The bridge at Qassad Uhm (Black Ops game)

[Sgt_T]

Played a Black Ops game yesterday set in fictional Derkaderkistan where an insurgent leader is transported by Syldavian coalition forces and ambushed by insurgents at a choke point (the bridge).



One of the cinematic moments in the game when insurgents rush under fire towards an immobilised Light Armoured Vehicle with the intent to take the crew out with hand grenades:



In the end, the firepower and especially the armour of the Syldavians proved too much for the insurgents.
It had been a long time ago that we played Black Ops so we probably made some mistakes regarding the rules, but it seemed rather strange that blowing up the lead vehicle of a convoy (resulting in an immobilised vehicle with its engine on fire) did not alert the rest of the convoy to the fact that they were under attack.  In Black Ops the defenders start unaware and can only come under active control after a enough "noise counters" (which are generated by explosions, smoke, gunfire, etc.).

It was still a fun game though, especially because it was an opportunity to use a number of my toys in a game for the first time.

More on my blog: https://toomuchterrain.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-bridge-at-qassad-uhm.html

I'll post some background on Derkaderkistan and the Syldavians in the imaginations thread for those interested.

T.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice scenery and post-production add on.

[CapnJim]

Nice game, figs and terrain.

I'm a little surprised that with the 5 extra noise counters produced by the lead vehicle blowing up (explosions and smoke), along with other noise, it wasn't enough for the defender's boss to sound the alarm.
 
Maybe everybody was drowsy.  Maybe they were shocked at their lead vehicle going KaBoom.  Maybe the Boss was on the horn with Battalion.  Weird stuff happens in firefights....

CapnJim

[Easy E]

I would think about that everyone was just..... confused and hence didn't bother to sound the alarm. Too busy ducking and covering.

[Sgt_T]

Thanks people.

I'm a little surprised that with the 5 extra noise counters produced by the lead vehicle blowing up (explosions and smoke), along with other noise, it wasn't enough for the defender's boss to sound the alarm.

Yes, well this is what happend:
The turn is almost over, 3 cards left in the deck, no noise counters present, Syldavian Jacks have had their turn and did not raise the alarm. First remaining card is revealed: Insurgent Queen card; The insurgent specialist gets his turn and activates the IED: 5 noise counters indeed. Second and third remaining card are not Syldavian Jacks so they do not get to react. Deck is reshuffled and of the 5 noise counters only 2 remain (due to smoke). This means that when the Syldavian Jack cards come up they have to roll a 6 on a d6 to raise the alarm
They only managed to do roll high enough after several RPG's had been fired and the second vehicle had been struck by an RPG, adding more noise counters.

Fog of war and all that I suppose.

T.

[nandrin]

Fog of War, indeed!
In our games frequently the guards spot the enemy at first chance, shouting "Alert" thus adding more noise counters and that was end of the stealth game....

In this scenario you can rule that explosion of a vehicle will raise the alarm automatically. Just out of interest: How many crew members were in the first vehicle? A guard who is hit and survived can automatically shout "Alert" on next activation, so there should be some noise counters on the table when the guards activate next.

By the way: Very nice terrain, especially the mat looks great!

[Sgt_T]

Thanks. I had the mat printed on a fleece blanket by artscow based on a picture I found on the internet. Sometimes this is a bit of a gamble because the picture resolution is often too low and requires tiling to cover the blanket. This one turned out fine though.

In this scenario you can rule that explosion of a vehicle will raise the alarm automatically. Just out of interest: How many crew members were in the first vehicle? A guard who is hit and survived can automatically shout "Alert" on next activation, so there should be some noise counters on the table when the guards activate next.

I agree that blowing up the lead vehicle (and forcing all convoy vehicles to hit the brakes) would raise the alarm automatically (but we decided to follow the rulebook at that time).
There were 3 crew members and an Ace in the vehicle. They were unharmed and forced to abandon the vehicle. We played it that the crew belonged to the vehicle and activated on a king (instead of a jack). They passed their DED test and managed to put out the fire. Fortunately the alarm had been raised by then otherwise the smoke from the fire would have disappeard, again reducing the number of noise counters!

T.

[nandrin]

I find the point where some of the defenders are aware of the enemy and other still not very tense and entertaining. The confusion at the beginning of a firefight until defenders responded in an organized way is very well represented here.

Back to the APC: With 3 crew members and smoke there should be 8 noise counters on the table after the first activation of the vehicle, making it easy for the rest of the defenders to raise the alarm. Of course you are free to rule it otherwise to create a better chance for the attackers to succeed.

[Sgt_T]

Aha. We forgot the noise counters from the crew.

Notwithstanding this "we didn't notice the lead vehicle being blown up" peculiarity I really like the "hidden" and "stealth" elements of Black Ops. It adds a level of difficulty which makes a wargame more interesting.

T.

[Captain Blood]

Worth it, just for the Tolkien reference 
I was expecting the insurgents to deploy a Balrog RPG.

[CapnJim]

Aha. We forgot the noise counters from the crew.

Notwithstanding this "we didn't notice the lead vehicle being blown up" peculiarity I really like the "hidden" and "stealth" elements of Black Ops. It adds a level of difficulty which makes a wargame more interesting.

T.

We look at things in our games a little different than some.  We look at the results of the game mechanics, and see if we can explain it.  In games like Black Ops, we've yet to have something happen that we couldn't explain.  In this case, we wouldn't necessarily think the rest of the folks in the convoy didn't notice the lead vehicle is not kaput.  Instead, we rationalize why they didn't react more immediately, even if they did notice it - as you pointed out, it's hard not to notice a burning AFV).  Although when I was a tanker stationed in Germany, we had a German civilian drive into the back of the rear tank in a company column of tanks (13 M1s, all lined up!).  All of who had their driving lights on, and yellow "whoopie" lights going.  And it was too early for cell phones to distract the civilian driver...

Anyhoo, your Syldavians might not have seen where the shot(s) came from.  Maybe they were stunned by the sudden turn of events.  Maybe they hadn't practiced their immediate action drills lately and were confused.  One never knows...

Just my two cents...

CapnJim

[Sgt_T]

Worth it, just for the Tolkien reference 
I was expecting the insurgents to deploy a Balrog RPG.

 
The insurgent Balrog was advancing off board from behind on the Syldavians. That is why they couldn't  retreat from the bridge and had to fight their way through.

T.

[Sgt_T]

Anyhoo, your Syldavians might not have seen where the shot(s) came from.  Maybe they were stunned by the sudden turn of events.  Maybe they hadn't practiced their immediate action drills lately and were confused.  One never knows...

Good points. I was also thinking that 3 hours of game time would probably be only 15 minutes or so in real time. So what seemed to be an excessive reaction time in game time would in real time be far less (only minutes).

T.

[Pijlie]

A very good and effective table, btw.