another game of 'boots on the ground' with full picture report

[petercooman]

So, since some people got 'tickled' by my earlier post, i decided to play another scenario and record the gameplay a bit.

Choose a scenario where you enter the board at the bottom corner, and exit on the opposite corner with at least 4 guys in 30 turns. Sounds simple? Guess again! Boots on the ground never plays out simple. Here is alpha team's struggle for survival!


setup: i enter the board bottom right and have to exit top left corner.


1:I decide to split my unit into two fire teams, i check the first civilian, and he is just that, a honest citizen. The AI makes one of the enemies a sniper. I decide to place him at the end of the road, next to the exit point:



2:I enter the first building by the window and catch a rebel by surprise, and knock him out:


3:The enemy makes a move, and loses two in the ensuing firefight, but wounds the sniper in the start area


4:The second fire team moves up and kills an enemy, while the rest of them duck for a drone flying over


5:The medic heals the sniper, but 3 enemies pop out of the nearby buildings. Their fire proves insuccesfull and they lose one of their number


6:The team moves on while the enemy draw closer. One gets killed in the firefight


7:The demo specialist diffuses an ied under a parked car, and one man in each team takes a hit from the enemy.


8:While the gunfight continues, one of the gi's gets hit by an explosion behind a door.


9:the team moves into the building, but the enemy launches an attack that sees the SAW gunner killed. Not going well.


10:The leader's team defends the building, while the other team gets hit by an rpg and loses a soldier, while another gets wounded.


11:since i can't move by team (minimum 3 required to move as team), i pull first fire team to the medic's team one by one, but the gi gets isolated.


12:I get the entire team moving to go help him out, and two soldiers who got separated from their unit join my squad


13: i link up with the gi and kill his assailant


14: the medic gets hi patched up well enough to move, while the enemy keeps low.


15: but as soon as i want to get moving again, another an goes down.


16: they are pouring in the building now, and men start to get hurt. The demo guy gets killed outright.


17:Just trying to survive!!


18:tricky situation, but starting to calm down. At least i am gunning down as many enemies as are appearing!


19:a welcome reinforcment enables me to lock down the building (if you get enough entrances covered, enemies can no longer spawn at the doors and windows, i had forgotton about this rule up untill this point)


20:Insurgents appear in the windows on the other side of the street, while the medic tries to patch everyone up


21:another soldier joins me. (they must be drawn here by all the noise)


22:medic heals the sniper, and i promptly shoot an enemy across the street.


23:medic makes everybody fit to move, and the attack intensifies again.


24:i split up in two teams again to cover both sides and the insurgents converge on my position


25: i have no more hope of making the dash towards the objective (i counted the squares  ), so decide to just try and keep everyone alive. I kill 3 enemies


26: i get a fireteam moving to clear the street in front of me


27: one of the civilians in the street seems to be hostile, while one of the more seriously wounded get extracted


28:hostile civilian appears to be carrying a heavy weapon



29: while i kill the heavy weapon guy, a door behind me explodes, wounding a trooper


30:while the medic applies first aid, an enemy comes storming through the doorway.



That was the last turn, i assume the men retreat to their building after that, and try to hold out until they can be extracted. IF they get extracted. They have 3 men KIA, the demolistions expert, saw gunner and a GI.



So another loss, but goes to show how brutal this game is on the player. I could have gotten closer to my objective, but i couldn't bring myself to leave that wounded GI behind (see turn 14-15). i was trying not to get gunned down in the street too much , meaning i lost precious time while going through the buildings.

Next time; i'll just try and rush through the streets!

[Ithoriel]

Nice AAR.

Even more glad I ordered a copy of the game!

I'm reminded a little of Space Hulk and a little of Zombies!!!

[toxicpixie]

Cracking scenery mat - evocative enough to make me think about the "real world", not awkward enough to be fiddly.

Also, ouch. You can't fanny around in a city full of enemies. Or even people pissed off enough that any sign of hesitation means they they're willing to nip up and loose a mag or two at your direction...

[petercooman]

Nice AAR.

Even more glad I ordered a copy of the game!

I'm reminded a little of Space Hulk and a little of Zombies!!!

I hope you have fun with it! Just make sure you keep pushing on with the game. As you can see, it can be a frustrating experience, but in a good way. You don't like this game, but you like the challenge it brings

Cracking scenery mat - evocative enough to make me think about the "real world", not awkward enough to be fiddly.

Also, ouch. You can't fanny around in a city full of enemies. Or even people pissed off enough that any sign of hesitation means they they're willing to nip up and loose a mag or two at your direction...

Yes, you need to make haste, and as i said, you are constantly making choices. One of the core mechanics of the game is that you can activate one team (3 or more guys) or activate one single guy and use his special abilities. So for example, your medic can heal one point of damage, but while he does that your team is staying put for a round. You always have to choose what you think is best. Shoot for a round and risk the wounded guy getting hit again, or heal him and risk being swarmed next turn because you didn't kill enough enemies. (or leave the wounded soldier and make a dash for the objective, but i still can't bring myself to fo it.)

[toxicpixie]

Focus on the mission objective FOCUS!

[petercooman]

Focus on the mission objective FOCUS!

