Operation Dragon Forge

[bigjackmac]

Thanks Phil, and Lemmey, we'll see.  It was the hand of fate, via the dice, of course.  I actually don't want her to be a bad guy, was hoping for a recurring role for Ms Scalleppini.

V/R,
Jack

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Well, she might be an agent, a double agent, a triple agent or a dirty double crossing double-double agent, maybe!

[bigjackmac]

Dammit!!!

Nuthin' worse than a dirty double crossing double-double agent!!!

We'll see how things shake out.  Next fight coming up Thursday.

V/R,
Jack

[bigjackmac]

All,

AKA, Unit 101's 4th Fight of Operation Payback

It's 0430 on 8 Jul 1990, and Unit 101 is on the way to take down The Bomb Maker.  The raid to capture his associate, Vito Squirreleone, didn't quite work out as planned, but Cuban Intel was able to exploit personal electronic devices (yeah, I kinda forgot about the fact this is 1990, but whatevah) found on Squirreleone's body and determine the likely location of The Bomb Maker.  Major Villanueva: "Well, Dozer, you found him, now lets' go get him."


Overview, north is up.  The Bomb Maker owns a garage on the outskirts of Formaggio.  The compound is at top center, while Major Villanueva and Team 1 enter from bottom left.  Their mission is to kill or capture The Bomb Maker.

I'm playing these fights using Ivan Sorensen's rules "Five Men at Kursk," modified a little to make them a bit more modern and deadly.


Opposing forces, with bad guys on the left and good guys on the right.  On the right is the entirety of Unit 101, though they will not all be participating in this fight. 
*Most of the troops are 15mm Khurasan, but the shooters have two Battlefront figures, and the sniper and MG teams are Eureka.  The bad guys are Eureka Chechens.


Bad guy cowering in the chicken coop.  To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
http://cubalibrewargame.blogspot.com/2017/02/operation-dragon-forge-fight-4.html

That drops the curtains on northern Italy, now it's off to Lebanon for the Unit, which is growing ever closer to figuring out exactly who was behind the ambush in Morocco (Operation Pay-Off).  Stay tuned for more batreps.

V/R,
Jack

[bigjackmac]

All,

AKA, Unit 101's 5th Fight of Operation Payback

It's 0315 on 11 Jul 1990, and Unit 101 is in Lebanon, closing in on The Mayor in the village of Jezabyl.  The village is very small, and inhabited only by people that are well armed and loyal to The Mayor, and the tactical problem is that the platoon needs to take The Mayor alive.  They're plan is simple and straightforward: Team 1 will bust the door down (this fight), and then Team 2 will dart through and grab the target (next batrep, at least assuming this works).  Meanwhile, the sniper and MG teams will be to the southwest, in position to isolate the enemy compound (keep reinforcements from getting in) and prevent escape (keep the target from getting out).


Overview of the table, north is right.  You see a shallow stream running north-south, with an orchard at top right (northwest), several walled compounds, and a few crop fields.  I'm playing this solo, using Ben Lacy's skirmish rules "Final Combat."  These are super detailed, and you know I'm simple, so I'm using the activation system as written, and I'm using the movement, spotting, morale, casualty determination, and firing pretty much as written, though simplified just a hair.  This game was fun, and didn't take as long as I thought it would, but was still longer than I generally am looking for.  I really like the activation system, so I'll probably work to make shooting, spotting, morale, and casualty determination.  Oh, and I didn't really mess with postures too much, everyone just kept moving forward.  Part of that was I don't have figures to reflect the different postures (standing, kneeling, and prone) and I didn't really want to use more markers for it, though I'm considering getting some more Peter Pig US Marines so I can do this.  The only problem is, I can't find suitable bad guys where I can do the same thing (no one makes modern prone bad guys!).


The Cuban entry team, from left: Tank (TQ 4), Rung (TQ 3), Dozer (TQ 4), Switch (TQ 3), Rake (TQ 5), and Cypher (TQ 4).  The bad guys have two leaders that are TQ3, the rest are TQ2 rabble.


In the still of the night, the Cuban Special Forces soldiers creep forward up the creek.  To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
http://cubalibrewargame.blogspot.com/2017/02/operation-dragon-forge-fight-5.html

The rules worked out great.  The game was kinda long, but that's true anytime you play a set of rules for the first time, and there are a lot of modifiers to look up (firing, spotting, morale, hit location, figuring out impact).  And I couldn't find my D20, so I was rolling two D10s, which I like better anyway (I always hate rolling only one dice, just a personal hangup).  In any case, the next fight will be using the same rules, the same way, then I'll look at changing things up if I think I need to.  Hope you liked it, I certainly did!

V/R,
Jack

[lowlylowlycook]

These are awesome looking little firefights.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

What a corker of a fight!

[Techno]

Good scrap !

Cheers - Phil.

