Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Road Clearing - Playtest #2 - Setup

Hello everyone and welcome back to another playtest session for our new modern ruleset.

This time we´re going to test some more advanced aspects of the game, including Fire Support (both onboard and offboard) from heavy weaponry, Vehicle destruction (hopefully) and the scenario generator including the inherent balance.

The following scenario has been generated with the mechanics supplied by the game, which will be covered in a later dev diary. For now, I´ll just reveal that this is a game of about 1200 points (1175 to be exact, originally planned as 1000pts but we had to adjust some aspects that where forgotten in the pricing and just chose to expand the game by granting the other side more points).

Knowing what we´re about to test we generated our list independent of each others and ended up with the following setup: 

US Forces

The US Army fields a veteran patrol in three vehicles. These combat-hardened troops will be a tough nut to crack for my Taliban as they are just faster and better in everything...  asserting initiative, identifying threats, shooting...
And their designated Marksman are certainly going to hurt my command structure.
But they´re few and if they suffer casualties the bullets won´t care for their veterancy.

1x Platoon Leader
2x US Army Rifle Squad (Veteran, Good Morale, 1x Designated Marksman per Squad)
2x Humvee (1x M2 HMG, 1x Mk40 AGL)
1x Stryker ICV  (M2 HMG)

Taliban Forces

My Taliban are a small but flexible group, a mix of "full-time" hardcore fighters and ragtag locals recruited for this specific mission. The idea is to have a list specialised on ambushes with a good mix of reliable troops (the hardcore fighters) and disposable meatshields (the locals) combined with a set of Ambush-Cards that enable my troops to pop up where the enemy doesn´t like it.
The list also brings in a number of IEDs to inhibit enemy maneuvers and Rules of Engagements to lessen the impact of the American Firepower. I also made sure to bring reinforcements to put more troops into the meat grinder.

1x Small Cell (+PKM-Weaponteam, Hardcore)
1x Small Cell (+RPK, +Leader, Hardcore)
1x Small Cell (+RPG, Hardcore)
1x Small Cell (+RPG, Local)
1x Small Cell (+Leader, Local)
1x Small Cell (+ RPK, +Leader, Local)

= 6 Small Cells (=18 Taliban), 3 Leaders, 2 RPG, 2 RPK, 1 PKM

Assets:
1x Medium IED + 2x IED Dummies
1x Small IED + 2x IED Dummies
Mortar Support (Light Mortar)

Rules of Engagement:
PID-Checks Level 1
General Fire Support Restriction

Reinforcements Level 3


Objectives

US Force have to clear the road of IEDs and continue their patrol to the southern end of the table, exfiltrating a number their units off the board. 

The Taliban have to conduct an Ambush on said patrol and kill as many US Serviceman as possible and/or destroy as many vehicles as possible.



The Battlefield

The battlefield is a small intersection of roads in the greenzone, with a lot of adjacent fields and some compounds scattered around the area.


The US rolled the northern edge as their starting edge, which puts them behind a large field as cover ready to work along the road and exfil to the south.


Pre-Game Analysis

 This game will be tough for me as the Taliban player. These Veterans will likely be able to inflict some damage and the worst thing that can happen to me is losing Leaders. I´ll have to preserve my leadership at all cost even if it means keeping them out of sight of those marksmen and detaching them from the local troops, drastically reducing their efficiency.
The PID-checks should give me a small head-start as do the Ambush-cards. Should allow me to chose my fights and strike hard where I want to.
Biggest problem will be to reach the ambush locations in time to set up an effective ambush. Hopefully my IEDs and dummies can slow the enemy down long enough for me to maneuver in. Once in position, I should be able to provide pretty effective fire on close range... hopefully some elements are pinned at that point, otherwise I might be on the receiving end before I get to act.

We´ll see...  Let´s get rolling!

Jump to Part 2 - Contact!
Jump to Part 3 - Hell on Earth

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