the driver of a heavily armoured pickup truck pulls the shemagh over his face as the British voice in his ear counts down. “5… 4… 3… 2…”

Before the driver of the lead humvee can respond, the roar of a high powered engine fills the air, followed by a sickening “CRONCH” of metal on metal.

The impact of the armoured front onto the humvee knocks it off the road, the driver jarred by the impact until they slam into the jersey barrier at the side of the road. With a hiss, the engine stops working as the crew slump forward in their seats.

In contrast, the driver of the vehicle shrugs off the impact, pulls the Origin 12 shotgun off the dashboard and climbs out, leveling at the oncoming SUV.

With this impact, the rest of the SF operators appear out of cover. Covering the killzone, the marksman shifts his Heavy Sniper Rifle into position.

On another rooftop, the rest of the Overwatch team also setup, the MMG resting on the cover as his asistant prepares the belt.

Additionally, the rest of the Ambush team move out of the nearby buildings, taking up positions in cover to aim at the oncoming vehicles.

At the same time, two final Ambush operators move into cover beside an abandoned vehuicle and open up on the rear humvee with Armour Piercing rounds. These rounds shred the vehicle causing a mobility kill and killing the driver and gunner,

The Medium Machine gunner then opens up on the damaged lead humvee, the heavy 7.62mm rounds shredding the light armour and bouncing around the interior. Both the driver and passenger go down, taking the Bazi Army squad leader out of commission.

The first SUV continues driving attempting to smash through the now immobilised vehicles, the radio screaming “PUSH PUSH PUSH”. The SUV however is not an upgraded vehicle. It slams and comes to a halt, the engine softly smoking.

Before anyone in the car can react, the SAS shotgunner (having just moved out of the road as the SUV kept coming) runs up to the front passenger window, levels the shotgun at them and fills the front seats with multiple slugs, killing the driver instantly.

The other SUV decides to risk going off road and turns off into the desert. As it hits a divot in the ground, it bounces slightly.

Seeing the gunfight starting, and not wanting to be trapped in a light humvee against an opposition with serious firepower, the Bazi Army regulars disembark from the lead vehicle and into cover.

The cover however is not good enough. The MMG gunner shifts fire and hammers another burst, taking down the two regulars.

At the rear of the convoy, the two remaining Bazi SF guys manage to pull themselves out of the vehicle, taking cover behind the vehicle while frantically calling for reinforcements.

However, a few moments later the heavy sniper rifle hammers and takes out the Bazi SF trooper, leaving only the team leader alive.

SUV 2, unable to take the corner fully to escape, slams into the building, resulting in a mobility kill and knocking the crew out for a moment. However, in SUV 1, the survivors have disembarked. Their ears ringing, the Bazi SF trooper and Interior Ministry start trying to get the SAS to back off, holding a gun to the female hostage.

The SAS, fully aware of the upper hand they have in the situation, move closer keeping their guns trained on the Bazis.

At the rear of the convoy, the Ambush Team Leader and two members move forward towards where the Bazi SF had gone to ground, ready to take out the survivors

Still stunned, the crew of SUV 2 falls out of the vehicle leaving the male hostage inside. The Bazi Army trooper attempts to engage one of the SAS in the open but is rewarded with a burst of MP7 fire that takes them down.

Into this scene drives… The Police

Luckily a cross map heavy sniper rifle shot hits the civilian vehicle before it can get too close, hitting the engine block before it coasts to a stop.

The policemen dive into cover behind their car, pulling out their battle rifles from the back seat while demanding reinforcements at their location. They attempt to engage the SAS troopers, who are too busy dealing with the last remaining Bazi SF operator.

Coming under (Semi-)accurate battle rifle fire, the operator dealing with the Bazi SF team leader ends up simply smacking him around the face before turning round to deal with the threat.

After managing to suppress them with multiple Rapid Fire bursts from their carbines, the trio began to peel back towards the rest of the team.

Around the two damaged SUVs, the SAS team moved in to clean up.

Taking advantage of maintaining the initiative, the operators managed to move and clean up the bad guys, with a mix of close combat and close-range shooting.

And just in time, as the main Bazi army began to arrive. The technical, pausing at the end of the road start trading MMG fire with the team on the roof.

With the action about to hot up, the Ambush team leader reached into SUV 2 and dragged Trooper Chalk out before hoisting him over his shoulder

Trooper Chalk was reported to have hissed “You took your bloody time didn’t you?”.

And speaking of hotting up, the sound of grumbling engines announced the arrival of a BTR-80A and it’s troops. Heavy armour, an autocannon and a full belly of troops means this is not something to stick around and fight.

With very little able to actually deal with the BTR (and both hostages in their hands), the SAS beat a quick retreat. Bundling the two hostages into the minivan and driving off, the rest of the operators disappearing into the suburbs.

Wrap-Up

So, as you’d hope from a crack team of special forces, they successfully managed to extract the hostages and escape. Elite troops in Spectre Operations are exceedingly effective at their job and, in a situation like this, can rip the enemy apart. By getting the drop on the enemy, they were able to achieve the objectives.

Of course, this does leave them trying to evac a pair of hostages out of a hostile country in the opening stages of armed revolt. Not the simplest task, but it should be possible. On the other hand, the Bazi Army is not going to let themselves be made fools of.

Man, it felt good to be back rolling dice. And as much as I love Skirmish Sangin and all it’s details, Spectre has a lovely level of detail to it while still not requiring quite so much paperwork. It has lots of fun toys to play around with and a simple core that keeps it exciting. I’m looking forward to playing a few more games (even in solo) but hopefully we’ll be back to some multi-player games soon.

The D-Boys are here! As mentioned yesterday the Delta models from Spectre were released at 10pm yesterday. Spectre is putting a two week lead time on sending out these orders based on some comments on the Spectre Operations group but even so it’s still worth going over just what’s included in the range.

The first point to make is something I think a few people have missed – all the descriptions for the Delta range explicitly mention  “This is a multipart model and required some assembly”. Now, at first you might this is generic copy inserted by the Spectre website – however, I’ve been chatting to Stephen from Spectre and he smuggled out a secret preview for me (that I’ve been cleared to share).

Yep, we’re about to see the return of two part figures. Ironically, the last time I saw figures like this was way back in 2014 with the original Delta figures. Since then, most Spectre figures have been one piece, even as the sculpting has pushed the borderline of what is possible. However, the decision to go back to multipart figures has come (as Stephen said in our messages) from issues with guns breaking or bending in transit. This (as well as the stock issues) has been one of my biggest annoyances with Spectre so it’s good to see this being mitigated through the design work.

Also interesting to note this figure is from Spectre’s new casting partner. Cleanup was (apparently) minimal to none so hopefully we can go back to figures rolling off the production line with less need to spend time clipping waste pieces off them.

But okay, enough setup lets look at the range. To steal from the marketing copy:

The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), more commonly known as Delta, The Unit or CAG (Combat Applications Group) are arguably the most elite, secretive unit in the world. With almost unlimited funding and access to extremely advanced technology, these models really epitomise what Spectre Miniatures are all about – SOF on the bleeding edge of modern warfare.

With guidance from advisors and after extensive research, we have very carefully decided how to represent this miniature.

These operators wear Arcteryx clothing and a mix of covert plate carriers, with light weight chest rigs and belt kit which carries extra magazines, chemlights, flash grenades and scalable frag grenades.
A mixture of Opscore and Crye Airframe helmets are also worn.

A key element of these miniatures is the integration of the Future Warrior program. Their Sig MCX Virtus SBRs are chambered for 300 Blackout and equipped with Wilcox BOSS XE optics. This next generation ‘smart’ optic monitors the performance of the weapon, counts shots and shares the information with other users in real time. Each operator also wears ‘Smart’ devices that monitor heart rate, blood oxygen and other vital statistics, which again can be viewed in real time with the unit commander and other operators. This information can also be viewed when the operator uses Enhanced night vision goggles, available as Smart Goggles from Spectre Miniatures. These enable complete integration with the other smart devices, as well as IR/Thermal hybrid and Augmented reality features.
Modified Glocks, with suppressor, red dot and light are worn as sidearms.

Key members of the unit also carry the revolutionary Slingshot communications system. To further enhance situational awareness for each operator, a smart phone is carried in a Juggernaut hard case on the chest and advanced in ear, low profile ear pieces are worn.

Spectre Marketing, Delta Assault Squad

The weapons may change based on the figure but the basic details are the same. These guys are some high end special forces tech, playing with all the latest toys. The use of Smart optics and AR is definitely bordering on the edge of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter territory – remember when we thought Quad Eye NVGs from the SEALs was the cutting edge?

Weapon wise, we’re definitely beyond the realm of M4s and 5.56 – the assault rifles are SIG MCX variants (be they normal or the cut down Rattler) and all in .300 Blackout, a round that can be loaded subsonically and still hit with the energy of a 7.62mm AK round while keeping the STANAG mag’s capacity.

The first element of the release is a six person squad pack, giving you six shooters armed with the SIG MCX in variety of poses. This is going to be the core of your squad and it’s cool to see the variety – some in battle dress tops (even if it’s the fancy ones) while others wear softshells.

The first of the support options we’ll look at is perhaps my favourite – I have a soft spot for figures who have switched to their secondary (be it for desperation or sensible purposes). This Scout is definitely designed to be your pointman – he’s rolling a short and suppressed MCX Ratler but to be REALLY quiet he has a Glock out as his primary. It’s definitely a rather gucci one – mounting a weapon light, suppressor and (sighs) a red dot mounted on a bridge over the slide. He’s also got an AR eyepiece over his glasses, ideal for a scout to keep an eye on his teammates.

Of course my other soft spot? Breachers. Shocking I know, the man who goes airsofting covered in armour with a slung breaching shotgun likes breaching. The D-Boys get a really nice combination of gear for their Breacher – a SIG MCX Ratler as his primary and the suppressed SIX 12 ready for breaching work. The SIX 12 is an interesting gun, using removable revolver cylinders in a bullpup format to create a relatively compact shotgun that can be relatively easily swapped from separate weapon to underslung format thanks to it’s modular design.

Of course, you can’t entirely focus on close range fighting and so you’ll need some longer range support. The Marksman is rolling a full-length (and very nicely detailed) MCX Patrol with the magnified optic and MAWL laser/light box. Much like some of the other specialists, he has an AR eyepiece in place as well. I do like this guy’s pose, and I’m sure he’ll look great providing suppression while in cover.

Of course, if you prefer your suppression a little more in volume rather than precision, than the MG is the go to. Much like with the Tier 1 MG Bravo from last year, this guy is armed with the Knight Armament AMG, a medium machine gun with some rather good shooting characteristics. It also has a suppressor, laser/light unit and a holographic/magnifier combo, ideal for getting all those extra To Hit effects.

Of course, it’s not the future until you have your drones up and what better. Another Rattler user, he also is in the process of deploying a quadcopter drone ready to scan up ahead. If you bought the drone pack from a while back, you actually have the perfect model to go with this guy after deployment is done.

Finally, we have the big dog – the Commander. I really like this guy, Rattler held at a high rest while checking his smart device (which, as a neat detail, is not modelled on his vest because it’s in his hand). I think this figure might actually end up being used away from the rest of the squad as the perfect advisor model, combined with local forces or militias to provide them with training advice, and connection to the big guns.

As you can see, Spectre is kicking it’s way into the new year with a rather cool range. There are lots of cool bits of kit that will be fun on the tabletop and I’m really excited to see just people do with these models in terms of paint schemes and getting them on the table. Mine have been ordered and we’ll see them once they arrive!

Two pieces of news regarding Spectre Miniatures.

Okay well actually three – the first being that they are still alive. Having had a chat with the team at Spectre, last year was just a whole host of misfortunes added together into a perfect storm. I’ll leave it to them to say however much they wish to but after talking to them, many of the issues in the last year (issues with models requiring more clean up than usual, a lack of stock on the site) should mostly be in the past… hopefully.

However, lets focus on the actual news. Fitting for me seeing as I’m writing a post on it, Spectre have entered the 3d printing game. Last week they put up a pile of STL files for sale on their website for personal use. Priced pretty reasonably, these cover a wide selection of pieces from weapons to put in your HMV to scenery items and stowage. I know this is something a lot of people have asked about and it’s great to see them release them. I’m also intrigued to see what will come next – maybe the HMV turrets would be a useful addition.

It’s important to note that they are not planning to release their vehicles through this system which… is fair. There is a lot of work and design details in their 3d modelling and STLs are an inheritably open system – selling models this way would be asking for piracy and unlicensed selling. I would like them to be sold as STLs (you can never have enough humvees) but I think the maths to make it worth doing would probably make them incredibly expensive.

I had a little play with the files I picked up. They are nice STLs but arrive unsupported, so some work may be needed. As you can see above with the hescos, the ones bought from Spectre are going to have much more detail than the one printed by an entry-level 3D printer. That said, I was impressed that the 3d printed model actually maintained some of the texture detail, such as the netting on the corners of it. If you’re willing to accept these differences, and of course have the printer to make them, then you’ll be able to crank out hesco outposts at a fraction of the cost.

The STLs can be found on their website at https://www.spectreminiatures.com/collections/stl-files

Next piece of news – Looks like we have a release incoming. Spectre put up this on their Instagram earlier today showing off some new figures. These are the brand new Deltas that Spectre had announced were on their way.

Interesting to note that this is a pack of 6 figures all armed with assault rifles (SIG MCXs based on the previews. They also look like an updated version of the Task Force Operators (as you might expect) – new gear, new guns.

You may recall that last year we saw the previews of them in 3D sculpt form. Only one of these figures are in the preview image, while the pistol wielding operator and drone controller are missing. The ChargeBlog Reasearch Group did throw around the idea that we might see the riflemen released as a squad pack, while the specialists are added later in smaller blisters. Or these might have just been the figures that were ready for previewing. Either way, I’m excited to see how these releases will go.

So here we go, the direct follow on to the last game.

After the events during the attempted hand over of two Aden citizens, Captain Amari and her rescuing SAS team have fallen back to an Aden External Security Agency (AESA) safehouse on the outskirts of Bazi City. The team has decided to go to ground, waiting for a security gap to allow them to escape back across the southern border.

Meanwhile, the rebel leader has taken the intelligence gained from the captured local fixer and used it to locate the enemy safehouse. Rather than risking his own forces, the leader has instead sold the information to the Internal Security Forces of Bazistan (ISFB). 

After all, when you find a criminal den, you call the police.

The Forces

Limping away from their firefight in the badlands, the forces of the AESA and SAS were limited to a small number of operators. Six Elite operators, mostly using carbines but supported by an LMG would be the main force. Along with the Elite Captain Amari, three other Trained AESA staff members were on-site and armed with assault rifles which would provide some extra guns.

The BLUFOR objectives were to prevent any opposing forces from capturing evidence of illicit activity taking place on Bazi soil by the Aden Government. This would mean holding off the opposing force long enough to destroy the pair of servers holding operations data, demoing the supplies in the garage building and then extracting as much of the personel as possible, including the unarmed civilian AESA station chief.

Prompted by details of the safe house, the Bazi Ministry of the Interior assembled a large force to deal with the security threat. To provide the training core, the Bazi Army hired six Professional Argo Contractors, each armed with modern CQB small arms and grenades, body armour and NVGs. These troops could be parcelled out, either mentoring the lower skill Bazi units or acting as a close-quarters assault force.

And speaking of the Bazi Army, they are providing two units. The elite(ish) Bazi Special Forces would be taking part in the assault. Although only Trained, the 6 man Bazi SF team were equipped with CQB weapon systems. They are also arriving in a Tigr armour vehicle, mounting an MMG (the automatic grenade launcher being banned due to the ROE). A much larger presence was the regular Trained Bazi Army, bringing an 8 man squad in body armour and carrying an MMG and an RPG (just in case). They also arrive on the board in a BTR-80A – despite having its main claws trimmed by the ROE, it can still help the assault through using the armour and its Medium Machine Gun. Finally, a Technical from the Bazi Army would provide MMG support.

OPFOR objectives are simple – capture as much evidence of insidious actions against the Bazi Royal Family and Government taking place on Bazi soil. Ideally, the Interior Ministry would love to have some captives to parade on TV and so capturing the opposing force is a priority.

The Setup

First of all, let’s take an overview of the setup. Taking place in the suburbs of Bazi City, strict ROE is in place regarding the use of explosive weaponry such as the RPGs or autocannons. The mission also takes place at night. (Although this may have been forgotten once the action kicked off)

(As an aside, I really want to get some more of my buildings painted up and ready for play. As much as I like the layout, a few more buildings would have really set the suburban scenes)

The AESA compound in the photo above is located south of the road and focused on the main safehouse, with two other smaller buildings acting as annex’s, including a garage. Several concrete walls and barriers provide cover. On the other side of the road, a multi-level construction as well as several smaller buildings filled with non-combatants.

The Special Forces in the Tigr slowly rumbled down the side road. Pausing only to let three of the team disembark, the vehicle prepared to push on into the main compound. Upfront, an Argo contractor kept an eye on the gentleman in the orange outdoors coat, listed as a possible AESA agent.

On the other side, a technical from the Bazi Army rolls up, MMG swinging to focus on the target building.

Inside the safehouse, the BLUFOR operators were unalert but at risk of a future assault. For this reason, they were checking entrances. Upstairs, the SAS were taking positions at the windows and doors, trying to cover all the angles.

On the ground floor, the AESA statin chief, a SAS operator and Captain Amari were in discussion. Two AESA agents were also on this floor, one in the makeshift server room and the other checking keeping watch.

Events

As the night rolls on, the Bazi Army makes it’s assault.