[fsn]

"Forge" - "Scrap" - pun there - but can't quite reach it ....

I'll iron it out in time.

Lovely work Mr Mac. Very atmospheric.

[bigjackmac]

Hey, thanks everyone!  I appreciate you taking the time to post a comment, and I'm glad you guys like the batreps.

V/R,
Jack

[bigjackmac]

All,

AKA, Unit 101's 6th Fight of Operation Payback

It's 0325 on 11 Jul 1990, and Unit 101 is in Lebanon, closing in on The Mayor in the village of Jezabyl.  The village is very small, and inhabited only by people that are well armed and loyal to The Mayor, and the tactical problem is that the platoon needs to take The Mayor alive.  Team 1 has busted down the door, and now it's time for Team 2 to rush in and grab the target.  The sniper and MG teams are to the southwest, in position to isolate the enemy compound (keep reinforcements from getting in) and prevent escape (keep the target from getting out).


Overview, north is up.  The Cubans will enter the table from the east, via the lane between the crop field at top right and the wall/buildings below it.  The rest of the village, with the creek, is off camera to top right; that was the ingress where Team 1 fought the previous battle, and Team 2 has passed through them and is moving into The Mayor's compound.  They don't know which building The Mayor is in; the enemy has two squad leaders.  Once the fight begins, one of the squad leaders will move to The Mayor and attempt to evacuate him, while the other squad leader organizes a delaying action.  When it's time have a bad guy squad leader move to the mayor, I'll roll a dice to see which building he's in, and the squad leader will have to move there, grab him, then lead The Mayor off the map.  The Cubans, of course, are trying to catch The Mayor alive.

I'm playing this solo, using Ben Lacy's skirmish rules "Final Combat."  These are super detailed, and you know I'm simple, so I'm using the activation system as written, and I'm using the movement, spotting, morale, casualty determination, and firing pretty much as written, though simplified just a hair.  This game was fun, and didn't take as long as I thought it would, but was still longer than I generally am looking for.  I really like the activation system, so I'll probably work to make shooting, spotting, morale, and casualty determination a little more simplified (keep the concepts, re-work to D100, which is really just a personal preference).  Oh, and I didn't really mess with postures too much, everyone just kept moving forward.  Part of that was I don't have figures to reflect the different postures (standing, kneeling, and prone) and I didn't really want to use more markers for it, though I'm considering getting some more Peter Pig US Marines so I can do this.  The only problem is, I can't find suitable bad guys where I can do the same thing (no one makes modern prone bad guys!).


The Cuban entry team, from left: Trinity (TQ 4), Ratchet (TQ 3), Mouse (TQ 4), Link (TQ 4), and the boss, Major Villanueva (TQ 5).  These are Khurasan 15mm Private Military Contractors.


Trinity (bottom center) lays down covering fire with his Mk48 machine gun (scaring the hell out of the goat), while Major Villanueva (center right) dashes ahead, closing the distance to capture The Mayor (in building partly visible at top left).  To see the how the fight went, please check the blog at:
http://cubalibrewargame.blogspot.com/2017/02/operation-dragon-forge-fight-6.html

The fight was fun, and tense, though it's still taking me a long time, about two and a half hours.  I'm pretty comfortable with the flow now, though I've gotten away from looking up the firing and spotting modifiers each time and just kind of laying odds (percentages) and rolling under on 2D10 to see if it worked or not. 

It doesn't really matter for the game I guess, but it's kind of fun knowing where rounds hit a guy.  Actually, it does matter when the target is obscured by cover that can stop a round, and for body armor, but in the overall scheme of things you're really looking to see how much damage the round(s) did to the guy.  That is, he can be hit in the hand, but bad enough that it puts him out of the fight. 

I believe I'm going to handle wounded in the future the way I did the Cubans here, which is just throw down casualty figures, rather than track a bunch of wounded guys crawling to get off the map.  And don't misunderstand, that's only for the guys wounded so bad they can't continue the fight; there will still be guys that get hit but remain in the fight. 

It's pretty cool having a few guys take on so many bad guys and 1) having a tense game, 2) a chance to win, 3) without it just seeming like a die-rolling exercise.  I did use the term 'TQ5 superhero' in my writeup, but I just meant that in terms of Major V being an incredibly highly trained and highly experienced operator, not that the rules made him untouchable.  Though you do need to make sure you don't have too many TQ5s, unless you have two guys and a hundred bad guys.  Like "Strike Back"

V/R,
Jack

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice one Jack!
Bless the goat, he must be terrified!

[bigjackmac]

Thanks Lemmey, and don't worry about the goat, we're getting him marinated, err, 'treatment.'

V/R,
Jack

[Techno]

  Nice one again, Jack.

........Not sure how that report slipped under the radar....didn't spot it yesterday, at all.

Cheers - Phil

[bigjackmac]

Thanks Phil, I'm glad you liked it.

V/R,
Jack