A small British infantry patrol has been cut-off in a compound deep in the Green Zone of the province of Burpa in Afghanistan.
Fortunately several NATO forces are ready to go get them out! A force of Royal Marines, Danish Jagerkorps and French infantry prepare to enter the valley and rescue their comrades.
However... Also in the area is a group of SAS who have been working with the local Afghan tribe and have successfully turned them against the Taliban. This fragile alliance could be easily broken and the gung-ho style of the approaching NATO rescue force has the SAS worried!
The initial advance was fairly easy with no-one to be seen... Suddenly a lone Afghan was seen standing by the wall in the first small village. This figure was cut-down by a hail of fire from the French as the Jagers stormed into the area from the otherside...
The Jagers storm the first house with a shower of grenades and gunfire... Inside they find a dead women and several, now badly injured Afghan children... Their gung-ho assault has led them to kill several civilians and the lone gunman killed by the French turns out to be a farmer checking his animals. The Danes now find themselves being berated by the village elder for their actions and they promptly cuff him and gag him!
Away from this scene of disaster the Royal Marines make their way through the bush towards the second settlement...
As they hit the edge of the bush they can see what seems to be a group of Taliban and their vehicles in the second village. Without hesitating they open fire and kill several of them. The Afghans then return fire and one of the Royal Marines is killed by a 12.7mm round to the chest in the ensuing firefight...
The gun battle is brought to an abrupt end by the arrival of the SAS who run quickly towards the Afghans and get them to stop firing... The SAS inform the Royal Marines that these Afghans are on their side! An uneasy silence descends over the area...
As soon as things seem to have calmed down, all hell breaks loose at the first village! Out of the trees come a host of real Taliban... With their first bursts of fire the French CO is hit by shrapnel from an RPG blast and is knocked down and stunned. The French and the Danes return fire and after a short but brutal fight the Taliban are driven off with heavy losses...
After this little emergency the focus of the battle now becomes the bridge and the river line. As some of the Royal Marines and local Afghan get into a long range firefight with Taliban hidden in the woods, the rest of the force advances on the river bridge. At the last moment a Taliban HMG is spotted and another gun battle erupts along with mortar rounds landing among the advancing NATO troops... For the moment none find any soldiers...
As the SAS try to storm the bridge, three of them are cut down by the HMG and they have to call on the Royal Marines and the French to lay down fire on the enemy. As they do so a small Taliban force try and storm across the bridge to assault the SAS who have been badly mauled...
NATO firepower wins through and soon the Taliban HMG is silenced and the Taliban on the bridge are mown down by the remaining SAS. As all seems clear and the advance resumes a mortar round lands square in the middle of four Danish Jagers... They all stare in disbelief as the mortar bomb fails to go off and just sits there sticking out of the ground! As they troops cross the bridge yet more Taliban open fire but the Royal Marines make short work of this group and quickly wipe them out...
With the way now clear the NATO forces rush towards the compound with the SAS leading the way... Within minutes they link up with the very relieved British infantry in the building!
Interesting game... I tried to play it as I would a 'Nam game and I controlled all the Afghan forces and umpired. We tried to get a bit of role-playing and after the Danes killed the woman and injured her children, nobody threw a grenade into a house again! I used very little Taliban as the enemy but the players worked well with a couple of fire teams each setting up fields of fire and leap-frogging to their objective.
Sadly my dice throwing left alot to be desired (I managed to roll four '1's on four dice for my only mortar round that found a target) and I may have made the Taliban a bit too easy to kill but it was an interesting game. I used the WAB-Moderns playtest rules and they provided a quick game that people picked up quickly and easily... In fact the game was more about how the five players worked together than anything else. It was an interesting exercise and something I will return to on a grander scale with our next 'Nam game in the future.
Figures are all Liberation.
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April 28, 2024, 12:25:42 PM
April 09, 2008, 10:47:01 PM