Three of the Bazi SF operators setup on and then breach into the garage building, the sound of boots on wood echoing through the night. Inside, they find a stockpile of supplies destined for anti-government rebels – in other words, jackpot.

With the sound of vehicles moving the raised voices, the inhabitants inside the building start to setup. Table are flipped, guns checked and made ready to go.

Making a tight turn, the Tigr bursts into the compound, causing the AESA agent to make a break for the annexe. The civilian he was talking to, after adopting a surrendering gesture then attempted to run. Twigged by this movement, the Tigr’s gunner opened up with a burst of fire, dropping a suspect to the dirt. The first casualty had taken place.

The Tigr also ended up being a bit of bullet magnet, with SAS troopers both inside the main building and the annexe engaging it and piling on suppression.

On the other side, a fireteam of the Bazi Army troops were moving alongside the BTR and getting ready to stack up on the back door. However, with a smash, a frag grenade thrown by one of the SAS came flying out, landing in the middle of the attackers and shredding most of the force.

Hearing the gun battle outside rising, Captain Amari snatched thermite grenades off the AESA agents and got to work, placing them on the server racks to destroy the lists of operations inside Bazistan.

At this point, the three man infiltration set of contractors were getting ready to rush the building, sprinting across the road. The squad leader suddenly looked to his left when, with a roar of an engine, the BTR came flying down the road, turning the corner and then…

BOOM

It collided with the building, it’s prow smashing through the wall, the driver’s head coming flying forward and breaking his neck. The rest of the crew and passengers were stunned, leaving the three operators outside to keep pushing.

Inside the room, as the dust settled, the room was a mess. After talking it through, we decided that everyone in the room would be stunned, the cloud of dust and rubble smashing things aside.

On the other side, the Bazi SF split up, starting to assault the two buildings. Unfortunately, they ended up being caught in the cross of the SAS LMG and a riflemen, eliminating the trio on the ground floor.

The PKM gunner, his ears ringing, hit the deck and got ready to open up while his Argo buddy got ready to move up. However, a quick burst of assault rifle fire and the MMG went silent. The contractor hower brought his SMG up and trained it on the window when…

BOOM

A thunderous blast of from the upstairs, accompanied by a pile of shrapnel, and suddenly the fire from the upstairs windows slowed. The SAS team leader was preparing to drop a grenade on the assault for below when he fluffed his throw. Landing on the window sill in front of him, the blast took him out, the concussion echoing around the roof the room and stunning his teammates.

The operator, who had taken out almost a whole team by himself, was caught standing in the window stunned by a burst from the Argo contractor. He dropped dead, leaving only two SAS operators standing upstairs.

In the Annexe, the SAS operator and AESA agent looked at each other and decided to make a move, busting out the window and getting ready to make a run for it.

After a short scuffle, one of the Argo Contractors managed to tackle and drag the AESA Station chief back outside of the ruined front room, letting the main Bazi Army push inside. Another contractor around this time also attempted to knock unconscious one of the SAS operatives. After a short scuffle hower, the SAS operative was killed in the fighting.

Outside, the last of the Bazi SF were taken down, the SAW in the SAS gunner’s hands hammering away and shredding what was left of the door.

As a final push, the last rifle operator upstairs attempted to rush down and rescue the AESA station chief. However, the Contractor holding the captive simply swung around and clocked him around the face with his rifle, knocking the operator unconscious and adding him to the captive pile.

Inside, the Bazi Army and Argo contractors burst into the server room, finding Captain Amari slowly raising her hands and kneeling down.

On the other side, the servers gently smoulded, useless to anyone. Amari was still smirking when the rifle butt came down on her face from an irate Bazi Army trooper.

The last AESA agent, crying out for updates from the explosion behind him while still keeping an eye on the Bazi SF before they were cut down, was very surprised when an Argo Corporation merc grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into the door. And with that, resistance at the compound was ended.

AFTERMATH

Although missing out on the data, the Bazi force did manage to take four inhabitants of the compound hostage. Three AESA agents, including the famed Captain, and a single British citizen should be a handy group to show on Al-Jeezra as proof Aden is not to be trusted. The stockpile of material in the garage would help with this, providing shocking evidence.

Of course, three BLUFOR operators did manage to get away. Perhaps they may return in future missions?

Overall, it was one hell of a game. I did not expect the BTR to be used as a battering ram, nor for just the sheer number of grenade fails. I did lose my cool a little (I blame the heatwave we’re in) when it came to keeping the game flowing and also forgot a rule or two (such as sidearms in CQB). On the other hand, the Spectre rules still play fast and feel brutal.

But this is setting up the next mission in the campaign. With Captain Amari in chains, I think it’s time for someone to build a prison (I’m thinking a few of the Knights of Dice apartment buildings) and prepare a rescue. The question is… who will be doing the rescuing?

Well it’s finally time. Spectre Operations V2 has finally arrived on my desk and it pushed me to go get a game of it together down at the wargames club. And having just watched Triple Frontier, the idea of contractors doing bad things for gold was sat on my mind. And then I found the gold marker from my demo game and an idea was formed.

Background

Due to the announcement of ISAF-AP’s intention to reduce the number of troops currently involved in direct ground operations in Bazistan, the recently formed democratic government of The Bazi Republic has decided to contract the Argo Corporation to run and assist it’s internal counter-insurgency programs.

Using a core of trained contractors, (veterans of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan), accompanied with locally hired fighters (many former insurgents or ex-regime military), Project Final Hand has been a strategic success, clearing several areas of rebel activity entirely as well as making strides in others. Their success has been a key feature in the Argo Corporation’s PR documents for the next year.

However, Argo has a history for mismanagement of projects like these and so payment for those involved has been somewhat delayed. This has led to some unsavoury activities – contractors moonlighting for private militias or selling high-end equipment on the open market. Additionally, the use of former insurgents has led to some concerns of information leaks and backroom deals between unit commanders and the remaining insurgent cells.

And then rumours started to spread. Rumours about a C130 that crashed into the Bazi desert over a year ago. About how it was carrying a shipment of the Bazi Family’s gold reserve. Something that was never recovered but some say was found by a rebel band and carried away. Perfect for the taking, if only someone knew where it was…

Situation Brief

The Players

BLUFOR – The Argo Corporation

BLUFOR was comprised of two groups of Argo Corporation Contractors and locally hired help.

Group 1 was the Quick Reaction Force. 6 Professionals, including a squad leader, all armed with carbines (and the usual extra tricks), pistols, and frag and stun grenades. The team also carries first aid kits and wear body armour. They are mounted in an LTV, an armoured patrol vehicle mounting an HMG in a remote weapon station with an MMG on the flexible rear mount.

Group 2 was a squad of local trained troops in body armour and totting a PKM and an RPG alongside the assault rifles. They were also led by a single Professional trooper to act as their mentor (bringing their skills up to a higher level) while also giving him frags and smokes alongside his carbine to act as a force multiplier.

OPFOR – Local Bazistan Militia

The OPFOR was a bit more random. To represent this being an insurgent stronghold with hordes of bad guys being woken and pulled into the fight, I just kept adding more and more fighters each turn. These were randomly selected but mostly armed with assault rifles, representing the rank and file arriving.

Additionally, the rebel commander could call for reinforcement using a command test. If successful, the player could then request specific weapon selections like RPGs or machine gunners.

They also had two IEDs which could be placed to along the route and could be set off via two triggermen (portrayed on the board as civilians).

The Battlefield

The gallery above shows the layout of the board. As you can see, it’s a real street fight, a mixture of large and small buildings around the main road. The new walls I painted up helped to improve the feel slightly as well as adding some cover. And I FINALLY got to put that pylon on a gaming board.

Recap

As the game begins, BLUFOR started to roll into town.

The QRF remained in the vehicle, while the local force broke down into two groups.

With the rumbling of the LTV echoing through the streets, an insurgent group breaks cover and starts to setup an RPG-29.

A local peers out of the doorway as the armoured vehicle rumbles past.

Despite rumbling forward, the LTV’s remote weapon system managed to come to bear on the insurgent that had popped out from behind the concrete barricades. A quick burst and the threat was downed.

The sound of gun fire draws in another group of insurgents.

BLUFOR continues to advance, the locals sticking close behind the vehicle as it advances.

Another shot as the LTV crew suddenly spots the barricade blocking the way toward the objective.

A successful command test brings out a fighter with an anti-material rifle. He sets up watching the road, lining up his scope on the driver’s windscreen. His first shot simply cracks the glass, causing the gunner to change his target.

More fighters start to spill out out into the streets, ready to ambush the approaching BLUFOR. Above, another civilian pulls out their phone, his fingers hovering over a special contact…

A civilian narrowly avoids a grizzly end when they step into the street in front of the towering armoured patrol vehicle.

One of the insurgent groups decide to engage more directly and take up firing positions on the ground floor of the corner building. These guys actually managed to put some fire down and take out two local force soldiers before the LTV blocked them from view.

The LTV suddenly now enters a target rich environment – the marksman down the road or the squad of hostiles in cover.

He picks the marksman, the hail of .50cal round tearing the rooftop apart and suppressing the threat easily.

The next turn, as the insurgents start to take up ambush positions, another burst of .50cal fire takes out the anti-material threat, the impacts kicking up a plume of dust.

With the way forward blocked, the LTV turns and begins to head down the side road. Inside, the QRF start to get a little concerned about the occupants of the buildings around them.

All the while, the local forces had been moving to take up positions to support the LTV’s advance. After taking fire from a two storey building ahead of them, one fireteam from the local forces hunker behind the road barriers and return fire.

However, the insurgents began to move forward in force, taking up ambush positions.

As the LTV rounds the corner, the action hots up. The two operators in the back (only one pictured), looking up at the rooftop above them suddenly spotted movement. With reactions created by long hours of training, the carbines come up and hammer the low wall the enemy were crouching behind, ready to ambush. This fire successfully suppressed the insurgents above, making them far less effective.

The RWS system then dropped elevation and hammered through the wall, each shot taking out more of the insurgents and pinning down the last squad member.

The local forces were also in contact. After taking out the group on the rooftop that had initially slowed them, they soon received a reversal of fate when an RPG went off in their midst, vaporising their squad leader and sending two others into bleeding out states.

Things soon turned from bad to worse as the insurgents above managed to pop their heads up and mag dump into the rear portion of the LTV. When the dust cleared, one of the QRF had fallen backwards off the cargo bay, immediately KIA by the hail of shots.

With time running out at the club (not helped by me messing around before the game started after leaving a few things at home), the BLUFOR player decided to push on through the streets. And then this happened – a car bomb IED went off, stunning the crew and bringing the vehicle a halt. Just in time for an RPG to be spent spinning into the back of the crew compartment and injuring everyone inside.

As the LTV sat smoking on the street corner (and the hours having ticked by), we called it there. The contractors had tried their hardest to get into the town but with multiple casualties and an immobilised vehicle, they would have to concede.

Analysis

Overall the game was pretty fun for me to setup and run (and it looked impressive) but something was quite right. BLUFOR struggled to get off the starting line and then bogged down at the second corner.

Now, this was our first game in a while playing Spectre Operations and the rules played beautifully. Anyone in the open got taken out very quickly, shooting was quick to work out and it was simple to perform some cool manevoures. It was also a nice change of pace to plan – I love Skirmish Sangin’s character depth but just being able to use a standard chart helped.

After having a few days to think about it, I think the issues/tweaks fall into two areas:

Scenario Tweaks

So I designed the scenario after only a very quick initial read and vague remembering of my time testing version 2. For this reason, there were a few things I was worried about (such as vehicles being basically invulnerable and professionals running rings around everyone else) and may have ended up correcting a little too far.

First of all, the masses of reinforcements the insurgent player was given. This did a really good job of making the BLUFOR player realise how much trouble he was in as AK totting gunmen just sort of appeared on the board every turn. On the other hand, it did also mean that there was an awful lot of OPFOR on the table and they were able to set up ambush points far too easily. I think rather than just offering free reinforcements every turn, I should have required the command roll AND let the player pick between 5 goons or support weapons.

I also think I didn’t provide enough forces for BLUFOR. An additional unit, probably some more trained forces to represent local friendly militia, would have given the player another option, a set of troops to move down one of the flanks and help keep their offensive moving while also giving another set of rifles to engage targets with.

Finally, the route. I set up the barricades to really force the LTV down a specific route (I blame designing for video games) and so placed the barricades up at the first junction. However, when combining this with the building arrangements, the LTV had no options at all. What I should have done is to move the barricade down a single junction, forcing the LTV to choose between the long sightlines and exposure of the main road

Tactical Tweaks

However, at the same time, I think there were a few tactical decisions that I should have been advising with. Ultramodern gaming is quite a niche period and requires a slight adjustment in tactics thanks to the sheer power of modern firepower. As the guy running the game, it should fall to me to help guide newer players in the tactics to use.

First of all, staying in the vehicle. The QRF really wasted an opportunity by staying in the LTV as it bimbled along slowly at walking pace so it could continue engaging with the .50cal. Instead, four of the six operators should have disembarked to escort it, letting them use their carbines to add an additional 8 shots every turn. This would have helped to put the fir down more, letting them take down the opposition to more manageable number.

In addition, the BLUFOR guys had some toys they didn’t use. The QRF guys had stun grenades and frags, perfect for busting in and clearing buildings filled with bad guys (such as the corner building). In addition, the professional mentor had smokes which could have been useful when manevouring into the buildings.

After both of these facts, I think BLUFOR should have pushed harder. Using combat sprint to bust into the corner building and secure a multi-storey fire position for the local force’s RPG and MMG to start engaging the enemy forces. Additionally, setting up in there would have meant the LTV could have sped up and moved faster.

Finally, civilians. I should have made it more obvious about letting the BLUFOR player arrest civilians to prevent them from being used as triggermen. This would have encouraged them to perform actions that might have neutralised IEDs before they turned the LTV to broken chunks of metal.

Overall though, the idea of the mission is good, my plan is to illustrate the tactics more and make people aware of the special points that Spectre brings over other modern games.

(Delving into the archives for this week’s photos – it’s been a busy week)

In the last article we looked at the core of any irregular force, the infantry. Having had you’re greens, we’re now going to talk about the dessert of playing Irregular troops – support options! We’re going to save details of Off Tablet Assets for the next post so for now it’s all the things that will be on the board.

Support options are where the irregulars can really level the playing field (often literally).  This is where most of your killing power is going to be, able to get through the Regulars advantages and make life for your infantry easier. Thanks to the relatively low points cost of your core forces, you can often bring a great variety of support to table with a larger selection of options.

Scenario/Setting Bonuses

Before we go into stuff you can buy in the rulebook, lets talk about how the scenario writer should be helping you out. With a few exceptions, irregular forces are not going to be going to pitched battles against regular forces. Irregular forces will use other types of engagements, ofter where they have the chance to prepare the ground or force the opposing force to act in certain ways. These elements are the responsibility of the scenario writer and, while they can be incredibly effective at murdering the balance of a scenario, they are fantastic at helping to set the scene.

There are two types of force multiplier irregular forces can get from the scenario special rules – Bonuses to the Irregulars and Negatives to their opponents:

Bonuses

Bonuses are rules that give an advantage to the irregular player. It might be something as simple as having the first turn or starting with the initiative but more characterful mission writers will give you a tool that matches your force.

An example of a bonus is the existence of ratlines (also described as Hot Spots in Force on Force). Representing either tunnels or access to other routes, these give the insurgents a mobility advantage. Dpeending on the scenario, this advantage can either be at  initial deployment (letting teams appear where they can gain the most effect) or during the game itself (letting your troops perform hit and run attacks more easily). Having to clear ratlines also slows enemy units down, especially if they require specialist gear that has to be brought into position. OTAs can help to reduce the effectiveness of ratlines (it’s hard to get away from an eye in the sky) but they can still be a powerful force multiplier.

Another bonus is allowing the recycling of KIA troops to represent overwhelming reinforcements rushing into battle. As well as reducing the number of figures you need paint, reinforcements will allow you to keep the pressure on for longer. Rather than having to worry about winning a firefight as your troops diminish, you get to keep pushing bodies at the opponent. This often won’t

If we look outside of Spectre Operations, Skirmish Sangin includes some characterful bonuses designed for the irregular Afghan forces. Disguising your dickers alongside other civilians requires regular troops to get close before engaging. Adding some goats to the table will make it more likely ambushing troops are discovered. Even the ability for a fighter to ditch their kit and merge with the population will prevent that fighter from being a potential intelligence source or addition to a kill count at the end of the game.

Negatives

Negatives is effectively when you grab the opposing forces’s hand and stop them from being able to use their troops exactly how they want to. Although you can choose to do this physically (your opponent will object, especially if it stops them going for their beverage of choice), I really mean implementing Rules of Engagement and requiring PID. Both of these elements are a part of any modern counter-insurgency and can be incredibly frustrating for the regular troops constrained by them.

Rules of Engagement can vary depending on the situation. It might be limiting the use of certain weapon systems (I.e. don’t engage key buildings with heavy weapons) or restricting actions of your troops (don’t engage targets unless they are already engaging you) but no matter what happens it’s going to force a change in play style. As the irregular player, use this. Enemy can’t engage civilian buildings? Start taking pot shots out of them. Depending on how much you know about the enemy’s ROE, you can really use it to your advantage.

Within this is the concept of PID or Positive Identification. This is how regular troops can actually work out who the bad guys are. This is normally a dice roll that, if successful, reveals the enemy and lifts elements of the ROE. This is has the potential to cause a real issue to you, requiring you to stay out of sight to prevent being rumbled before you are ready. But it also slows down the regulars, and a failed test might cost them the turn needed to prevent you getting a grenade or shot off.

