Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: grant on 05 March 2017, 02:38:30 PM
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I have modern Canadians painted up, a platoon less the GPMG and Carl Gustav which Full Battle Rattle don't make yet, along with a pimped up Leopard IIA6 - waiting on Empress to make the LAV III Canadian to add that and I have my battlegroup.
Opinions on Skirmish Sangin for rules? The main rules, and the. Despatch No. 1 has the Canadians apparently.
Any others that stick out for this level of play?
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Sangin is a good set of rules, however it is really pitched at the small squad level perhaps stretch to 4 fire teams per side owing to the characterisation of the miniatures etc
There are larger, platoon level games in the works from the same manufacturer, a modern chain of command set has been sitting in the wongs for some time now but no release date
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Thanks.
What ever happened to the Fighting Season rules? They just seemed to disappear when SP2 came out.
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Thanks.
What ever happened to the Fighting Season rules? They just seemed to disappear when SP2 came out.
I gather Richard has had a lot of personal issues which have taken him away from developing games etc also last year I think there was an element of being a bit of a conscious around modern games, however I am still hoping.
This chap has a great review of modern sets on the market
http://hntdaab.co.uk/blog/page/2/
another set worth a look at is No End in sight, very much abstract so you wont see stats for differing types of weapons but a good set of skirmish rules and I have used them before for moderns,
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I wondered why I was getting a load of hits from Lead Adventure....
I wrote the comparison article - direct link to it is at http://hntdaab.co.uk/blog/2016/11/21/the-great-big-modern-wargaming-rules-comparison/
I'm a massive fan of Sangin - it's my go to game and I will never stop recommending it. The first playthrough will be slow but the sheer action you get from it makes it well worth the time.
Platoon+ and Fighting Season are still coming but if you want your entire platoon on the board right now, Spectre Operations supports games of that size. It's very fast and deadly.
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Cheers for that. I'll look at spectre. Sangin appealed because of the Canadians specific list in despatch 1. Its rare anyone acknowledges Canadians at all.
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Any other opinions on modern rules?
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Several years ago Fighting Season was imminent for a Salute release. I actually spent a lot of money getting ready for the game, and then it just disappeared as you say, which was quite irksome. The good news is that Sharp Practice 2 came out instead 😀
I am still very much hoping it will come out sometime soon as I love Chain of Command which it is based on. We have decided to try out Spectre Operations as an alternative in the mean time which seems to be a nice mix of small special forces operations scalable to platoon ops with some rules for vehicles. It also seems to take a toolkit approach, which means you can write up just about anything you want using the basic rules without having to wait for the army lists to come out. I picked up Skirmish Sangin and felt like it was more like an RPG than a tabletop wargame in terms of the detail level. YMMV
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A never released "fighting season" is not so bad as a unsupported "BlackOps". Rules I do not know do not disappoint me, Black Ops on the other side is nice but really dead...
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I really like Black Ops though I get the impression a lot of the Osprey releases are Fire and Forget. I'd be well up for developing my Black Ops Wargames Soldiers and Strategy Imagi-nation setting as a sourcebook if Guy was up for it.
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I use to really like Force on Force but then a guy posted on here a custom supplement for Bolt Action and I loved it!
http://jayswargamingmadness.blogspot.com (http://jayswargamingmadness.blogspot.com)
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A never released "fighting season" is not so bad as a unsupported "BlackOps". Rules I do not know do not disappoint me, Black Ops on the other side is nice but really dead...
What support do you need?
Just play the game.
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I really like Black Ops though I get the impression a lot of the Osprey releases are Fire and Forget. I'd be well up for developing my Black Ops Wargames Soldiers and Strategy Imagi-nation setting as a sourcebook if Guy was up for it.
Is he really existing? The answer after month in the bo fb group seems to be a bot....
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Is he really existing? The answer after month in the bo fb group seems to be a bot....
Guy Bowers is a robot?
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Guy Bowers is a robot?
The answer look like a robot. But it is like Elk101 said. Osprey is not really supporting the systems, only one is fav. In the moment it is Frostgrave. The minimum should be an errata, but even this is to much.
