Osprey Black Ops FAQ and Errata - Please add your questions!

[Rich H]

So we just passed the SEVEN YEAR anniversary of this thread, and over FOUR YEARS since the promises to get it done, and still no errata or FAQ to be found. I know life gets in the way and all, but this is crazy.

Is this the norm for Osprey, or this author?

From what I recall being told it was an issue of Osprey 'Fire and forget' and then the author then being left very restricted on what he could do sadly.

[shepard88]

Hello

I think waiting for The Author to answer and to make rules clearance here seems to be just an unrealistic expectations with low probability to happen

But we are All together here, so lets do it on our own.

Below my 3 years old post about that guard rules confusion - as continuation of earlier questions in this topic.

I guess that some of you play a lot of games of BO, also in gaming clubs with bigger community, so maybe you can give us hints how all that unclear situations were solved in real tabletop battle dust among hundreds of games in a clubs or garages

Cheers

Hey

I've dusted Black Ops rules off recently and some uncertainty about some points of the rules arose.
Mainly guards rules are not clear, also regarding previous answers here.

I think that according to the rules you cannot got full control of guard until alarm is raised.

Here is extract of the rules from p. 31:

"As a guard moves around, there is a
chance he will observe the intruders. A
guard won't shoot unless he has identified
a clear enemy target, nor can a guard raise
the alarm until a clear threat is spotted.
Once an enemy has been identified (see
Observation Tests, p.23), a guard may
take offensive action (open fire or shout
'Intruder Alert!').
A guard can only be put in Reserve
when the defender rolls an 8 or higher for
his reaction (as above), placing the guard
under the player's control. Once placed in
Reserve, however, the guard's actions do
not have to be rolled for until the defender
chooses to take a different action."

It is not 100% clear from that, but it rather states that you can only put guard in reserve mode within visual arc.

Also regarding that guards which survived melee or shooting they can only shout "Intruder alert!":

Observation test p. 25:

"A guard who survives a surprise attack (hit but not wounded) is aware of
his enemy and can shout 'Intruder Alert' when activated, whether he can see the
attacker or not!"

Still not clear, but it is nowhere written that after such attack you get full control of a guard.
Also it is strange idea to me that let's say half of defender team is in guard mode while the other half is fully controlled and engaging enemy which the are aware of (while guards still doesnt know about attackers commando presence).

Any ideas or thoughts ?
Regards

[GuyB]

Hello

I think waiting for The Author to answer and to make rules clearance here seems to be just an unrealistic expectations with low probability to happen

Well sometimes you roll a 1, and others a nat 20... :-)


But we are All together here, so lets do it on our own.

Below my 3 years old post about that guard rules confusion - as continuation of earlier questions in this topic.

Anyone who knows me knows what the past four years of my life has been like, I won't bore you with it here, it's not been good. I do plan to return to Black Ops with a new version in the future.

I guess that some of you play a lot of games of BO, also in gaming clubs with bigger community, so maybe you can give us hints how all that unclear situations were solved in real tabletop battle dust among hundreds of games in a clubs or garages

Well, let's have a go...

I think that according to the rules you cannot got full control of guard until alarm is raised.

Yep.

It is not 100% clear from that, but it rather states that you can only put guard in reserve mode within visual arc.

Yep.

Also regarding that guards which survived melee or shooting they can only shout "Intruder alert!

Also yep!

"A guard who survives a surprise attack (hit but not wounded) is aware of
his enemy and can shout 'Intruder Alert' when activated, whether he can see the
attacker or not!"

Still not clear, but it is nowhere written that after such an attack you get full control of a guard.

You don't.

Read the reserve rules (the Black ops version of 'overwatch'). The figure can react to enemy actions it can see or to a friendly model moving within 6". I wasn't going to have guards just go "Huh?", forget about it and return to random patrolling.

You can look at it two ways - from a game mechanic or a narrative point of view.

Game Mechanic - Having guards free to activate was too powerful, so the reserve rule was a way to make them very useful but not overpowering (running around after the Black ops team and doing what they liked was too good). So a guard can act on reserve or call out. Normally a good ops team won't leave a guard standing for too long... so when players 'get' the game, it rarely happens.

Narrative - it's cold and dark. Three rounds have zipped past you, one hitting your flack jacket, waking you from aimless thought while on guard duty. You know SOMEONE is out there, and all your concentration is on where the shot came from. You could call out and warn the others or wait to see where the shot came from. What you don't see is the sniper's friend sneaking up behind you.

Hope that helps.

Guy

PS: Thanks to Mark Backhouse for alerting me to this message.

[shepard88]

Hello

@Guy_B thank you for your great come back!
And thank you for your replies.

Regards