Unconventional Systems

A key part of running an irregular force is releasing they you are not going to play the game in the same way as a regular force. You’ll have much less capable troops,  often much less in the way of direct fire superiority and will probably lack in off table assets. Unless you have a massive advantage in man-power, you’re going to have to look for advantages elsewhere.

If the situation makes sense, IEDs and land mines can be a very useful tool. They can be either vehicle or infantry killers and set up to detonate via different method but at the end of the day it’s a way of suddenly striking your opponent without having to expose the bulk of your force (other than maybe a spotter). The bigger devices are a cheap way of knocking out armoured vehicles but don’t dismiss the smaller stuff – an injured soldier is going to affect the rest of the squad.

Finally the mere idea that IEDs are there can also affect how your opponent plays. Every bit of scatter terrain becomes a possible marker for a device. Use this to your advantage!

Now, this final option isn’t for every player, and some people may find it a distasteful element to include. Suicide activated IEDs give you another method of getting explosives into an enemy force without needing to be on the defence. One figure in the right place can cause massive damage, while a vehicle based system is an extreme threat to

Heavy Weapons

Right, lets talk about the big guns. Emplaced weapons are a quite attractive prospect for an irregular player. Most have either high rates of fire or large blast areas, which go a long way to negating the shooter’s low shooting skill. They also normally have several special rules like armour piercing or tank killer that can help get killing blows where other weapons fail.

Now, they do come with several disadvantages. They are not quite as effective on the attack as on the defence (unless you can find a good position early in the game to cover the entire battlefield). They are very vulnerable to return fire and have a severe mobility issue, requiring the gun to be assembled and disassembled. However, when brought to bear, these weapons can. Especially on defence, assembling these heavy weapon teams in supporting positions and forming a crossfire will let you easily pin down a more professional force.

Of course, if you want to avoid the mobility disadvantages, there is a couple of ways you can get around it…

Vehicles

You guessed it, technicals. As I’ve covered in the past, these pickups with heavy weapons give you the firepower of an emplaced weapon while mounted on a much more mobile chassis. On the other hand, they do provide much less protection so you don’t want to get caught in the open. Treat them like a more mobile heavy weapon team rather than an armoured vehicle, putting a few round down range and then relocating.

Of course, there are plenty of cases where rebel forces get their hands on actual armoured vehicles and bring them into play. In most cases, the crew are more enthusiastic than well trained but fundamentally they act in a similar way to other vehicles on the board. For more hints, take a look at the second article in this series.

Bringing in the Professionals

If you’re getting bored of just having a bunch of poorly trained militia in your force, the situation may allow for the addition of a few Elite or Professional soldiers. There are multiple occasions in modern war where regular and irregular forces have worked alongside each other, such as in Syria where both sides have had Special Operations troops working with militia. On the wargames table, the addition of a small group of elite operators can help to give you a few more options. Fundmentally, there are two ways to use them.

Option 1 is to include a Professional or Elite mixed in with your less well trained groups. This utilises the Mentoring rule and can be handy to keep the irregulars in the fight, both with the physical presence and with the equipment they can bring. For example, battlefield trauma kits (unavailable to anyone below professional) will prevent unnecessary casualties. Alternatively, certain weapons will be very helpful alongside irregular groups, such as a marksman with a high shooting skill or a weapon system unavailable to most forces such as the airburst grenade launcher. At the simplest level, an operator with this ties them into a radio net with characters with much higher command values, making recovery from suppression much easier.

Option 2 is to keep the Professionals or Elites in a separate squad. This focuses the power in one place, letting them keep moving thanks to their superior training and get their skill set onto the target. This prevents their skills from being diluted (you have a squad guaranteed to get most of their shots on target) but can leave them vulnerable if the irregulars decide to pack it in.

Conclusion 

As you can see from this post and the last, there are a lot of options for players to use when operating as an Irregular force. Depending on what style of force, you will be bombarded with the different ways of getting the job done. Think carefully about what you’re trying to do and then pick what fits the situation. The only main difference between you and the regular player? Just expect more of you guys only wearing t-shirts.

Next time, we’re going to return to the land of Regular troops to talk about Off Table Assets and air power. What is the best way to use these game changers? How do you make sure you don’t have to change your mission to Blackhawk Down? And finally, how much OTA is too much OTA?

In the last two posts in this series, we took a look at the basics of building a force, with posts looking at both task specific teams for infantry and the basics of vehicle use. In this part, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the points relating to more irregular groups. As with previous parts, this article is designed primarily for Spectre Operations but many of the tactics are valid in all modern skirmish games.

Irregular forces, by their definition, vary massively in style. They can be anything from untrained groups of fighters armed with nothing more than an AK and the shirts on their back up to well equipped groups that rival (and in some cases beat) the more traditional forces in terms of capabilities. However at a fundamental level, building an irregular force still relies on the commander identifying the goal and picking what is needed to fulfil the task.

So why am I writing a separate post for these less well trained forces? Why am I not just reposting the first article but changing the pictures? Well, Irregular troops normally don’t have all the benefits of national forces and so there are several points they need to think about.

Manpower

The first point to realise is that in most cases, your forces are going to be much less effective on a one to one scale than the regular forces you’ll normally find yourself up against. In Spectre Operations (and in most games), this will mean you’ll have a lower chance of hitting when shooting, be more likely to become suppressed (as there is no cap on your and will lose in a close quarters fight in one to one combat. Put simply, the bulk of your guys are a bit shit.

However, it’s not all bad news – after all, quantity has a quality all of it’s own. If you play with points based forces, your militia and trained soldiers will be much cheaper, meaning you can more easily flood the board with forces. If instead you play scenarios, most of the time the writer will give the irregular forces a significant numerical advantage, either through just have more guys on the board or letting casualties be recycled back into place (perhaps representing militia fighters finally getting into position before joining the battle). As many of the battles wargamers play will feature teams of SF operators assaulting locations, the irregulars will often be on the defensive, often letting you setup in positions and dare the enemy come towards you.

Having a numerical advantage doesn’t guarantee a victory but it can certainly help. Especially when you consider the next point.

Redundancy

Put simply – you’re gonna need a bigger squad. Seeing as the . If you were working from some of the teams from the first article, I’d probably add two or four more guys armed with assault rifles to add some extra firepower or “ablative armour”. An alternative way to keep your force moving is to take additional smaller squads armed simply, without machine guns or explosives, and use them as supporting units to your task orientated squads. This lets you leverage your greater numbers, protecting your main force by engaging first with lighter elements or by outflanking the professionals.

Special Weapons

At the same time, you get some useful weapons. The stereotypical irregular group (seen everywhere from Afghanistan to Sub-Saharan Africa) has two aces up their sleeves – the RPG-7 and the PKM Medium Machine gun. Both of these weapons are encumbering so you’ll be slowed slightly while using them. On the other hand, they do provide a massive benefit. The MMG has a longer range than the SAWs most modern forces are armed with, has a greater lethality and can also cut through body armour and light vehicles thanks to the armour piercing rule. Sustained Fire also lets you spread the fire across multiple troops, useful when fighting Professionals and Elites who can only take a certain amount of suppression. The RPG on the other hand is all about causing damage. Although it can’t fire indirectly like a UGL, it’s more than capable of putting suppression down on a large group. Additionally, it can also help when engaging enemy vehicles depending on which warhead you use.

By combining these two weapons together, your basic squads will be able to kick out a lot more firepower than your enemy might be expecting. There are also other weapons that might be handy to include in an irregular force. A common trait for many of these is Armour Piercing, helping to make your guys more effective against enemies wearing body armour or vehicles. Adding Light AT Weapons or Sniper Rifles help up your ability to take out more heavily equipped opponents while also allowing for more flexibility in your deployment.

Body Armour

To many, using body armour in a wargame helps to differentiate the better equipped and trained forces from their irregular opponents. However, body armour is increasingly available to the general population and in certain situations, it’s not inconceivable that some insurgents or militiamen might end up wearing kevlar.

So how best to use it in your own forces? Body Armour helps to reduce the lethality of shots that hit and so can help to keep your guys alive for a little longer. However, it is quite expensive for what it does so it might not be worth equipping your entire force with it, especially if your forces are mostly in the lower end of the training spectrum. Instead, outfitting your best trained and armed teams with body armour will help to keep them safe while moving up to their objectives. The rest of your force will just have to focus on sticking to cover and moving quickly.

Other Equipment

As well as body armour, there other items that are worth thinking about taking:

• Radio Comms: A key deficiency in most irregular force is the relatively low command rating. This can make recovering from incoming fire or performing orders a little hard. Unless of course, you’re not using your own command value. Setting up a radio network between your commander and the rest of the force can really add some back bone to it, keeping them active for longer than you’d first expect.
• Personal Medkits: Insurgents are normally pretty squishy. Being able to affect the lethality of incoming fire can help turn an instant kill into a light wound
• Tactical Ladders: When double checking the equipment list, I noticed that Militia and Trained soldiers can actually take Tactical Ladders. Not the first thing that springs to mind, but being able to get your support weapons up to elevated positions and keeping off the streets will help to
• Grenades: As with RPGs, explosives are the great leveller when it comes to taking people out. As well as the usual Frag Grenades, a neat alternative is the Molotov Cocktail. Causes area damage, puts up a small smoke cloud and can block off locations by putting fire in the way. Just don’t drop it.
• MANPAD: When the operators arrive, they’ll be up to their eyeballs in aerial fire support platforms located just off map. However, a trooper with a Stinger will potentially throw a wrench into your opponents plan when they attempt to call in helicopter support.
• Dogs: Something else that you’d normally associate with the Operators, but then you’d forget the humble Guard Dog. While the opposing team is trying to sneak around, the dogs will help to reveal hidden units. Once the alarms goes off, your canine friend can rush off to bite the bad man.

We’ll discuss some other bits of equipment and support (mostly the stuff that goes bang) for the irregulars forces in the next instalment.

Conclusion

Overall, irregular forces present a slightly different challenge to the better trained and equipped regular troops. You’ll need to organise your forces carefully, rely on any advantages the situation gives you and be aware of your limitations. If you are aware of all these tweaks, you can easily outfox and out fight your better trained opponents.

In the next article, we’ll take a look at the heavier weapons an insurgent force can bring to the field, including emplacements, technicals, off map resources and even the sneakier tricks of modern warfare.

In the last post we took a look at the basics of building a force through role specific teams. In this post, we’ll look at how vehicles can be added to regular forces in order to augment their capabilities and provide new tactics. As in part 1, this article is designed primarily for Spectre Operations but many of the tactics are valid in all modern skirmish games.

Vehicles are one of those things that players love to get their hands on. Everyone likes rolling out the big guns, using overwhelming firepower to destroy enemy positions while rolling through small arms shots like it was nothing. As a national force, you’ll have access to the widest range of vehicles, covering everything from motorcycles and quad bikes up to main battle tanks. Depending on the situation, adding a vehicle to your force will give you a massive bonus on less well equipped opponents.

The problem is that vehicles, while certainly powerful, are also incredibly vulnerable on the modern battlefield. In WW2 there were limited number of AT weapons available but the advent of anti-tank rocket launchers and HEAT warheads has meant that every infantry fireteam can carry a light anti-tank weapon, often alongside its normal loadout. The RPG-7, the darling of every bad guy, can’t crack a MBT but is easily capable of damaging and destroying medium and light vehicles. Combined with IEDs, this makes approaching urban areas a massive danger. With limited routes, its hard to avoid enemy attacks while the varying elevations give bonuses to troops shooting down into the vehicles.

Another limiting factor is that troops cooped up in a vehicle are not able to act as efficiently as they can on foot. They can’t spread out to avoid frag weapons and (if enclosed) are less effective at helping out with their own weapons. After all, when you roll “passenger compartment takes lethality check” it doesn’t matter if you’re a militiaman or an elite SF operator.

Finally, the bigger vehicles often suffer in places where constricting ROEs are used. A MBT might be able to easily splat a possible enemy position but if it’s got civilians nearby than it’s unable to act effectively.

This is harder article to write than the infantry one as it’s one case where I think using points only rather than a scenario can really break down. It’s very possible for one player to pick a force that is incapable of taking out any of the other player’s force (for example a militia player vs someone who picks two MBTs) and it just turns into one player bugging out in the first turn. Vehicles, along with certain OTAs, makes it blatantly obvious that modern war is not “fair” or balanced. For this reason, setting up the right scenario is key. If player’s are picking their own force, give them the intel they would need to be able to combat each other. Setup objectives that can’t be done from the safety of an AFV – after all, it’s pretty hard to secure buildings while in one.

There are three major aspects to look at with the vehicles: Firepower (how much damage it can deal), Mobility (how fast it can move) and Protection (how it can stay alive)

Firepower

Probably the one people rush to improve first, firepower is a big draw of all motorised platforms. Vehicles can offer two factors over infantry in this regards

1. More firepower: Vehicles can carry weapon system that either require a team or are entirely impractical for foot mobiles. These weapon systems can be incredibly destructive (often with 1+ or 2+ lethality saves) and lay down massive amounts of suppression either through sheer rate of fire or fragmentation.
2. More accurate firepower: Thanks to stabilisers and extra storage space for ammo, man portable systems become even more deadly. The classic GPMG on a vehicle is a perfectly sensible setup and doesn’t require someone to hoof it around. I’m also a fan of anti-material rifles mounting on vehicles – it’s one of those things that just looks cool.

One consideration is if the vehicle has the move or fire rule. Having to move slowly will let you keep for the suppression down but risks destruction at the hands of anything you don’t manage to kill.

The final point is firing arcs. Keeping the weapon on target while moving is obviously easier with a turret mount while limited fields of fire require more careful positioning.  Technicals will especially struggle with this as many of the heavier systems (like the TOW or heavier recoilless rifles) can’t shoot forward on the current spectre pickups due to the crew cab.

Mobility

Mobility is somewhere else we can split into two regarding what it offers:

1. Vehicle Mobility: How agile is this vehicle? How far can it drive every turn and how much can it turn? Knowing what your vehicle can do will help when picking your actions. Key things to look for is Uprated Engine and Brakes (giving you additional movement and sharper turns) and All Terrain (faster movement through difficult terrain).
2. Force Mobility: If this vehicle can carry passengers, how much of your force can it carry? Can it carry a whole squad or will you need to split them across multiple vehicles? Alternatively, could it be used for carry heavier armament like a crew served system or additional AT weapons? Vehicles acting as resupply are especially important when using the ammo loads included in the rulebook.

These two aspects combine together to affect how mobile your force is. Although rolling up and discharging troops directly onto the enemy is a bad idea, reducing how much time they spend foot slogging will help to keep them alive and make you more reactive to the enemies movement.

Protection

Finally, protection. Mobility can help with this ( after all you can’t hit what you can’t see) but having armour plate between the passenger compartment and the incoming fire helps. Fully armoured vehicles can almost ignore enemy small arms, making the dangers of being caught out in the open less than in an unarmoured vehicle. Even partial armour can help to prevent casualties. As for the poor guys in unarmoured vehicles, you need to either be going fast or sticking to cover.

Another part of protection is its subsystems. These elements can often be forgotten but can help many vehicles feel less like a civilian car and more like the platform they are supposed to represents. Key ones include Run Flats (ignoring M-Kills is a good way to stay alive), MBSGDs (for dropping smoke when under fire) and Gun Shield (excellent for protecting any top gunners).

So that’s all great, but what does that mean for picking a force?

The key principle (as I’ve tried to hammer into you so far) is to look at the mission you’re about to do. Do you need a high speed transport, a weapon platform to sit back and provide overwatch or armoured vehicle to carry the rest of your force onto the objective? What vehicles would your force have available? Would your SF team up in the foothills of the Hindu Kush really have access to a main battle tank or is it more likely it would be a mix of quad bikes, pickups and maybe a GMV?

Once the task is identified, selecting the actual elements will require matching the various archetypes available in the book to what you want to utilise. The various examples will help next to each archetype should help you choose.

Something to consider is looking at real missions and what vehicles are used. As an example, Osprey’s excellent Special Operations Patrol Vehicles includes mention of a four vehicle US ODA convoy arrangement used in 2002-2003 consisting of:

• M1114 Armoured Humvee – Better protection than the rest of the group and carrying a heavy weapon.
• GMV SF Humvee – Good performance, lots of firepower, plenty of space for storing supplies for the rest of the group
• Two Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles (Pickup trucks) – Able to go places the other vehicles can’t, lower profile, plenty of space for supplies

As you can see, this combination is mainly focused on a strategic level (outside the focus of a game of Spectre) but the variety of options can help when building your own team.

I have an additional few pointers to think about when setting vehicle elements up:

• The HMG is mounted on almost every vehicle for a reason. It’s a nice compromise, being able to hit out at both infantry (thanks to sustained fire) and light armoured vehicles (thanks to armoured piercing) equally well.
• Civilian vehicles might seem like nothing but trouble for a force, but for low profile teams they provide a quick way of getting out of danger. Covert vehicles are often equipped armour and uprated engines making them a nasty surprise.
• When rolling multiple vehicles in a convoy, mixing up the weapons is recommended. Different weapons are good at different things – the HMG is general purpose but a Grenade machine gun is perfect for flattening groups of enemy infantry. It does however lack the same level of precision you would gain from a machine gun so it’s not the best thing to use at close quarters. Instead, the minigun or GPMG is much more useful.
• When outfitting weapons, remember that you can mount optical systems to many heavy weapons. A HMG with a scope (such as the setup seen on my British Army Jackals) is perfect for any sort of overwatch fire support, being able to sit well outside the range of enemy return fire will still being able to hit back effectively.
• Once on the battlefield, there are a few things to consider:
  • Avoid built up areas with your vehicles. These are just asking for you to be ambushed.
  • Don’t waste your vehicles. Use them for their role.
  • Play each vehicle to its strength. Don’t expect your Razors to be able to take hits like a tank – instead play to it’s high speed and all terrain features.
  • Vehicles can also provide cover to troops on foot. This will continue even after its destroyed.
  •  Spectre has rules for ramming and shunting obstacles out of the way – use this when appropriate. Armoured vehicles are especially good at this.