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The answer look like a robot. But it is like Elk101 said. Osprey is not really supporting the systems, only one is fav. In the moment it is Frostgrave. The minimum should be an errata, but even this is to much.
Too true. Frostgrave is the all encompassing hotness for Osprey. They should just scrap the rest and really focus on what's driving them instead of pretending to release other games.
Oh well. Looking forward to something coming out in moderns that will be popular, easily found, and well frankly probably not Osprey.
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Telling you all you need to try Bolt Action with the modern rules modification I posted about earlier. There is also Force on Force if you want more complexity and realism
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Hello
Honestly (IMHO) Black Ops is an average game for me; derived from GW classic Necromunda/Rogue Trader, with rather simplistic and bulky fighting system not suited for modern ranged weapons encounters.
The new stealth operation rules, which seem to be essence of the game, are bit chaotic in my opinion.
Also, to put salt to the wound,the fact mentioned before; game is dead. I guess that author (G. Bowers) signed up a contract from Osprey to write new game system. He did it, got payment and forgot about it.
But I guess also he is a wargaming enthusiast and for sake of that he could contribute here more; listen suggestions or doubts of other gamers, rethink designed rules, etc. There was once thread regarding errata to Black Ops but it is all dead now here...but see that G. Bowers is still active in WSS magazine (in other topics not related to Black Ops)...
Maybe it would be better to write some house rules for stealth type scenarios for Skirmish Sangin or Operation Squad (for WWII games). Both systems have better game mechanics for WWII/modern squad level skirmishes so worth adding stealth add-on.
Greets
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Shepard88: I'm partly with you. Operation Blackop is not the best game in which rod, but more than a lot of games. My Problem with FoF and Skirmish Sangin is, that they have a great idea, but the game as result is a boring monster of unfastness. So a simple game like Blackops is a good thing, but it needs support. But it all depends on the gamers taste.
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Agree with that it is old wargamer dilemma; go into realism or go into comfortable(fast) playing...
Black Ops is not bad, but needs some rules tweaking and errata. Also in my opinion it is just not very innovative game. Maybe better it would be go scratch and modify old Necromunda rules to make some modern game skirmish....
FoF is really slow, I agree and also suffers from obscurity and incoherence of the rules.
But of course no game system is flawless and all depends on tastes and expectations of the particular gamers.
Shepard88: I'm partly with you. Operation Blackop is not the best game in which rod, but more than a lot of games. My Problem with FoF and Skirmish Sangin is, that they have a great idea, but the game as result is a boring monster of unfastness. So a simple game like Blackops is a good thing, but it needs support. But it all depends on the gamers taste.
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What does"support" mean?
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What do you think about "Spectre: Operations"?
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What does"support" mean?
Having had a discussion about it I think he means that there's an errata, responses to questions, new army lists, etc. It's clearly not always possible but I suppose the Too Fat Lardies' approach typifies 'support'.
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FWIW - Spectre Operations has rules for alert and unalert sentries, random patrol paterns, etc. Might be worth investigating if you're looking for stealth type games.
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Checking out the Spectre rules lately too. No tanks though, nothing bigger than a BMP 1 which everyone seems to have.
The state and rules look ok.
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For Spectre, you might be looking at the old rules - the book release includes rules for a much larger variety of vehicles, including MBTs
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Having had a discussion about it I think he means that there's an errata, responses to questions, new army lists, etc. It's clearly not always possible but I suppose the Too Fat Lardies' approach typifies 'support'.
You are right, Toofatlardies is a good example. Releases the rules, support with videos, forum/blog g with errata, clarification and new list/rules. Perfect support. And Osprey?
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Spectre has a sizeable vehicle list; you must be looking at the Beta. The rules are fairly generic though. You're not looking at a list of stats for individual varieties of vehichle, there's basically a single profile for a tank or "Recce vehichle" that you can do some customizations on from a list. It's a platoon level game at largest, so it's not meant for company level tank battles. Fighting Season is the same. Personally I am not even sure how Spectre will play at the platoon level--you keep track of individual figures wounds and suppression which sounds very fiddly with 30-40 militia on the table.