Yes sir

[bigjackmac]

Pretty cool, Peter.  Do you think you'll add minis at some point?  It's a sickness of mine, but that's the first thought that crossed my mind

V/R,
Jack

[petercooman]

I have thought about it, but with all the flipping over with the counters, i have steered clear from it. maybe when the lead muntain is reduced to a lead hill 

[bigjackmac]

Peter,

Do you think using minis would work?  I know sometimes boardgames just have so much going on (with various rules, board trackers, and counters) that it's just not practical, so I'm curious what you think.  I imagine I already have everything I'd need for troops in 15mm, just need to figure out the buildings.  I wonder if you could just use the mat, and put building on top of it?  What scale do you figure that would make sense for.

Your batrep here was pretty cool, and I like the feeling of constantly being under pressure, though I don't like the feeling of never being able to win   But it sounds fun, and, on the strength of your batrep, I'm seriously pondering buying the game and giving it a shot.

V/R,
Jack

[petercooman]

There are people doing that with 15mm, so right up your alley!

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/976341/boots-ground



I think it would work ok, but you would have to reference the tokens sometimes. This is only necessary when you activate a figure individually. The token displays the figures movement and shooting modifier. That is all. The numbers change once they are wounded.

For the buildings, i have thought about using something like the bendy walls they make for rpg's:




I don't know of a suitable product in 15mm though

[bigjackmac]

Awesome, I've got those exact figures, though his look better

And I've never seen those RPG bendy-walls thingies before, very interesting.  I wonder where I might get some here in the States...  As popular as all that RPG stuff is here, I bet I can find some in one of the comic book shops.  But you mention they might not be the right size for 15mm? 

V/R,
Jack

[petercooman]

Awesome, I've got those exact figures, though his look better

And I've never seen those RPG bendy-walls thingies before, very interesting.  I wonder where I might get some here in the States...  As popular as all that RPG stuff is here, I bet I can find some in one of the comic book shops.  But you mention they might not be the right size for 15mm? 

V/R,
Jack

They are for 28 mm i think

[bigjackmac]

Hmmm, that stinks...  How many scenarios are there, I.e., how many games do you figure you'll get out of it? 

Sorry to bother you Peter, but this has definitely grabbed my attention.

V/R,
Jack

[petercooman]

No bother at all jack, happy to share gaming thoughts 


There are 11 scenarios included in the box, from building clearing, to hostage rescues and casualty extraction. I'll post a list later on when my little one is napping.

There is also a 'hunt for bin laden' style scenario you can download from the net:

http://worthingtonpublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/FullHouse.pdf


I think the second printrun of the game included the above scenario as a default.

[petercooman]

All right, let's sum things up:

First off, you have 4 difficulty settings:

newbie: full team with two additional GI's   (full team is: leader, scout,sniper, demo specialist, Heavy Weapon Expert and medic)

man down: run any mission without the leader

top shot: run a mission with only the scout and the sniper

dealer's choice: you get the leader and two GI's, and get to choose 3 other members to form a 6 man team.

Each mission can be played in 3 ways:

solitaire: just your team against the AI

co-op multi team: each player plays a team against an AI  (there are two full teams included in the game, alpha and bravo)

competitve multi team: each player plays a team, generally the one who completes the objective first wins


It is also suggested that the game can be played with a 3rd player, who plays the insurgents. I played this way once with me being the insurgents, but being restricted by the card draw means it is much more fun to play an allied team.


The scenarios:

1: egg hunt: there are 2 Weapons of Mass Destruction hidden inside the crates in the buildings. Find them and extract them.

2: hostage run: 2-4 hostages are located in 1 building on the map, extract them and minimum 3 team members to win

3: hostage part deux: 4 hostages are located in 4 different buildings, retrieve 2 of them and extract them with minimum 3 team members

4: four corners: clear and control The 4 corner buildings of a specific intersection on the map

5: B avenue marathon: the mission i played in the batrep here, cross enemy held territory

6: BLDG.26 : clear and control a specific building on the map

7: hot lz: you start in the middle of the board surrounded by enemies, the LZ was hotter than expected! Make your way to the extraction point with at least 4 team members. (i mentioned this one here: http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,14611.0.html )

8:medic! : The scout and sniper are wounded and surrounded, move the team in to extract them. The medic has to get them on their feet first though.

9:clear! :   clear and control 5 buildings.

10: hold fast: you control one of the bigger buildings, and are surrounded by 20 enemies (initially). Hold out for 30 turns!

11: jack of clubs: There are a bunch of insurgents on the board with one of them being a sniper. Take out the sniper. and only the sniper!!! You can only kill the other enemies with defensive fire, no engaging them yourself!   This is an odd mission, but made to make you think, and infiltrate the board while staying away from the baddies



That's all that is in the box (unless you get a second print, wich as noted contains the 12th scenario)


For the price you pay, there is some decent replayability in the box. You can find it on discount now, but originally it was not that expensive anyway.I bought mine for 28€ at the crisis show. As i mentioned before, the game never got off that well. Many of the reviews you read about it mention that it's an ugly game, but i haven't read any comments about bad gameplay. This was a game from wortington publishing before they made their more succesfull game series of 'band of brothers'. They were a small company and probably still are.

IF you are used to Fantasy flight production standards, you can say it doesn't compare, but if you have played the old SPI games, this looks far better than those. (too me at least)

Lot of gamers still don't realize that these publishers do not work on big margins, and that they cannot all afford artwork like FFG. The market is too small for that.

I'l happy i bought it, and still enjoy playing!

ANy questions at all, don't hesitate!