That’s it for this article. Next time, we’ll cross the lines and start looking at how picking an OPFOR force is different, how quantity is a quality of it’s own and why you should look very carefully at what type of characters you are using.

This week’s battle report saw me finally bringing the downed C130 down to the club. Rather than the infantry heavy Skirmish Sangin scenario that is being used for the demo game, we instead brought out the big guns and went for some vehicle action in Spectre Operations.

While flying a routine transport operation between Bazi City and Abu Dhabi, a C130 Hercules belonging to a civilian contractor suddenly reported incoming fire. The aircraft managed to attempt evasive action but contact with the aircraft was swiftly lost.

Due to the nature of the cargo on board the aircraft, the contractor was quick to report the loss citing safety reasons and the potential issues if the various militia groups in the region were to secure it. Coalition forces have attempted to find it but a massive sandstorm in the region has forced a delay.

Now the sandstorm has cleared up, intelligence has now found the crash site and spotted movement around it. JSOC has now been ordered to prepare an operation. It’s objectives are to deploy to the crash site and secure all sensitive material.

Due to the number of enemy in the area and reinforcements approaching it, US Special Forces are attacking at speed. The plan is to snatch and grab the key objectives, utilising two armed SF pickup trucks.

Forces for this engagement were as follows:

BLUFOR:

V1 – SF Technical with .50cal

Team 1 – 5 professional with the usual operator kit such as body armour, comms and personal medkits. Also a mix of weapons from carbines to compact LMGs and light AT weapons

V2 – SF Technical with minigun

Team 2 – same as team 1 but with one less LAW available.

OPFOR:

6 Trained but well equipped soldiers with body armour, assault rifles fitted with scopes and red dots and comms

2 Trained soldiers working as a sniper team with a DMR

Two groups of trained fighters (each between 5 and 10) with a mix of assault rifles and at least one MMG and RPG

2 Technicals with HMG

Technical with light recoilless rifle

The US forces start at the bottom of the board and would need to work up it. The three objectives were:

1. Recover the black box
2. Recover intel documents from the white SUV in the central cargo compartment
3. Destroy the flight deck in the nose
4. (Optional) Destroy enemy assets (such as the technicals)

OPFOR’s role was to prevent these from happening – any objectives left standing at the end would count as being under control of the bad guys.

The board layout before deployment. Lots of open areas for both sides to cross while under fire. From here you can see the objectives stretching from the black box next to the tail section up to the flight deck at the top of the board.

The game begun by both of the US vehicles rolling on the board and getting ready to fire. Vehicle 2, complete with its minigun, rolled slowly onto the board and spotted the enemy. With the characteristic “brrrt”, the minigun opened up.

In no time at all the target squad, hunkering down behind a section of wing, were taking serious hits. Each of the minigun’s six shots took out their target, causing some a chunk of suppression. However, it wasn’t all going the operator’s way. In response to this hail of gunfire, the leftover bits of the target squad (as well as the marksman team on the two storey building) opened up at their oppressor. With the hail of PKM bursts and a carefully aimed marksman shot, OPFOR managed to knock out vehicle 2’s driver, gunner and then engine block in rapid succession.

Vehicle 1, having just seen its buddy get lit up, decided to take a slightly less dangerous route. It pulled in behind the wreck of the tail section, just in range to collect the black box. It also was the perfect position to engage one of the smaller insurgent groups hiding under the wing with the .50cal.

Having seen the lead BLUFOR vehicle go down, the rest of the OPFOR vehicles moved in for a better shot. These technicals moved at full speed, giving up a round of shooting in order to get closer next turn.

Springing from their death trap of a vehicle, Team 2 moved into cover and started acting as a base of fire team for the rest of the attack. Despite coming under long-range sniper fire, the team’s biggest concerns were the approaching technicals and the left over medium machine guns that had chewed up their ride. Unfortunately, the response to the technicals missed (although did cause some suppression) at the cost of their single use AT4 rocket.

On the other hand the LMG caused merry havoc on the infantry behind the wing. After another hail took out the squad leader and a medium machine gunner, the leftover trio would have to spend time regrouping and recovering from the suppression.

On the other flank, Team 1 and their vehicle were doing well. Most of the team had disembarked,leaving only the top gunner still in the vehicle. However he swiftly got to work, the HMG cutting down the small 5 man squad over the course of two turns of fire. On the ground, the rest of the team was getting ready to deploy. The team leader disembarked, spotting the left over bits of the main enemy squad and radioed to his buddy with the 40mm grenade launcher.

One carefully aimed indirect shot later and the leftovers had been taken out.

On the other side of the board though, Team 2 were in dire straits. Although the machine gun fire had been effective, they had been exposed for just a little too long. First, the light recoilless rifle fired taking out one operator with a direct hit but missing his buddy on the luck of a dice roll. Then the HMG on the other technical fired, kill the exposed LMG gunner. Finally, in the following turn, the recoilless rifle fired again, blowing the immobile technical to pieces to prevent anyone using its minigun.

Seeing it all going to hell, the BLUFOR commander decided to cut his loses and focus on grabbing some of the objectives. To grab the black box he popped smoke, sprinted a guy out to the box and dragged it back while the rest of the team put down supporting fire. Marking the flight deck off as a lost cause, he them formulated a simple plan to solve the issue of the intelligence documents in the white SUV. Using another light anti-tank weapon, he blew the target sky-high. If BLUFOR can’t have it, no one can.

Loading the black box onto the remaining vehicle, squad 1 mounted up (apart from two escorts) and made a sprint for the edge of the board. Despite the rest of the enemy being hot on their heels, BLUFOR managed to escape unharmed.

That was a really fun game. Trying to roll the unarmoured SF pickups directly into the line of fire might have been a bad move to begin with but the fact that the operators managed to hold the bad guys (mostly). I think this game does show how vulnerable the highly trained operators can be while they are still mounted as they can’t rely on their improved skills as much.

Next time though, I’d give BLUFOR something a little more armoured like so they could actually be more likely to thunder run up the board.

This week’s battle report sees us return to the ongoing campaign in Bazistan. Following the kidnapping of the Geordiestan Ambassador from the Petramco/NZDF force back in September, it’s time to go to the next stage of the operation.

The Geordiestan Ambassador has been missing for two weeks. After being kidnapped en route from the airport by an unknown group of militia, intelligence has been working day and night to recover him. Unfortunately, the whims of the Bazistan government has caused this process to be delayed as only Bazi SF can act on any intelligence partner nations provide. A Special Forces team from Geordiestan did arrive in country but was turned round at the airport. Other nations have also been held off, with American, British and Russians all barred from operating legally on Bazi soil.

However, a new piece of information has come to light. Multiple sources point to a group in the badlands bordering Aden which is preparing to move two high value targets out of the country. This compound has attracted the attention of the Bazistan army as well as British Intelligence. Two teams from the SAS (codenamed SABRE and WANDERER) have been deployed to extract the hostages before the Bazistan Army does.

The game takes place in a frontier town in the Badlands of Bazistan, close to the border with the Aden Republic and only a short drive to the Red Sea. Intel had found two target buildings, (the tan coloured ones in the photo above) that were militia strongholds and could be the location of the two hostages. Both buildings would need to be checked. As the game began, the militia were completely unalert – the town is in safe territory and the police hadn’t tipped them off to any possible attackers. The Bazistan Army wouldn’t arrive until later – Bazi SF arriving on turn 2 and the bulk of the force arriving on turn 3.

The forces were simple:

SAS

• SABRE – 6 Elite operators with usual direct action kit, including a LAW, LMG, UGL and DMR
• WANDERER – 6 Elite operators in local clothing. Designed for stealth, they also had a SMG, Auto Shotgun and a Airburst grenade launcher

Bazi Army

• Bazi SF – 6 professionals with modified assault rifles and the usual support items like body armour and medical kits
• Bazi Motorised – 8 Trained soldiers with Assault Rifles, a MMG and an RPG accompanied by an Elite Special Forces mentor

Militia

• Three technicals – two with HMG and one with a recoilless rifle
• Multiple small groups of trained fighters, armed with the usual mix of Assault Rifles, RPGs and MMGs

The SAS came on from the Western board edge, seeking the shortest route to one of the buildings that avoided the patrolling guards. SABRE headed for one of the ruined buildings, aiming to set up a base of fire to assist an assault on Objective Bravo.

WANDERER headed for Objective Alpha, stacking up on the door before breaching into the empty interior. Carefully sneaking around, they headed upstairs. Due to the buildings not including staircases, we added two in opposite corners of the building. Next time I’ll add some markers

Upstairs, they found themselves in the midst of a small collection of insurgents. Taking advantage of their silenced pistols and SMGs, the team took the first shots of the game easily dropping the two fighters inside the main room. After disposing of them and the two RPG gunners on the balcony, only three militiamen knew something was up.

Unfortunately, their intel was faulty – this building was completely clear of hostages. Time to dig in and start covering

Instead, time to focus on Objective Bravo. SABRE moved into an assault position, with the LMG, DMR and UGL gunner digging into the damaged building while the rest of the team prepared to sprint across the road.

Interestingly, they spotted a white SUV moving away from the target building. It seemed to be forming up into a convoy with one of the other technicals.

As turn two began, the first sign of real trouble turned up. Six operatives of the Bazi Special Forces had appeared, moving through the ruins of the African Quarter. They managed to stay relatively quiet, not alerting the militia as they crept into position.

Turn two was pretty uneventful – WANDERER dug in to the building by setting up positions covering the staircases and aiming to cover any assault on Objective Bravo. At the same time, SABRE moved into final positions, with the assault team going into cover behind one of the pickups by the side of the road. By now these actions were starting to concern some of the civilians and it was only a matter of time before the militia was entirely on alert.

Of course, elements of the Bazi 12th Motorised Division have no concept of stealth and rolled onto the board in their BTR80A. This could be a major game changer – the armour would be hard to penetrate while the heavy autocannon would easily cut a swathe through tightly packed squads.

This was the battlefield as the engagement shifted from a stealthy operation into a more kinetic experience. A few other things happened very quickly:

First up, the technical leading the convoy about to escort the SUV away swung round at the sight of the enemy. The M40 recoilless rifle it carried on the back would be one of the main weapons against the enemy AFV.

Two of the local Bazistan police ran forward to see what on earth this military unit was doing here. Once in cohesion range, these two police changed from being ambient civilians to working alongside the military.

As for the militia, they quickly started moving some more assets around. One of the technicals with HMG moved into an ambush position, ready to spring out with the .50cal. Of more immediate danger, a fighter with a RPG-29 moved into position on the balcony and prepared to engage.

Across the road, SABRE waited.

Rolling forward, the BTR was quick to drop the ramp and send deploys its squad of Bazi soldiers. Of note was the fact that they had been joined by an Elite mentor to give them a bit more sticking power in the fight.

Thanks to the massed fire from three separate squads, the Bazistan army quickly started taking a toll on the smaller militia units, pinning them down under massed suppression of simply taking them out.

Meanwhile, SABRE bust into the target building and came face to face with a few surviving militiamen. Ever the professionals, they quick dropped them before pushing forward. From upstairs, they could hear the steady sound of gunfire as the insurgents engaged the oncoming army. The fire managed to down the two policemen and suppress the oncoming soldiers but did distract them from the team of killers slowly climbing the stairs.

At the same time, WANDERER got involved and pulled a cool piece of kit out of the toolbox. Rather than engaging an isolated militia group with carbines, the airburst grenade launcher took aim and sent a single shot flying out across the roof tops.

Safe to say, it was quite effective.

An interesting side diversion was the two police at the end of the map. Rather than meeting up with the Bazi army to begin operations, they instead got stuck in a fight while trying to defend themselves from the militia trying to restrain them.

Back in the fray, the militia were taking a beating with huge numbers of suppression markers. It wasn’t just the Bazi Army – WANDERER were assisting the assault on Objective Bravo by eliminating incoming militia units thanks to sitting on overwatch – the -1 modifier was easily nullified by the optics and high shooting skill.

Meanwhile in the building SABRE rushed up the stairs to be confronted by a stack of insurgents. However, they were ready for this. In went the flashbang.

After a blinding flash and a hail of gunfire, three insurgents lay dead – the other two were to follow in the next turn.

At this stage, the photos dry up but there were a few great events

• SABRE’s base of fire started engaging the Bazi Army, kill several with a mix of 40mm, LMG fire and DMR shots. However, many more were saved thanks the body armour and personal medkits
• The BTR and technicals started trading rounds, leading to both parties ending up with no drivers.

However, the big thing was unmasking of the hostage in Objective Bravo revealing the ambassador’s aide. Finally being told that the ambassador was in the quickly escaping white SUV, two members of WANDERER decided to engage. And for the first time this game they actually rolled pretty high on their armour penetration roll leading to this.

The aimed precise shots were a little too effective, with a carbine killing all three passengers in the vehicle with a single burst.

Good job everyone.

Seeing as the Ambassador is no longer with us, Geordiestan must be furious with everyone involved in this affair from Petramco and the Kiwis to the Bazistan government and the rumoured involvement of British troops. We shall have to see what happens next!

Slightly more concerning is what the rescued aide recounted to the SIS when being debriefed. He overheard his kidnapper mention a safe house they were to be taken to… in the city of St. Davide in Zaiweibo!

The next game will pick up this trail, possibly going for a slightly stealthy mission as intelligence forces seek to discover more information in the land across the Red Sea.

Hope you guys enjoyed the battle report! It was a really good game, where I got to put a lot of toys on the table, hiding the militia in amongst civilians. The most important thing however was that everyone left the table smiling having had one hell of a battle.

Next week we’ll take a closer look at those SAS chaps, along with their more urban focused buddies. There might even be an additional impressions based on another set of figures I’ve recently painted…

Despite this being a hobby blog, I do keep an eye on what seems to be doing well for me in terms of stats. My Starting Lists for Spectre Operations have done really well but I now want to expand it and provide something a little more useful than just “here am list”. Simple lists are good to begin with but there comes a time when you want to feel less like an accountant moving numbers of points around and more like a military commander, analysing problems and finding solutions with what meager forces your supplies (and wallet) allow.

To get you on your way, welcome to Building a Force! This series will be in multiple parts and cover some hints and tips when it comes to building your forces. In future installments, we’ll look at vehicles, Off Table Assets and getting your rabble together when playing the OPFOR.

This time however, we’re going to look at building a force for more well trained and organised armies (including Special Forces teams). In particular, we’re going to work on how you can pick your force more easily by selecting for the right tools for the job.

Using TOEs

“But Charge”, I hear you say “Why not just use the written down Tables of Organisation and Equipment?”

Okay, lets talk about TOEs.

TOE’s are a great tool when understanding history and tactics, writing rules or building a collection. Its much easier to balance a preset force or know how many figures you may need when making a platoon. However, from my understanding, when it comes to day by day operations the times when a unit deploys exactly to TOE is not 100%. Soldiers fall ill and aren’t replaced in time, squads are formed into multiples for specific missions and specialists are attached.

For this reason I suggest treating TOEs as a guideline. Start from them but when writing a scenario or preparing a force for a possible operation there is nothing stopping you from tweaking and adjusting the composition. Obviously this needs to be within reason – a squad made entirely of M249 LMGs and LAWs would be powerful but in reality they would have some ammo consumption issues and be a bit clunky to move round.

Basic Advice

Instead I recommend building your team around the objective given to you. Look at the goal, plan out what you think you need and pick from the example teams below. After a few games, I’d even suggest making up your own teams that you find effective. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with

Here are a few other bits of advice when picking your force:

• Take attachments – red dots, lasers and scopes really help to improve your chances in ranged combat while different ammo types and suppressors can quickly change your role on the battlefield.
• Suppressors and Subsonic ammo can be combined for ultimate efficiency in stealth but even just using the suppressor with regular ammo will give you a considerable benefit.
• If you’re using Trained soldiers, adding a few additional riflemen to each team will increase your firepower and surviability.
• Body Armour and Personal Med-kits will save your soldier’s lives. By affecting lethality and potentially reducing the damage from a hit, combining both is recommended.
• Grenade choices are important – frag and smokes are good generic choices to expand your tactics while the other grenades are better in specific situations such as close quarters or asset destruction.
• There are several weapons that can be added to the teams to give them additional edges in combat but don’t necessarily require a full additional team.
  • A Light Anti-Tank weapon to a team gives you a multi-role explosive device that lets you cause massive damage on a group of enemies or a vehicle/strongpoint.
  • A UGL can easily be swapped for a Multiple Grenade Launcher or a Airburst Grenade Launcher depending on your needs – the MGL is good for large numbers of enemies while the Airburst is perfect for when you are fighting enemies that are entrenched.
  • The humble RPG is actually a pretty tempting prospect – the multiple warheads (AT, HE and Thermobaric) gives you access to a range of effects for a reasonable points cost.
  • Shotguns are useful upgrades. Combat and Auto Shotguns may steal the headlines with Rapid and Auto fire but don’t underestimate the Under Barrel/Sawn Off Shotgun; It’s a cheap way to up your breaching skill and provide a nasty kick in close quarters when combined with the various ammo options.
  • Tasers can make capturing OPFOR alive much easier, reducing the need to get into close quarters.
• Extra equipment like tactical ladders and climbing gear is very situational but can be the difference between success and failure. This is especially important when using the small Elite forces.