Personally I think Spectre looks like the best set available for small special forces teams vs whomever. If you want something more like platoons vs platoons with more vehichles you probably want Force on Force or Chain Reaction or some such.
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Sold my Canadians. Post is now irrelevant to me.
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Fighting Season has a lot of potential and isn't completely dead - just delayed.
The problem we had with it was the 'Good guys' had loads of tactical options but 50 ways of losing and the 'bad guys' job was to help them along the way.
The bad plan was always corner one good squad and hammer it into oblivion - when the cavalry turns up - leg it! Relatively easy.
It needed balancing up but the basic premise and structure was pretty sound (CofC-ish)
We did a FS/CofC mashup which allowed Cold-War stuff without the automatic weapons becoming too dominant.
The USMC and their huge platoons and loads of weapons vs a USSR with average troops but with APC backup.
The USMC shred their targets but struggled with the APCs the USSR needed to pick their fights carefully.
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Sold my Canadians. Post is now irrelevant to me.
Oh that's too bad.
There is some good stuff from Nordic Weasel Games too. 5Core and No End in Sight for section and platoon+ level of action. Plus they're PDF so cheap.
Rules are easy to switch out, but painted miniatures are a pain to redo.
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Fighting Season has a lot of potential and isn't completely dead - just delayed.
The problem we had with it was the 'Good guys' had loads of tactical options but 50 ways of losing and the 'bad guys' job was to help them along the way.
The bad plan was always corner one good squad and hammer it into oblivion - when the cavalry turns up - leg it! Relatively easy.
That's basically modern small scale CI skirmish warfare from the 50's onwards - whether in jungle or 'poppy country' etc. Victory for the 'bad guys' is as much/if not more political and PR of casualties vs. a traditional military one.
One option is to have a GM run the insurgents or even have them 'automated/run by the system' with multiple 'good guys' on the same side. That's been done a couple of times with Vietnam period rules and works well. But that's not always easy to pull off in a nice & balanced way.
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That's basically modern small scale CI skirmish warfare from the 50's onwards - whether in jungle or 'poppy country' etc. Victory for the 'bad guys' is as much/if not more political and PR of casualties vs. a traditional military one.
One option is to have a GM run the insurgents or even have them 'automated/run by the system' with multiple 'good guys' on the same side. That's been done a couple of times with Vietnam period rules and works well. But that's not always easy to pull off in a nice & balanced way.
I always run mine as the players vs. the Taliban (me).
I just need a good automatic system so that I can play solo and still present myself with some tactical problems.
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You are going to struggle with making a game out of it mostly, as religious martyrdom aside, the aim of the insurgent is just to survive; avoiding contact with troops where at all possible. The constant traditional complaint of troops in a CI role is that the enemy "won't stand and fight".
In Indochina only in the far North were conventional actions taking place. In Vietnam it was only the NVA who would try to engage the Americans on even terms and then only from a position of strength. In Rhodesia whole platoons-worth of assets would be turned out to chase-down groups of two or three insurgents, or more rarely ten or more; the 'Externals' everyone raves about were the only way to really hurt the insurgents. Those hurt the government more at the political level however.
Soldiers have boots on the ground flying the flag in any given area maybe one or two days a month, the rest of the time the insurgent is there reminding everyone of that fact; ergo to Joe Public it's the insurgent's territory and the soldiers are just passing through. When there is a fight, it's on the insurgent's terms and designed to show the population that they don't fear the regime.
Victory for the bad guys is being ever-present as a threat to people's lives and happiness, it rarely involves giving regime soldiers a thrashing. They are simply playing an entirely different game and at a quite different level. Why risk fighting soldiers when you can just intimidate voters into going your way?
Wargames on the other hand tend to play as a CI soldier's wet dream; they have the armour, the helicopters and technology and the bad guys decide to make a 'fair fight' of it by standing-up with their AKs. ;)
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Usually my games are a patrol or sweep or even a quick reaction force getting ambushed.
Once the Canadian player can bring in fast air the game ends as the Taliban bugger off
http://rabbitsinmybasement.blogspot.ca/2016/05/ambush.html
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You are going to struggle with stuff
It really doesn't matter - I sold my Canadians and don't have any moderns left.