The Teams

The nine teams I’ve developed are below. Each will explain their task, show off the composition and then be accompanied by several notes explaining the idea behind them and how best to use them.

I’m going to use the term Service Rifle when describing the various teams. This can, depending on your forces nationality and skill level, be a carbine, an assault rifle or a battle rifle. There are only minor differences between them (the carbine has less range but gains bonuses in RI 1, the assault rifle is the default and the battle rifle is less effective at suppression but longer range and better lethality) so we shall be treating them as generic in the lists.

For people interested in points values, we’ll be covering that in the final part when we start building forces.

1. Basic Fireteam

Task: General Purpose – Provide a good mix of firepower at various ranges.

1. Team Leader: Service Rifle
2. Grenadier: Service Rifle + UGL
3. Gunner: LMG
4. Assistant: Service Rifle

Notes:

• A common variation is to swap out the Service rifle on number 4 for a DMR or sniper rifle. This reduces your number of shots but does help you when engaging an enemy at long range.
• This is a core building block – applying minor tweaks (such as those listed in the Basic Advice section) can massively improve the effectiveness of it

2. Assault Team

Task: Advancing and clearing a fixed position

1. Team Leader: Service Rifle + UGL
2. Pointman: Service Rifle + Combat Shotgun
3. Breacher: Service Rifle + Breaching Gear
4. Gunner: LMG

Notes:

• The idea with this is a Basic Fireteam but more focused on the “Manoeuvre” part of the Fire and Manoeuvre Idea.
• Pair these guys with a Base of Fire Team – it’s less flexible than two of the Standard Fireteams but more effective at their chosen job.
• Close with the enemy to get to within RI1 and gain the most bonuses
• The Pointman and Breacher are perfect to work together when assaulting a position – one can perform the breach allowing the other to enter and clear using the advantage of the shotgun in the same turn.

3. Base of Fire Team

Task: Providing suppressing fire on a position/covering the advance of another team.

1. Gunner: MMG
2. Assistant: Service Rifle
3. Marksman: DMR
4. Gunner: LMG

Notes:

• The idea with this is a Basic Fireteam but more focused on the “Fire” part of the Fire and Manoeuvre Idea.
• If you hadn’t guessed, pair these guys with an Assault team. See the assault team for more details
• This team should find a good piece of cover with good line of sight across the place you intend to assault and then sit there
• The Gunner and their MMG is the main focus of this team. That needs to keep up and running, putting suppression on enemy forces moving against your assault team.
• The Assistant should be helping out the MMG gunner unless the enemy start to get too close to the Base of Fire team.
• While the Gunners spread the suppression around, the Marksman lets you focus in on specific characters such as enemy weapon teams.
• The LMG gunner’s main job is extra suppression but is also useful for close protection on your Base of Fireteam. Alternatively, this trooper’s gear could be enhanced with an explosive weapon if you want to add that capability to your force.

4. Scout Team

Task: Find and engage the enemy

1. Lead Scout: Service Rifle
2. Scout: Service Rifle and Combat Shotgun

Notes:

• The inspiration for the scouting pair comes from the American WW2 squad.
• Number 1 could alternatively equipped with a SMG alongside his service rifle for additional close quarters firepower.
• This team would do especially well if equipped with suppressors and subsonic ammo. The idea with this squad is to close with the enemy and so benefits from avoiding detection.
• Additionally, equipping this team with Ghille Suits would let them sniper stalk and reduce their chance of being detected even more

5. Command Team

Task: Command and provide support to the other teams

1. Squad Leader/Commander: Service Rifle
2. Medic: Service Rifle and Trauma Kit (Optional)

Notes:

• Depending on your nationality and service branch, you might want to upgrade a team leader in one of your fireteams to be a squad leader rather than having a separate team.
• In addition to two characters listed here, you could add another squad leader to act as a Forward Air Controller for an OTAs you may have access to.

6. CQB Team

Task: Clearing hostile area at extremely close range.

1. Pointman: SMG
2. Rifleman: Carbine
3. Breacher: Carbine + Combat Shotgun + breaching gear
4. Gunner: Compact LMG

Notes:

• You’ll notice I explicitly mention carbines rather than Service Rifles. This is due to the Compact rule, something which gives you a real edge when inside range interval 1
• To extend the above point, combining Compact weapons with Red Dots and Lasers gives you a +3 bonus in total which engaging targets inside RI1. This is perfect when combined with Rapid Fire or Automatic weapons as it removes the modifier for multiple shots
• The Pointman and Breacher are designed to give you the edge in close quarters – in particular,
• The Rifleman and Gunner will provide some longer range firepower which
• For an additional edge, the Rifleman could be equipped with a Multi-Role dog. This is good for both detection and restraining enemy combatants. Also take a look at the various upgrade packages for your four legged friends

7. Anti-Tank team

Task: Destruction of enemy armoured assets

1. Gunner: Service Rifle and AT weapon
2. Assistant: Service rifle

Notes:

• The AT weapon is generic – depending on your force and models it could be an RPG (with a variety of warheads), Light Anti-Tank weapon, Light Recoilless Rifle or a Guided Missile Launcher.
• The Assistant, like in some of the other teams is going to either be providing security for the team or (if the weapon is crew served) providing the backup to the anti-tank weapon. They are also required by the Guided Missile Launcher in order to carry it.
• The team has a lot of firepower but will need some

8. Sniper Team

Task: Long range precision elimination

1. Sniper: Sniper Rifle (Light, Medium, Anti-Material)
2. Spotter: DMR or Service Rifle

Notes:

• Classic sniper team setup – one of the pair is the gun while the other is the eyes.
• A worthwhile upgrade for this pair is some Ghillie suits, letting your avoid detection and sniper stalk. It also gives you cover bonuses.
• If acting stealthily, suppressors are recommended for both. In addition, the spotter may want to consider subsonic ammo but the limitation to 2 range intervals of effectiveness may blunt the Sniper’s primary weapon. Alternatively, take a secondary such as a SMG.
• Unless massed firepower is needed, the spotter should be crew serving in order to give your sniper the best chance of kill their target.

9. Heavy Weapon Team

Sadly I’m missing a photo for my heavy weapons – all of them belonging to the conventional forces are still in the painting queue

Task: Fire Support from a heavy platform

1. Commander: Service Rifle
2. Gunner: Service Rifle and Heavy Weapon
3. Loader: Service Rifle

Notes:

• One of simplest teams – long ranged firepower is your only mission
• The heavy weapon could be any from the list but the most common will be either the Heavy Machine Gun, the Automatic Grenade Launcher or the Guided Missile Launcher.
• Two men are needed to move a heavy weapon so including a third (or alternatively adding a few more) gives you a larger security element.
• In an ideal world, a heavy weapon team should begin the game in a piece of cover with excellent sight lines. If that isn’t an option, your first priority should be to get this team into a position where it can cover the advance of the rest of your force. Until it’s setup, this team is not doing it’s job

With that we end Part 1 of Building a Force. The next few weeks are already planned out so there will not be any additional parts until the new year. However, once we are back I’ll be hammering through the other sections:

1. Task Orientated Teams – Building the Core of a National Force
2. Mobility and Firepower – Vehicles for a National Force
3. “TBA” – Building The Core of an Irregular Forces
4. “TBA” – Vehicles for Irregular Forces
5. “TBA” – OTAs
6. Problem to Solution – Assembling your force ready for the mission

Having been asked last week to plan a game, I sat back and had a careful think about what might be an exciting scenario to get my opponent’s figures on the table. Some sort of escort mission maybe but what to protect? As my eyes wandered across the various modern wargaming Facebook groups I settled on a name. Geordiestan is the setting for Whitley Bay’s 3D Gamers current moderns campaign, a middle eastern paradise that seems to involve every group under the sun.

Who better to protect than a visitor from a foreign country? After all, how dangerous can the drive from the airport be?

Geordiestan, a fellow Middle Eastern backwater, is seeking to establish relations with the newly established Bazistan government. To begin this process, Geordiestan have sent a political team to begin talks. While planning the trip, an issue has arisen in regards to the ambassador’s safety.

With the local forces split between the Pro-Democracy and Pro-Monarchy factions and therefore unable to provide protection, Geordiestan instead turned to the private sector. Unfortunately for them, the two primary contracting firms in the region (Commando Global Solutions and Argo Asset Protection) were unable to provide close protection due to various legal issues.

A new company to the region, Petramco, has instead been contracted to provide close security during the ambassador’s visit. The trip between the airport and the city would see the protective detail joined by two patrol vehicles from the New Zealand Defence Force as required by ISAF-AP.

However, anti-government forces have been informed of the ambassador’s visit. Capturing or eliminating the ambassador would be a massive blow to the new government and any strike against the western forces would put pressure on ISAF command.

Rules: Spectre Operations
Setting: Bazistan, Post Intervention
BLUFOR: NZDF, Petramco and Geordiestan Diplomatic Services
OPFOR: Bazistan Militia – Anti-Government Forces

Protecting the ambassador was two groups. 8 professional contractors (with carbines, LMGs and a battle rifle) working for Petramco would provide close protection while a squad of soldiers from the NZDF were tagging along to provide protection along a common ambush route. Both groups were mounted in vehicles – the NZDF had borrowed some armoured Humvees while the two teams of contractors were riding in armoured SUVs. Finally, the Ambassador rode in a covertly armoured car along with two bodyguards and his aide.

However, against them was a pretty substantial force. The core was four large groups of trained fighters, each with a squad leader and a mix of heavy weapons. In addition there was a snatch squad of professionals armed with carbines ready to drive in. The heavy hitters were a Anti-Material team occupying the high ground and four technicals. Three of them were armed with HMGs but the last was carrying a M40 heavy recoilless rifle. Finally, this group was receiving some outside support from an unknown group – each of the infantry units were accompanied by a professionally trained soldier, complete with body armour and grenades. This professional was able to take advantage of the mentoring rule and boosted those guys he was working alongside.

The goal for each force was simple – BLUFOR was aiming to move off the opposite corner of the board while OPFOR seeked to capture the Ambassador and his aide. However, if this wasn’t possible then killing the ambassador would be a partial win.

The starting positions for everyone. ROE for BLUFOR was to only respond if fired upon or if overt actions were spotted (such as an armed vehicle or group armed with heavy weapons moving to fire positions).

The convoy begins moving, with the NZDF taking front and rear positions while the ambassador rode in the centre.

Spotting BLUFOR’s movement, one of the groups of fighters started to get moving. Originally planning to just engage in a fire fight, my fellow warlord came up with an ingenious idea. One fighter hotwired the HGV while the rest prepared to jump on board. This spur of the moment idea is one of the reasons why I really like Spectre.

As the lead vehicle rounded the corner, one of the OPFOR teams decided to seek cover behind the parked car. However, the gunner on the top spotted this movement. In particular, the sight of two RPGs and a PKM being moved into position prompted a burst from the M2HB to rattle down the street.

The first salvo was deadly – both RPG gunners were killed and the suppression spread amongst the rest of the squad.

As the next turn started, more of the convoy began to enter the high street. This prompted some reaction from OPFOR. The red technical with the recoilless rifle rolled forward to block the escape route but managed to be immobilized and stripped of its crew, leaving the gun ready to fire but missing its crew. This would be a constant threat to BLUFOR, as gun teams frantically tried to get its tank busting power back online.

At the same time, the blue pickup carried the snatch squad to a forward position, getting them in a location from which they could ambush the incoming convoy. However, this did expose the team to a drive by shooting from the lead Humvee, causing the death of one of the team.

In addition, this turn saw the start of the barrages of fire from nearly every group. Machine guns and RPGs flew everywhere adding suppression to the incoming enemy vehicles.

The next turn saw more movement as the BLUFOR commanders ordered them to “push push push”. The rear NZDF vehicle however slowed, setting itself into overwatch to protect the rear of the convoy from anyone sneaking in.

As you can see in this picture, this was lucky. The HGV roared forward, heading to ram the rear most vehicle. However, the overwatching Humvee was easily able to rip the vehicle to shreds knocking almost all of those onboard out of action. This also caused it to change heading,leading to it blocking the road rather than colliding with the opposition.

Further down the road, the lead elements of the convoy got caught in a cross fire as the snatch squad and a hidden technical opened fire.

The next turn saw the tide start to turn for the insurgents. As the lead SUV started to move off, the snatch squad opened fire. After causing major damage, a burst managed to hit the driver. This shot incapacitated him and the vehicle swerved to a halt. The first contractor was out of action.

Taking this as inspiration, the rest of the insurgents opened up. One group of fighters and it’s technical began to move to hit the rear of the convoy.

This turn also saw the contractors begin to engage the enemy from their vehicles. Although opening the windows reduced their protection, the automatic fire helped to put suppressive fire down.

The rear SUV also suddenly got into trouble as two RPG gunners moved into view. The rockets managed to cause some serious damage to the vehicle, rendering it almost immobile.

On the other side of the board, a duel of HMGs opened up. The rear Humvee hammered a few rounds at the exposed technical. It managed to cause a m-kill. In response, the insurgent gunner shot back but failed to do no more than cause a pile of suppression. Unfortunately a civilian was also hit in the crossfire.

The hits to the rear vehicle forced the contractors to make a choice. Either they could sit in their vehicle until it was destroyed or they could deploy and broaden their tactical options. Deciding to get stuck in, the four mercs rushed into cover behind the barricade and prepared to open fire.

While the commander of the lead SUV struggled to get into the driver’s seat, his rear passengers moved to shut down the closet threat. Rushing the technical that was causing damaged to their Humvee escort, the contractors managed to take out the driver and began moving towards the rear gunner.

At the same time, the snatch squad rushed the lead SUV. Attempting to grab the one of the contractors, two of the team rushed the door. The first was shot down by the remaining merc’s pistol but the second grabbed him and pulled him into the street, aiming to take him as a prize while his squad mates moved on the ambassador.

The rear team was also in the thick of it. After seeking cover, they had engaged the incoming insurgents. The SAW gunner took out the technical while the other three used their carbines to great effect. However, this is where the hidden professionals showed their use. A single frag grenade flew through the air and killed three of the contractors out right with the final guy left stunned. However, fire from the rest of the squad failed to take him out.

At this stage, the NZDF had had enough of being plinked at. The rear vehicle started to move up, partially to collect the remaining contractor but also to begin racing to the exit.

Four soldiers from the lead vehicle deployed, leaving the gunner on board to man the gun. Two soldiers moved to hit the snatch squad in the back and rescue their contractor buddy while the others move up to engage the team that had moved towards the ambassador’s car. The Ambassador however had screamed forward, slipping between the gap and heading for the exit, right into the two squads of insurgents waiting to engage him.

Before the Kiwis could get stuck in with the snatch team, they were engaged by a HMG from the immobilized technical. The shots flew into the melee striking one NZDF soldier down but also killing both of the snatch team. The contractor had been freed from his captors.

The last turn also saw a few other actions I didn’t grab photos of. The other two Kiwis from the lead vehicle moved into position but were shot down by the two members of the snatch squad in a close range firefight. In return, the two insurgents were eliminated by the ever-present Humvee and it’s .50cal. The other contractor left alive from the lead vehicle had managed to take control of the technical he had been attacking, removing one of the major sources of suppression.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time and had to call it. Looking at the board, it was going to be very close. However, the ending consensus was that the Insurgents had just about managed to out fight the western forces and snatched the Ambassador from his vehicle. BLUFOR might have still been able to put up a fight – it was possible that the remaining vehicles could have pushed through. But it would have been a slog as every vehicle, except the rear Humvee, was damaged in one way or another.

A few post game dice rolls worked out the final situation which saw the Ambassador taken captive and the loss of his aide, killed during the final snatch. In other words:

Whitley Bay, I have some very bad news about your Ambassador.

Overall it was an excellent game. The vehicles did a good job of soaking up all the fire but eventually the hits started counting. I decided to give the OPFOR a few more bits of gear when building the scenario so they could actually handle the armoured vehicles more than in my last game. I think the anti-material rifle was a waste of points – one of the professionals should have used it and maybe it would have done more than plink a few rounds off the Humvees.

Most importantly when running a game, both teams enjoyed themselves. We got a few rules mixed up but common sense (and Jack reminding me of rules I’d forgotten) saw that the game was an entertaining time.

But what is going to happen to the ambassador? And who were the hidden professionals working for? Most importantly, how will Geordiestan respond to this outrage? You’ll have to wait and see in future Adventures from Bazistan.

Sometimes, pre-planning games don’t always go according to plan. On Monday, the game was a 7 person multiplayer game on a massive 6×8 table where every side had designs on Big Dave (mostly killing him). On Wednesday I had changed the sides. On Thursday morning, it was now going to be a much smaller game. When I got to the club, it had become a 1 vs 1 over a standard 6×4 board.

And honestly? It was a barrel of laughs that I enjoyed every minute of.

“Big Dave” was a Corporal in the Eritrean Army until he and his squad decided to cross the Red Sea and become a mercenary in the badlands of Bazistan. For the first few years he worked for the various factions before setting himself up as a pirate warlord. Due to his ongoing actions, his name and group quickly joined the list of targets of ISAF-AP seek to remove from the region.

Today, his number has come up. US Army Special Forces Command has dispatched an 8 man team (along with a US Army Security Element) to the small town where Big Dave holds sway. They seek to capture but if no other option is available, deadly force is authorised.

The American Force consisted of two parts: The team of 8 elites in a Razor and a SF Pickup and their Security Detail (a standard 9 person squad with a medic accompanying, all rated Professional) mounted in two up-armoured Humvees. The Americans had an advantage – as far as they knew, the defenders had no idea what they were doing in the region.

Against them were two groups. Big Dave had pulled back as many of his pirates as could, giving him a mob of African militia, 4 local militia and three technicals (two with HMGs and one mounting a BMP turret). In addition was his own squad, which were trained to a professional standard and had followed him over the sea from Eritrea. He had also paid off the local police force, giving him an additional 12 Trained fighters which included some heavy weapons. Most of the village was abandoned but a UAV had spotted two armoured SUVs arriving the previous day. The allegiance of the inhabitants of these vehicles were unknown – the Americans would have to be careful.

 As the game begins, the Americans moved into the Area of Operations from the north. In the centre of the board, outside the police station, a group of officers were milling around, chatting with some of the militia and generally standing guard. More officers sat inside doing the general tasks of a working police station, all while trying to not think too much about the most recent guests who had appeared in town. Importantly, all the heavy weapons (the RPGs and MMGs) were still in the station’s armoury.

Inside the compound, the 3 technicals (Red, Green and Blue) sat idling. One was preparing to set off on patrol, with the pirates waiting to help open the gates. However, Big Dave knew something was coming. A little bird had mentioned there could be trouble in the next few days and now dust clouds had appeared on the outskirts of town. He set off to start alerting his troops and getting everyone ready for the fight.

Entering the town, the two American units split. The grunts headed for the covering position, planning to take advantage of the long sight line of the main street. The SOF took the side streets, with the Razor zooming ahead of the upgraded pickup.

Despite the vehicles moving around, the bulk of the OPFOR hadn’t spotted the incoming threat. The green technical set off on patrol while the militia finished their discussion and moved to go back inside the compound.

However, the two most northern cops had spotted the bulky Humvees rolling around and became alert to the incoming threats.

As the next turn began the Americans moved even further into town. Both the Humvees finally rolled into their positions and prepared to set up an overwatch.

The two SF vehicles continued to speed along, heading straight for the compound wall and a possible assault position.

In the next turn, the pirates snatched the initiative. The alert police had grabbed the rest of their team and sprinted across the street in order to find a fighting position. However, this was a major tactical blunder. One of the Humvees had setup overwatch and the .50cals ripped a bloody hole in the team, piling on the suppression. The other Humvee fired past the police at the green technical just pulling out of the compound. However, all the rounds missed causing nothing more than suppression.

After having interrupted the enemy’s movement phase, the US Army deployed. Leaving the gunners in their seats, the rest of the team spread out. One fireteam setup on the roof to provide more fire while the other began checking nearby buildings for possible insurgent hotspots.

The SF had finally reached the corner and momentarily slowed in order to take it.

However the gunner on the pickup was itching for a fight. The grunts had reported two police heading for side road and the gunner was now ready. As they passed the gap, the M2 hammered between the buildings. This burst of fire dropped two more police, bringing that main squad down to one policeman hiding behind a car.

In the next turn, the SF vehicle came sliding round the corner, guns facing forward. This sudden appearance shocked the militia and the snarl you can see above appeared. Green had frantically reversed and turned to get away from a crossfire of .50cals while Blue had just moved through the gate as the main gunner frantically wheeled the turret around. The smaller gate had seen action, with all the militia pouring through as Big Dave started to move to join the fight.

Before Blue could hammer a round into the new attackers, the SF pickup sent a burst of .50cal rounds into it. No major damage was caused but it began a hail of rounds onto it.

The rest of the American forces began to send fire down towards Blue. Multiple hits caused damage, first immobilizing the vehicle and then sending .50cal rounds straight through the passenger compartment. The driver was instantly killed while the passenger was incapacitated.

Also at this time the Razor commander had swung its M240 round and lit up the squad of local militia. It’s four shots took down half the squad with the rest being removed by carbine and LMG fire from the grunts further up the map.

However, it wasn’t all going the Operator’s way. Green emptied a burst into the Razor. Only one round hit but it slammed into the driver. It only incapacitated him but the lack of action sent the Razor skidding towards the wall.

The following turn saw the SF disembarking from their rides. The team medic rushed to deal with the driver while the rest of the operators started engaging enemies.

A UGL blast was targeted at Green. However it missed and scattered onto the group of militia around the technical. Both the RPG gunners were vaporised and even one of Big Dave’s squad took a hit. At the same time, one of the operators had requested a missile strike to drop right on top of the wall next to the Green technical.

While all this had been going on, a small group of contractors had appeared from two buildings on the board. Initially it seemed like they intended to fight, with one team using the armoured SUV as a shield and advancing behind it. However, seeing the Americans at the compound gates, the rest of the mercs saw the way the wind was blowing. They quickly rushed to get in their vehicles, slinging kit into the boot and moving in a non-combat way. One of the contractors also radioed to the Americans, quoting the days authentication code for Private Military Companies in the region.

Checking the codes against the daily orders, the Humvee gunner did not engage the vehicles, instead letting them speed away from the battle raging behind them.

Around this time, the heavy weapon teams from the police had got their act together and moved to join the fight. However, they were still in the firing line and were taking rounds from the Americans.

Back at the main gate, a traffic accident appeared to have occurred. Blue had been immobilized right in front of the gate and so Red would have to ram the damaged vehicle in order to get into the fight. Luckily the ram didn’t destroy either vehicle but it did end up knocking Green (who had rolled forward to get out of the firing line. The militia decided to use these vehicles as cover and got ready to engage the attackers.

Despite this, the militia got pounded again. Rounds poured in knocking down fighters, killing the gunner on the back of Red and pinning everyone in place.

The Argo mercs reached the AO edge and swiftly drove off in the direction of the highway.

Big Dave saw the way things were going and started sprinting (along with his team) towards a parked pickup that could be used to escape. It was a slim chance but maybe the mess behind him would distract the Americans.

And just after everyone had cleared the target zone, a Maverick missile screamed out of the sky and blew a hole in the compound wall.

At this point the middle battle was basically over. The police had been annihilated (only one officer was left alive) while the militia were drowning in suppression or dead. Big Dave’s pride and joys (the technicals) were all combat ineffective, unable to do nothing more than act as a roadblock.

Big Dave kept running to his escape vehicle just as the two Humvees moved into position to block the main routes.

Big Dave reached the vehicle and, rather than wait for the rest of his team, slammed the car into reverse heading for the exit.

This move took him into the firing line of the Humvee. For this turn, he was safe as the Army wanted him alive.

Slamming into gear he skidded round the corner, sped past the two remaining members of his squad (one having been engaged by the Humvees) and began to make a break for it in the other direction.

However, he hadn’t taken into account the three operators that had crept into his compound. Before he even saw them, two carbine bursts and a hail of battle rifle rounds had slammed into the crew compartment. Everyone inside were injured, with Big Dave beginning to bleed out in his seat.

Having just seen their boss’s vehicle get shot up, and presented by a pair of .50cal barrels from the Humvees, the remaining Eritreans surrendered to the US Army.

A few minutes later the operators come to verify the casualty. Big Dave was now dead and the battle won. Not the best outcome but a victory for the US Forces.

But why were Argo in the village? And what had been in those containers inside of Big Dave’s compound? Maybe the interrogations of the remaining Eritreans can reveal who Big Dave was dealing with. 

Overall a really fun game. It came about due to some improvisation and would need a few tweaks if played again but both of us really enjoyed it. There were loads of cool moments, from the SOF sliding round the corner to see the crowd of technicals in front of them to Big Dave’s failed attempt to escape.

My big problem was forgetting two assets I’d been given. As this was pirate town, I should have been rolling for reinforcements every turn once I started taking casualties as the rest of the pirates started flocking to the fight. I also had a mortar strike that I should have dropped on the US Army base of fire and prevented the two 50cals from locking my guys down.

As the game was wrapping up, one of the other players at the club asked if I wanted to run a game next week so he can play with some of his toys. It’s only fair but I think I’m going to get all my insurgent toys out the cupboard. I’ve got some trucks to hunts down.

The start of this week saw the release of the film Free Fire on Blu-Ray and DVD in the UK. Set in the 1970’s, it’s an incredibly tense film all set in one location as an arms deal goes incredibly wrong. The film is packed full of twists and turns and well worth a watch. Incidentally, it was also filmed just round the corner from where I used to get my car serviced when I was in Brighton.

When I first saw the film, I started writing a wargames scenario (scribbling down ideas on the way back from the cinema) but then that whole “lets write a book” happened and it fell by the way side. But seeing as the film has just come out for everyone to watch it, I thought it would be a good time to finish it off.

The scenario is going to spoil a few things from the film so go watch it before coming back. Everyone past the double horizontal lines should be considered spoilers.

Seriously, don’t read further unless you don’t mind being spoiled on a really good film.

This scenario should be considered Alpha – it hasn’t been tested and will probably need one or two tweaks before I’d put it into prime time. Due to the setup, it’s also quite special rules heavy (although not as heavy as it could have been). In the case of anything not working, I recommend players feel free to tweak the scenario to their heart’s content before playing. I would love to hear the tweaks people come up with. Also this will be in a slightly different tone to many of the usual scenarios I show off. It’s a little bit of fun inspired by a film I like.

I’m going to run through a generic version of the scenario on the blog, covering the sides, layout, victory conditions and special rules. This version is designed so anyone can look at it and make it match their chosen set of rules.  However, there are two PDFs available giving the exact details for Skirmish Sangin and Spectre Operations.

If you want the scenario for Skirmish Sangin, Click Here.

If you want the scenario for Spectre Operations, Click Here.

Two parties meet to sell each other some guns. The deal is almost done, despite some issues along the way, when something goes horribly wrong. It begins with an argument but escalates when someone gets shot. Now we have a gun battle. Worse, a third-party is already on site and about to join the show

Forces:

The Buyers:

The Leader (1): Trained with Pistol **

The Bodyguard (2): Trained with Pistol *

The Cousin (3): Novice with Pistol *

The Help (4): Novice with Pistol

The Contact (5): Trained with Pistol **

The Full Back: Trained with Pistol

The Sellers:

The Prodigy (6): Novice with Pistol *

The Right Hand Man (7): Trained with Pistol *

The Operator (8): Trained with Pistol **

The Loudmouth (9): Novice with Pistol *

The Realist (10): Novice with Pistol

The Third Party:

Gunman, Enter Stage Left: Trained with Battle Rifle

Gunman, Enter Stage Right: Novice with Carbine

The Third Party will also take control of two other characters during the scenario (see the special rules)

Map Layout:

(The Creative Review post on the making of Free Fire was a huge help in getting the basic layout of the warehouse)

The number on each the circles link back to the list of characters further up the page.

To represent the small-scale of this gun battle, I recommend playing on small board (2’x 2′ or less). I’ve shown some areas of cover but it needs to be densely packed with plenty of half height and full height cover spread throughout the warehouse floor.

Starting positions

The map above show all the starting positions for those characters that begin on the board.

The two gunmen enter the board using the positions marked. They can choose which elevation they start (ground floor or first floor).

The Full Back moves on using the door marked on the plans.

Victory Conditions:

All three parties have the same goals. The game ideally ends when only one team is left. However, if you need to work out the winner when you run out of time, here are the victory points

• The Money: This is a moveable objective any character can pickup and move. To be in control of it, the team must have . It’s worth 200 points
• The Guns and Ammo: These are stationary objectives shown on the map. To be in control of each one, the team must be the only figures within 3″ of it as the game ends. The guns are worth 150 victory points, the ammo is worth 100 points
• Last Team Standing: If only one team is left standing, that team automatically wins.

Special Rules:

It Kicks Off: As the game starts, the action is just kicking off. As such, the characters are desperate to get behind some hard cover. In the first turn of the game, no character can shoot – they are too busy rushing for cover/to grab a gun/to get the money.

Delayed Reinforcements: The Full Back is on his way to assist with moving the guns after the deal is over. As such, he’ll be joining the party a little later than everyone else. The Full Back arrives on the board part way into the game (the exact time has a chance to vary and appears from the doorway marked on the map.

Who are these guys?: To begin with, the Third Party starts with no one on the battlefield. The Third Party player can, at any point in the game, choose to deploy the two gunmen. They appear from the positions on the map.

Not what they seem: One character from each side is not who they appear to be. At any point during the game, the Third Party player can take control of the Contact and the Right Hand Man. I recommend not telling the other two players that this may happen – instead they should take advantage of the surprise. Note, The Contact and the Right Hand Man will not shoot at each other. If one is about to engage the other, the Third Party player has to taken control of the one about to shoot.

Arming Up: The assault rifles, the whole purpose of this meeting, are currently sitting in their boxes. If a figure moves into contact with one, they can pick up an assault rifle and start using it.

Additionally, once the two gunmen have been taken out of action, the weapons they are using can be picked up by any of the other figures on the board

Limited Ammo: Although the new assault rifles are freely accessible, they only have a limited amount of ammo with each of them. Every time one of the collected assault rifle is fired, roll a D6.

• On a roll of 6, the rifle goes click. No shot takes places and the figure can no longer use the assault rifle.
• On a roll of 1 or 2, the burst finishes and then goes click. Resolve the shooting as usual. However, the assault rifle is no longer useable until the figure has picked up more ammo

The Van: Good news, there is more ammo for the assault rifles. Bad news, it’s all in the van. As the game begins the van is locked and inaccessible. To unlock it, someone has to grab the keys that are in the middle of the arena and then bring them into contact with the van. The Limited Ammo rule for a character can then be removed by moving an assault rifle wielding figure into contact with the van.

(Optional) Luck of the Devil: It’s amazing how around some people even a point-blank shot can miss. Some of the characters above have a number of asterisks after their names. This represents how many luck tokens they have to use over the course of the game. Luck tokens can burnt anytime a character is hit. Burning a token ignores the physical effect of that shot (they still take morale or suppression damage from it). 

Now you’ve read through it, here are the links to get the version specifically designed for the two main games I play. I look forward to hearing what happens when you play. Enjoy!

If you want the scenario for Skirmish Sangin, Click Here.

If you want the scenario for Spectre Operations, Click Here.

I’ll admit, when they announced that Spectre were running a gaming weekend in Cardiff I had tons of questions. What was it going to be like? What figures did I need to bring? Were the other Spectre players going to turn out to be tournament mad points fans? Would I find somewhere sensible to stay? Is driving to the other end of the country really worth it to play a wargame? Having got back from it and had some to think and decompress, I think it was one of the best wargaming experiences I’ve ever had.

The weekend began on Friday with me driving 9 hours from Edinburgh to get to Cardiff (mostly in the rain) and then checking into the nicest Youth Hostel I’ve ever seen. The rest of the evening was full of drinks, curry and some good chat with everyone before we eventually managed to grab some shut-eye.

Saturday started with all of us heading to the venue for the event. Now, when it was announced we were going to Cardiff to play Spectre, I think a lot of people (except those in Bristol and other places close by) found it pretty inconvenient due to the fact it wasn’t a more central location like London or Birmingham. However, after seeing Firestorm I can easily see why I’d found myself in Wales. It’s a fantastic place, with a huge space for boards, a nice casual area for card games or grabbing lunch, a bar serving both food and beer and a massive shop packed full of stuff (I had to prevent myself from being tempted into picking all sort of goodies from the well stocked shelves). Most importantly for anyone who likes taking photos of wargames or has ever served their time at the King and Queen in Brighton, it is very well-lit!

The gallery above is of all the board layouts that were in place at the start of Day 1. The terrain was from a mixture of sources – several tables were filled with stuff from Darren’s rather excellent collection while a few near the front had items brought by the Spectre team themselves. This included some new terrain items in the shape of some resin pallets and brick walls. I am a huge fan of those walls and will be on them like a shot when they come out.

The rest of the boards showed off the terrain available at Firestorm. As you can see in the picture above, the entire back wall is full with shelves for terrain for everything from fantasy to modern batman-esque games to the far future.

Of course, the main reason for being there was not to marvel at the venue but to get some games in! There were a selection being run, from a two day multi-game boot camp for two players (Mike and Si) who had never tried the game before to a four player game that a whole family were taking part in. Due to the number of people who were there and the varying experience levels, I ended up being matched against Craig “Tiny Terrain” for most of my games. He was a great opponent in all the games we played and I’m looking forward to the next time we get to play against each other.

Before I cover the fighting, I should mention a little bit about how the games were organised. The Spectre team had brought down almost all of their painted models in perhaps the biggest figure case I had ever seen. People wishing to run games had free rein to select figures from this box (or bring out whatever they had brought down themselves) and set up the scenarios how they wished. It was great to have the rules writers to hand while playing, answering all those minor questions and suggesting little tweaks to play around with. Thanks to JT, Matt, Ivan and Stephen for answering all the random queries throughout the weekend.

Anyway, enough introductions, time to get into the meat of the event – the battle reports! The italicised introductions are just some scene setting on my part but the rest of the action was entirely down to the dice and our choices as players. Just so this post isn’t a ridiculous long one, I’ve split most of the battle reports off into separate posts linked below. Each one starts and ends with a link back to hear to make reading easier.

Game 1 – La Chute du faucon noir

Bazistan: During operations, a US Army UH-60 Blackhawk has been shot down in the old town of Bazi City. Observers have spotted two casualties attempting to extracte themselves from the wreckage. Needing to secure the site, Coalition command has deployed a French SF team to the Old Town to capture and defend the area from the Militia. However, this is the Militia’s home turf and they know that the enemy are coming. Will the French be able to hold the crash site long enough to treat the wounded?

Click here to find out!

Game 2 – Teaching

Val Verde: A team of deniable operatives working for a Cartel is closing in on a facility owned by their rival. Their aim? To take out El Jefe while he is out in the open. Two problems: El Jefe has surrounded himself with some Bad Hombres and worse, the team don’t know exactly what the target looks like. Will El Jefe be able to escape?

Click here to find out!

As Game 2 ended, the staff from Firestorm were coming along to gently shepard the gamers out the door. After packing up my gear and taking it back to the hostel, the plan was to then head into town for a quiet drink. However, a pretty intense day of wargaming had drained us of any desire to go anywhere, so we grabbed a few beers, ordered pizza in the hotel lobby, had a casual chat and then went off for an early night, drifting to sleep to the sound of 101 hen/stag parties heading out into Cardiff.

As Day 2 started (after a minor delay), the Spectre team also got to pull out some previews of what is coming next. As well as mentioning the releases that came out on Monday (more veteran militia) and showing off the fully painted SF Technical with a mounted minigun that had previously been spotted speeding round the board during Operation Razor Strike (and is due out THE WEEKEND THIS POST APPEARS possibly), some greens (the final sculpted product ready to be sent off for casting) were also shown. I’m pretty excited for these; they included two female Task Force Operators, equipped with all the latest gear, and a small group of more tactical looking OPFOR with better equipment than usual (such as soft caps, chest rigs & tactical AKs). Fans of certain middling history channel tv shows may spot some of the inspiration behind them. It’s always fascinating to see what’s coming next, especially before it’s cast in metal and still fresh from the sculptor’s touch. We also got to hear about some things that are planned for the future. I’ll be keeping quiet on them for now but it’s obvious we’ll be seeing cool things from the team at Spectre for quite a while.

Of course, the real reason we were there was to get some more games in and so the battle reports carry on!

Game 3 – Bad Day in Bazistan

Jazan, Bazistan: an Emir in charge of one of the Bazi Militia is heading home after a meeting. The convoy is powerful force, thanks in part to the backing of the Argo Corporation. What the Emir doesn’t know is that the Russian GRU have issued a capture order on him and he is about to roll into a trap. Will the GRU be able to capture their prey?

Click here to find out!

Game 4 – Deck by Deck

Off the coast of Val Verde, two cartel lieutenants are meeting about this month’s pay with the gold bars sitting on the meeting room table. The two groups are enjoying the delights of a pleasure yacht. Unfortunately, their partying and lax attitudes to sentry duty has allowed a small team of operators to sneak on board. Splitting into two groups, they set off to do perform a HVT extract on the high seas. Will they be able to grab the targets?

Click here to find out!

After putting the dice down on the last game, it was almost time for the event to finish. Several people had already headed off (a minor downside of running an event on a Sunday) leaving only one table still active – a real clash of companies as Spectre and Warmill fought over a battlefield filled with some rather nice looking mansions that Warmill are working on. The Cartel put up a hard fight but it looked like the Operators were seconds away from snatching the target. As the day finished, we packed up what was left, said our goodbyes and then headed back to our various homes. Luckily my journey was split with a quick trip home (and a chance to check on my WIP demo boards) and so I didn’t have to do the full 9 hours on Sunday.

Final Thoughts

Having now had a chance to sit back and think about the weekend, its safe to say that I had an exceptionally good time, creating a very nice end to my summer break. The chance to head out and get some really solid games in against opponents other than my regular ones was great.

I think one of my main thoughts from the entire weekend is this – there is no better way to really see a set of wargame rules then to play it solidly for two days. I have had some little misgivings about Spectre Operations for a while, little things that were hard to quantify but meant it didn’t flow as well as it should have done. Having taken part in four quite varied games over the weekend it’s safe the say the misgivings are gone; they were probably caused by still being a little unfamiliar with bits of the rules that frequent play would have removed. Spectre Operations is something pretty special; lightweight enough to get anyone into it but still with a level of detail and realism that makes it not just feel like a reskin of Warhammer but more like something closer to the modern battlefield. The guys behind it know it has a few places that need tweaking (I’ll stop banging on about the vehicle rules at some point) and are also looking for ways to expand it, to polish off the rougher edges and make it better and better.

It’s also still incredible how wargaming brings so many types of people together while still keeping them civil. Throughout the weekend, I don’t think I ever heard anyone getting annoyed at each other. Any rules disagreements were swiftly settled by either a GM or the roll of a dice. As befitting the rules, no one appeared to be a try-hard, too focused on winning at all costs rather than enjoying and playing the scenario. There were plenty of people over the weekend who had never played Spectre before and I think all of them left with a smile on their face and chatting about the events of their games. Overall, it was just a really pleasant time.

To wrap up, this weekend was fantastic. Good gameplay, some fun times hanging out with friends and a chance to get all the toys from Spectre off the shelf. Yes, Cardiff was a long way but if you told me they were doing it again next year I’d be getting my booking in faster than a team of Elites would rampage through a small force of Militia.

Maybe I should talk to a friend about setting up something Spectre Operations in the north…

Hey, this is one of the battle reports from the Cardiff Spectre Operations Event. If you haven’t read the main post yet, you can find it here. If you just want the action, keep reading!

Game 4 – Boarding Action

Off the coast of Val Verde, two cartel lieutenants are meeting about this month’s pay with the gold bars sitting on the meeting room table. The two groups are enjoying the delights of a pleasure yacht. Unfortunately, their partying and lax attitudes to sentry duty has allowed a small team of operators to sneak on board. Splitting into two groups, they set off to do perform a HVT extract on the high seas. Will they be able to grab the targets?

The sides were as follows:

Operators:

All operators have body armour, pistols, personal med kits, frag and stun grenades.

• Team 1:
  • Elite with Carbine (Red Dot and Laser)
  • Elite with Battle Rifle (Red Dot and Laser)
  • Elite with SMG (Red Dot and Laser) “Pointman”
  • Elite with Carbine, Automatic Shotgun, breaching charge and breaching tools
• Team 2:
  • Elite Team Leader with Carbine (Red Dot and Laser)
  • Elite with Carbine (Red Dot and Laser)
  • Elite with SMG (Red Dot and Laser) “Pointman”
  • Elite with Carbine, Combat Shotgun, breaching charge and breaching tools

Cartel:

• Sicario Faction:
  • 1 Civilian VIP
  • 1 Trained Squad Leader with Assault Rifle
  • 4 Trained with Assault Rifle
  • 1 Trained with LMG
• Gangers Faction:
  • 1 Civilian VIP
  • 1 Militia Squad Leader with Assault Rifle
  • 7 Militia equipped with a mix of SMGs, machine pistols and assault rifles.

Additionally, there are several civilians on the boat. These are working for the cartel but not the main combat troops. If a 6 is rolled on the civilian reaction table something different from the rulebook happens. Rather than attacking the nearest figure, they are simply converted into another fighter for the cartel player; there is also a roll off to see if they are armed with a pistol or a machine pistol. These figures are still civilians and so are not particularly skilled. That said, they could be a nasty surprise if left unsecured.

The operators start on the bottom deck. The two factions of cartel start separately, with the VIPs on the Bridge and Captain’s Quarters deck. Above them on the roof deck, the cartel are enjoying the sun and partying away. Below the meeting, the team of sicarios are patrolling through the ship (aka doing their job).

The original plan for the operators was to sneak around as much as possible. However, two turns in the sicarios had just glimpsed Team 1 sneaking past the pool. They were able to put some fire down on the Pointman (lightly wounding him but mostly saved by his body armour) which alerted the rest of the boat. In response, the breacher in Team 1 swept his AA12 around and filled the lead target full of buckshot. Despite being injured, the SMG equipped point man was also able to put a burst into the last sicario visible and drop him. Team 1 then consolidated to protect the flanks while starting to clear the interior.

On the deck below, Team 2 were stacking up to breach the wall of the engine room so they could push through the rest of the deck. However, this activated one of the civilians. It seems like the Cartel VIP’s flunkey had finished being sea-sick and was now ready to investigate the strange noises going on in the ship.

On the top deck, the gangers stopped the party and started to form up and head downstairs to secure their boss. Several of these civilians started panicking before almost all were converted into pistol wielding goons.

Back on the middle deck Team 1 was tactically clearing the rooms, beginning with the dining area. The Sicarios opened up with a LMG, putting some suppression down and a lot of bullets through the furniture. Seconds later, the rest of the operators were able to incapacitate the gunner before he caused too much damage. This fire also put a ton of suppression points on the now injured bad guy.

The bottom deck saw Team 2 attempt a breach. The charge was placed but rather than create an entry hole, it simply caused some damage to the wall. The breacher would have to manually expand the gap. On the other side, Fatty heard the loud noise and moved to investigate.

As Team 1 moved forward to clear the deck, they flung a frag grenade to clear one of the corridors. This grenade wiped out two more of the trained Sicarios and finished off the gunner, moving all of the suppression onto the final enemy waiting in one of the side rooms to ambush the operators.

Team 2 finally busted through the wall and found themselves facing Fatty down the corridor. Rather than just shooting him, I decided I was going to try to secure as many civilians as possible (I blame long sessions of SWAT 4). A rush into combat, a few rolls, and the Pointman was slapping on the plasti-cuffs.

Team 1 continued to sweep through the deck to prevent anyone trying to flank them. As mentioned before, this poor sicario in the middle of the picture is drowning in suppression points, making him easy prey to the operators.

There were a few turns between the last picture and this one. I spent my time moving through the ship, cuffing civilians and cartel fighters such as the suppressed sicario to prevent any nasty surprises. The gangers spent that time fortifying the deck, setting up overwatch on the staircases and using the converted civilians as alarms against the operators sneaking up. It was going to be a pig to clear out.

The picture actually shows the start of the final assault. After using the leg up move to get Team 2 onto the correct deck and positioning most of Team 1 at the bottom of the stairs, my last operator stood in the pool and flung a stun grenade into the meeting room to hit as many people as possible. It was a hard throw but he managed to hit it dead on. Team 1 then started up the staircases. The stun grenades had reduced the effectiveness of the overwatch but it still put some suppression down on my assaulters. From the other end, Team 2 traded shots through the glass on the bridge. They easily took out the armed civilians before advancing inside to trap the gangers in a pincer move.

The final turn saw the operators continue moving forward. What was interesting was that the cartel had taken the initiative at this point as they were the only ones shooting (my operators were too busy rushing into close combat to prevent them being shot at). This led to the operators taking casualties, with both breachers finishing the game with 5 turns of the bleedout. That said, as the Team 2 breacher took his hit, his sidearm shot took out the militia squad leader and killed him. As the clock ran out, it was safe to say the operators were in charge of the boat.

Once the mission was over, both myself and Craig sat back and breathed out for the first time in a while. That final assault was on a knife-edge – a few fluffed rolls or the enemy armed with some more destructive weapons (like a combat shotgun) and it would have been a very different. Many of the advantages of the operators are tempered due to the close quarters, you can’t clear your way through with explosives. Fighting across 2D ship plans was something really different from usual and I would love to see someone make an actual MDF ship with all the interior rooms.

Big thanks to Harry from Warmill for letting us play across his excellent shipping plans. It was a really unique battle and a great end to the weekend.

Finished reading? For the rest of the battle reports and more on the event itself, the main post is here!

Hey, this is one of the battle reports from the Cardiff Spectre Operations Event. If you haven’t read the main post yet, you can find it here. If you just want the action, keep reading!

Game 3 – Bad Day in Bazistan

Jazan, Bazistan: an Emir in charge of one of the Bazi Militia is heading home after a meeting. The convoy is powerful force, thanks in part to the backing of the Argo Corporation. What the Emir doesn’t know is that the Russian GRU have issued a capture order on him and he is about to roll into a trap. Will the GRU be able to capture their prey?

The sides were as follows:

Russian Attackers:

All the Russians have body armour, frag and stun grenades, pistols

• Elite Squad Leader with Machine Pistol (with armour-piercing ammo) and Full length shield.
• 2x Elites with machine pistols (with armour-piercing ammo) and half-size shields
• 3x Elites with assault rifles (equipped with red dots)
• Elite with Grenade Launcher
• Elite with Light Sniper Rifle

The Russians also have an Anti-Vehicle IED which could have been place anywhere on the road. This was marked onto a sketch map.

Emir’s Bodyguards:

• Vehicle 1: Technical with HMG
  • Crewed by 4 trained and 1 trained squad leader all with Assault Rifles
• Main Vehicle: Armoured SUV
  • VIP sat in the back
  • Crewed by 3 professional armed with carbines (equipped with Red dots) and 1 professional Squad Leader with SMG (equipped with Red Dot)
• Vehicle 2: Technical 2 with HMG
  • Crewed by 3 trained all with assault rifles

As the game begun, all the Russians were hiding around the board (Craig had marked the positions using a sketch map). Unaware of the approaching attack, the bodyguards and their allies mounted up in their vehicles and drove away at half speed to begin their route.

Two turns passed and nothing happened (apart from a civilian wandering into the road). Moving round the corner, the lead vehicle was about to accelerate when there was an almighty bang. The Anti-Vehicle IED had been detonated, throwing the vehicle off the road and stunning those inside. The driver however was close to the blast and took the worst of it, a serious wound that knocked him out and caused him to start bleed out.

Following protocol, the rest of the convoy accelerated aiming to clear the killzone. However, the were quickly interrupted with more gun fire. The rear vehicle’s gunner was snatched from his mount by a shot that seemed to come from out of nowhere.

On top of the tower, the Russian with the pump-action grenade launcher pulled away his cover and began to aim his launcher. Meanwhile, on the factory in front of the convoy, three assault rifle wielding figures deployed and started pouring fire down on the militia.

In the following turn, the Russians continued firing, putting multiple bursts into the second technical. This caused enough damage to the engine to halt it. The VIP’s vehicle was now the only one moving, thanks mostly to its armoured nature.

The crew of both the technicals began to disembark, primarily looking for cover against the attackers. At the back, the second vehicle’s crew were moving swiftly to get the HMG back online. In front of them, the Vehicle 1’s casualty was dragged to the rear and out of the firing line while the rest got ready to engage the Spetznatz on the roof. 

Before the .50cal could bring the pain however, a flurry of grenades from both the launcher on the tower and the team on the roof landed amongst them. The blasts took out everyone from the lead vehicle, massively reducing the ability for the convoy to defend itself.

Meanwhile, the VIP’s vehicle had continued racing forward. As they approached the next junction they were shocked to see three Russians in siege gear and carrying shields stepping out into the road. Worse, when they opened up, the rounds were actually capable of penetrating SUV’s armour and caused suppression.

With the sounds of the last of the militia being taken out and the team leader in the back shouting at his driver to push it, the SUV managed to rally and kept racing forward. As long as they could keep moving, there was still a chance the Emir could escape.

That is until a penetrating shot ripped straight through the door and killed the driver. The vehicle came to a halt, right next to the rest of the Russians. It would take an agility test for the crew inside to be ready to go again as they would need to move the casulty out of the way before they could drive away.

(At this point Ivan quietly reminded us that as this was a US vehicle, the driver should be on the other side. We decided to fix that)

The squad leader managed to rally off most of the suppression but the crew fluffed the agility roll (the driver must have been wedged in place). All around, the Russians were getting closer but the armour was holding. That is, until one of the Russians placed a breaching charge on the door and pulled out a clacker.

I was too busy rolling dice at this point but a ridiculous bit of fighting went down. As the door blew away (stunning the crew inside), the Russian breacher stepped away and his buddy engaged the bodyguard behind the door in close combat. The first bodyguard went down but this just let the team leader put an automatic burst of SMG fire into the attacker. It didn’t cause any damage but it did cause some suppression. Next turn, the attacker shrugged off his suppression and climbed in the back of the car to engage the team leader into close combat, leading to the VIP being exposed as the team leader was taken out. More concerning, the passenger in the front finally got his act together and moved a into position to drive away.

Of course at this point, the driver was very aware of the angry Russian in the back seat trying to abscond with the VIP. Buckling in, he put his foot on the gas and slammed straight into the rear of the car parked across the road. Rather than the gentle tap that would have thrown the operative out of the car, the slam sent the car spinning away. It smashed past some boxes before landing heavily and exploding, immolating all those onboard. I rolled super high on the collision table and the follow-up armour penetration table roll, hence the rather destructive finale.

I had great games all weekend but I think this one takes the top slot. It was so evocative, from the first IED blast through the SUV being breached to the crazy attempt to escape at the end; As Craig said afterwards, it felt just like the opening scenes of a movie. Despite losing all of my guys and the VIP being immolated by my own mistake (man these Argo mercs suck), I still had a really good time.

Finished reading? For the rest of the battle reports and more on the event itself, the main post is here!

Hey, this is one of the battle reports from the Cardiff Spectre Operations Event. If you haven’t read the main post yet, you can find it here. If you just want the action, keep reading!

Game 2 – Teaching

Val Verde: A team of deniable operatives working for a Cartel is closing in on a facility owned by their rival. Their aim? To take out El Jefe while he is out in the open. Two problems: El Jefe has surrounded himself with some Bad Hombres and worse, the team don’t know exactly what the target looks like. Will El Jefe be able to escape?

After having got my first game in, I was asked to help out with introducing the two new players from game 1, Laurence and Jess, to actually playing Spectre with a small game to show off what the rules can do. Lawrence took the Elite Operators while Jess took the role of El Jefe.

The sides were as follows:

Cartel Assassins:

4 Elite operators all with frag and smoke. All weapons are suppressed.

• 3 with Assault Rifle, red dots and laser
• 1 with SMG, red dot and laser, battlefield trauma kit

Cartel Defenders:

• Sentries – 4 Trained with assault rifles, 1 Trained with pistol
• Squad 1 – 1 Trained Squad Leader with SMG, 1 Trained with RPG, 3 Trained with Assault Rifles
• Squad 2 – 1 Trained Squad leader with carbine, 1 Trained with flamethrower, 3 Trained with Assault Rifles
• Civilians – 4 Civilians, one of which is El Jefe (Trained Commander) in disguise

This report is going to be pretty quick as I was too busy running the game to take pictures.

To begin, the elites crept onto the board, moving for cover to begin the infiltration. In order to find El Jefe, they had to perform a scanning action (taking place in the command phase and requiring the operator not to to move). Luckily for Jess and me (it’s hard to run a game if the objective is taken out in the second turn) the first civilian wasn’t the target.

After realising that actually most people would be alerted if a suppressed weapon went off due to the small size of the board, Lawrence took out one enemy stealthy before deciding that no one can set off the alarm if there is no one left alive. Instead, Squad 1 of the Defenders got wiped by a pair of frag grenades and the elites started advancing on the compound. However, one of the sentries was able to injure an Assault Rifle wielding operator reducing the squad’s overall effectiveness. The return fire from everyone else took this plucky fighter out.

This reduction however didn’t prevent them from easily suppressing the rest of cartel guys thanks to their better skills and attachments. While getting closer and closer to the compound, Lawrence’s Assassins finally managed to spot El Jefe in disguise. Before he could be engaged, Jess rushed him into a building; sadly it seemed like the El Jefe was going to be trapped in there while the remaining defenders would try to hold off the enemy.

At this point, JT came across and reminded all of us what the objective was – keep El Jefe safe. Rather than getting bogged down with fighting to the last, El Jefe could simply escape and trigger a win. On the other hand, there was a big patch of open ground he would have to cross before safety.

Barely were the words out of JT’s mouth when El Jefe had vaulted out a window and was running for the hills. As the sound of gunfire continued into the distance (including the death of the flame thrower before he managed to get a shot off which was a common trend on the weekend), El Jefe full on sprinted towards the board edge; with a few hints Jess kept him out of the LOS of any of the Elites and just out of range of any thrown grenades. With only three inches in it, El Jefe moved off the edge of the board and escaped, giving Jess a win.

Overall, I’m really glad that everyone left the game having enjoyed it. The elites are really powerful in the right situation but the ending helps to drive home the point that even the best fighter can lose based on the objectives. Running a tutorial for new players was pretty hard work but was a cool experience.

Finished reading? For the rest of the battle reports and more on the event itself, the main post is here!

Hey, this is one of the battle reports from the Cardiff Spectre Operations Event. If you haven’t read the main post yet, you can find it here. If you just want the action, keep reading!

Game 1 – La Chute du faucon noir

Bazistan: During operations, a US Army UH-60 Blackhawk has been shot down in the old town of Bazi City. Observers have spotted two casualties attempting to extracte themselves from the wreckage. Needing to secure the site, Coalition command has deployed a French SF team to the Old Town to capture and defend the area from the Militia. However, this is the Militia’s home turf and they know that the enemy are coming. Will the French be able to hold the crash site long enough to treat the wounded?

Wanting to start the weekend off with a refresher, we decided to go for a reasonably simple yet exciting scenario. With JT on GM duties, my opponent Craig brought out his rather nice Task Force Operators painted up as French SF while I started emptying MENA militia and insurgents out of my bag.

The sides were as follows:
French SF:

• 8 Operators (one of which was an Elite Team Leader) armed with the usual gear (body armour, frag/smoke/stun grenades, etc). They were armed with a mixture of LMGs, Carbines and a DMR.

Militia: 

• 12 man mob armed with ARs except for two figures armed only with grenades (all Militia except 1 Militia Commander) 
• 4 man team with two MMGs and two ARs (both rated Militia)
• 2 man sniper team with DMR and AR (one Militia, one Militia Squad Leader)
• 6 man “snatch” squad with carbines, an assault rifle with UGL and LMG (5 Trained and one Trained Squad Leader)

Before we got dice rolling, the GM pulled both of us aside separately and talked up some sneaky rules. I got to pick D3 buildings to act as spawn zone; the dice gave me two and so I picked ones close to the objective and in positions where I could trap the elites. Then, the SF were taken aside and told something; I later found out that the French were getting some OTA (off table assets) in the form of a Little Bird gun run and some orbiting snipers.

As the game begun, the board was clear of both forces. The first sign of trouble was two teams of four operators (nicknamed North group and South group based on how far up the table from my point of view they were), each taking different routes to the downed bird. The groups remained in cohesion while checking the corners, carefully picking their way towards the target.

Spotting the operators arrive, the militia began to deploy. On the roof of one building, the sniper team appeared and setup looking covering the down helicopter and a main avenue. Across the battlefield the MMG team were deployed in order to take up a suppressing position on the roof, seeking to gain the height advantage.

At this stage, we were joined by two more players, Laurence and Jess who had never played Spectre before. Jess decided to watch to begin with, while Laurence took over as co-militia commander and gained control of the snatch squad and the sniper (presumably the squad leaders had spotted a chance to take some glory and decided to go off script a little bit).

The operators saw the militia appear and proceeded to start taking advantage of their superior equipment. In order to cover their approach to the wreck, the north team popped smoke into the zone covered by the MMG teams. It didn’t completely fill the gap but did do it’s job.

The militia saw this action as confirmation an attack was taking place. The bulk of the force, a 12 person militia squad, deployed out of the same building as the snipers and prepared to march down the street towards the operators. The large squad has an additional benefit for militia, giving them a boost to command.

As a response to the noise of a rabble, two of the operators from south group maneuvered into a position to cover the street and prevent them being flanked.

The operators also went for their tool kit and marked up the MMG gunners rooftop for an Off Table Asset (you can see the countdown dice showing the target). All I knew at this point was that something was coming but I had no idea what form the support was going to take.

The main focus of this picture was the first surprise of the day. Before the North Group could advance on the wreck, and taking advantage of a shift in initiative, the Snatch squad came pouring out of the MMG building and bum rushed the operators. However, due to the positioning, they only managed to surround one operator.

This would be an issue as my opponent easily worked out a counter strategy. Before rushing into combat themselves, the rear most operator rolled a flashbang in the midst of the combat. This worked wonderfully, stunning almost all of the snatch squad who were in combat and reducing their stats to 1.

The operators who charged home easily won the melee against their stunned opponents. With their close combat stat reduced to 1, it was very hard for the snatch squad to cause an sort of damage to them. In the following turn, the squad would attempt to fall back before re-engaging at range.

Above the melee, the MMG gunners had deployed and were now ready to shoot. It was also the perfect moment as two operators had just rushed the downed Blackhawk in an attempt to begin treating the injured crew. The smoke may have blocked the view but using the elevation (and the re-roll offered by being crew served) the team took one of the operators down and suppressed his buddy.

As the mob moved toward the crash site, they attempted to control the street by spreading out and putting a hail of fire down on the two operators covering their crossing. They managed to put down some suppression and threatened the Elite’s hold on the initiative.

In the following turn, a pair of operators moved past the retreating squad and set up in position to cover the crash site. Unfortunately for them, they found themselves exposed to the hail of MMG fire. One gunner wiped out the team leader sat by the wreck while the other shot up a member of North squad. It seemed that these guns were a serious threat, preventing the operators from keeping mobile and chewing through their higher than normal defence.

The MMG gunners were too busy hammering away to hear the sound of a helicopter. By the time they heard it it was too late. A Little Bird came screaming in across the map and lit up the entire squad with it’s miniguns. The remnants of the snatch squad were saved only by the geometry of the gun run, shielded from the gunfire by the overhang on the building. On the other hand, the remaining operators did finish them off by throwing a grenade in, completely wiping out the squad. The militia forces on the northern half of the board had been completely wiped out.

Back on the street, the mob continued their fire, as well as moving part of the squad to start covering the crash site/trade shots with north group. Around this time, the hail of fire brought down another operator and left another elite separated from his team (you can just about see him on the left side of the street).

The way cleared by the miniguns of the air support, the rest of North group pushed into the square. This quickly turned into a two way rifle range, with the operators getting capped at two suppression while piling points onto the mob. Their will held, thanks in part to their large numbers and the presence of the militia commander.

With the risk of the separated operator flanking the mob, the sniper team moved from their starting position and into one covering the mobs flank.

In addition, the mob’s grenadiers started to advance down the street to get into throwing range. The operators had attempted to pop smoke to cover their movement but some of the militia fighters were now overwatching the gap, ready for when the separated operator would attempt to rejoin his buddies.

With another roar, a transport helicopter overflying the area heralded the arrival of another OTA asset. This time, it was two elite snipers ready to turn the tide. With two targets (the militia commander and the militia snipers), they decided to focus on cutting off the command and slammed both shots into the Militia Commander in the streets. With the sudden drop in command, Craig was easily able to regain the initiative and keep it for the rest of the game.

Back at the crash site, the remaining operators popped more smoke and started to close on the objective while putting down fire.

The militia however were content to keep popping in and out of cover, with the lead fighter absorbing all the suppression coming his way.

The French were getting annoyed at this and so decided to really push back. Popping a stun grenade in, a hail of gun fire from every operator brought down a pile of the militia reducing them to a fraction of their starting number.

The game was close to an end and I was almost ready to concede. However, I decided to go out guns blazing. The militia rushed the operators around the wreck running forward in an attempt to lock some enemies in close combat and mob them. Unfortunately, I was bringing fists to a gun fight and so the last of the militia fighters was dropped.

After the final member of the mob was taken down, an eerie silence filled the air. The French SF had only just managed to capture the wreck and so they could begin treating the casualties giving them the win. It had taken a lot out of them, with four Elite operators killed. On the other hand, the only remaining militia was the sniper team so it’s safe to say the operators (and the orbiting helicopters) had given a lot more than they had taken. It was a close game with some great swings as each side seized advantageous situations but Craig seized the day thanks to some clever use of positioning and equipment.

Finished reading? For the rest of the battle reports and more on the event itself, the main post is here!

(Seeing as I’ll be too busy on Saturday playing Spectre to do the social media blitz I like to do when a post goes up, enjoy this early battle report!)

To get ready for the Spectre weekend in Cardiff (an event I’ll be on my way to when this post goes live), I decided to spend the first evening of my holiday over in York, playing a game of Spectre. Seeing as my opponent is part of the inspiration behind fictional band of contractors, we decided it was only far to add to the plot. A sneaky dawn raid to snatch a HVT should be an interesting challenge which couldn’t possibly go wrong.

After the Bazi City and Argo Affair, Commando Global Solutions was banned from operating inside of Bazistan. While the head of the Aden office was in Bazi City trying to re-negotiate their license, the acting operations chief (formerly in charge of the Bazi City team) was approached by the Aden Government to perform a dawn raid to snatch a troublesome tribal leader from the badlands that cross the Aden-Bazistan border. Seeing as the CGS A-Team was resting after the events of the Argo Affair, CGS B-Team were deployed into the hills, procedding to hike through the night to reach the target.

Commando Global Solutions were rolling with the following force. All had personal medical kits, pistols, close combat equipment, frag and stun grenades and radios.

Team 1

• 1-1: Professional Squad Leader: Carbine (scope and red dot), specialist close combat
• 1-2: Professional: Cabine (scope and red dot), Battlefield Trauma Kit
• 1-3: Professional: Compact LMG
• 1-4: Professional: Carbine (scope, red dot and laser), Breaching tools

Team 2

• 2-1: Professional Squad Leader: Carbine (scope and red dot) and UGL
• 2-2: Professional: Carbine (scope and red dot) and UGL, Battlefield Trauma Kit
• 2-3:Professional: LMG
• 2-4:Professional: Carbine and Light Anti-Tank weapon

Sniper Team:

• S-1:Professional: Light sniper rifle (suppressor, subsonic ammo)
• S-2:Professional: Carbine (scope and red dot) and UGL, Battlefield Trauma Kit

Design Notes: Overall, a pretty powerful array of firepower and useful gear. Team 1 is setup for the close assault, team 2 for mid-range fire support and the sniper team for backup. Interesting to note, the team is not wearing body armour, using silencers or carrying night vision goggles. Blame poor corporate spending or making the equipment match the models.

Arrayed against them there was a massive force of trained tribesman. These guys started unalert, with the vast majority off board. However, once the alarm was raised, the commander can start calling in backup (including a squad asleep in the buildings) and one random unit a turn will appear automatically. As long as the commander keeps being successful with his Command rolls, large amount of bad guys will appear from the village just down the road.

Initial Force:

• Professional Commander – Assault Rifle, Radio (HVT)
• Trained Soldier, 4x Assault Rifle, 1x MMG, all with radios (sentries)
• Trained Soldier, 1x HMG, 1x Assault Rifle (HMG team)

Reinforcements:

Main Force – split into 8 man groups

• Trained Squad Leader – 2x assault rifle
• Trained Soldier – 4x RPGs, 4x MMGs, 1x LMGs, 15x Assault rifle

Support

• Professional Soldier, 1x Light Sniper Rifle, 1x DMR
• 2x Technicals – Random weapons

Design Notes: This was basically me getting as much of my Taliban force on the board and then adding some technicals for the fun of it. The main idea? You don’t want to get stuck in a slogging match with this lot. If the commander is able to get up and get on the radio, CGS B-Team will be in trouble.

The battlefield was arrayed as you can see above, with the road appearing from the north edge. The HVT was located in one of the two main buildings (rolled off when the game started). The rest of the tribesmen were deployed in logical positions – two on the tallest hill, three close to the vehicles and the heavy weapon team on the roof of the main building. CGS deployed on the north-west corner of the board. The sniper team found a good overwatch point while the main bulk of the force was hidden behind the hill. As mentioned before, all the tribesmen on the board begun the game unalert, with the target fast asleep.

The first two turns took place in the last stages of dawn and the operators took full advantage of this, sprinting down the flank well out of line of sight of any of the sentries. However, as the third turn began, PKM sentry and his friend spotted the last man in the team getting behind a hill.

Luckily, the sniper team saw the beginnings of an alarm cry and sprung into action deciding to go kinetic. The marksman dropped the larger threat (the MMG) but his spotter whiffed the shot. The other sentry saw his mate take a hit and so dived to the ground suppressed. Back in the village, the sentries broke up their meeting with one heading for a rooftop, blissfully unaware that a squad of operators was fast approaching his position.

As the next turn started, the sniper team changed his target to the .50cal gunner sat on the building top. Again, one shot, one kill. The LAW gunner in team 2 resisted the urge to drop a rocket on the village and instead engaged the rooftop sentry with his assault rifle and dropped him. Closer in, team 1 wiped the rest of the sentries and continued sneaking around the flank of the village. At this point, all that was left of the tribesmen was two trained fighters lying in cover with their squadmates suppression on them instead at different positions on the board.

However, thanks to the situation escalating, the next turn began with a group of reinforcements coming onto the board. An 8 man group of fighters (including an RPG and an MMG) moved down the road. Additionally, the commander shouted down the radio and a technical with .50cal responded. However, they did managed to roll onto the board at precisely the wrong place. While the rest of his team was on overwatch for enemies appearing from the village, Operator 2-1 saw an opportunity. He turned, aimed his UGL and popped off a round. It landed squarely on the bonnet and with a dull “krump” shredded the engine (a M-Kill) and both the crew members.

The Sniper’s Spotter then turned round and delivered a 40mm round straight into the heart of the new group of enemies that had appeared. By the end of the operators turn, the reinforcements were almost decimated, with only 3 very suppressed tribesmen left in any sort of effective combat state.

The other member of the HMG team on the roof ran to grab the spade grips and start hammering away at the attackers. However, the sniper once again earned his pay dropping the new gunner before he could even get a shot off. This shot however had an unfortunate side effect. Finally drawing a bead on the sniper team, the last remaining sentry fired off a burst of AK fire. One round found its target and suddenly the operators were one fighter down. What was left of the reinforcements also opened fire, putting some suppression points down.

That last burst of fire was important – for the first time, the initiative swung to the tribesmen as they started to be the louder party in the firefight. The Tribal Leader managed to roll spectacularly well, bringing on two squads of infantry (one from the collection of buildings and a weapon heavy squad from down the road) and a technical packing a heavy recoilless rifle. Perhaps the most worrying, the two-man sniper team crept onto the board, waiting to ambush the operators if they managed to snatch the target. The infantry in the buildings started out of coercion, needing time to form up.

This delay was an issue for them as Team 1 came busting in, stun grenades landing first before being taken out for a blast of close range shots. The operators were now within spitting distance of the target.

At the other end of the table, Team 2 and the Spotter were about to get lit up. An overwatch had dropped a few of the oncoming squad but the rest were now in a position to open fire. With a hail of MMG fire, Team 2 were cut down – unfortunately their position was lacking in cover and left them exposed. The final three fighters from the other squad put 9 rounds onto spotter. Only one hit but it started him bleeding out.

Unfortunately we ran out of time at this point. CGS had lost its sniper team and most of team 2. They had taken out a large number of tribesmen but unfortunately the survivors were about to get overrun. I think it’s safe to say that the CGS B-Team was up a creek without a paddle. The next operation into the tribal lands could be very interesting.

Design Notes: I think I made this scenario a little on the hard side for a second game of Spectre. Next time I would tone down the reinforcements, limit it to one a turn or add a delay.

“Let me get this straight. You embarked on a cross border operation, into a nation we have no right to be operating in, into a valley filled with hostile fighters, with no air support. And now the team is either dead or captured?”

The boss closed his eyes; it had been a long week negotiating with the Bazi Interior Ministry and this was the last thing he wanted to do. With a resigned sigh, he opened a cabinet and pulled out a plate carrier.

“Okay, here is a new plan. I’m going to call in a few favours and then we are going to take a little trip. Get the A-Team together and talk to the quartermaster about some gucci gear. When we get back we can have a talk about biting off more than you can chew”

The Action will continue in CGS010. Coming soon!