Looking for opinions on Skirmish Sangin or "Fighting Season"?

[grant]

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.

[racm32]

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

[shepard88]

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

[NurgleHH]

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.

[shepard88]

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.

[jamesmanto]

What does"support" mean?

[Juan]

What do you think about "Spectre: Operations"?

[Elk101]

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'.

[AlexM]

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.

[grant]

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.

[ChargeDog]

For Spectre, you might be looking at the old rules - the book release includes rules for a much larger variety of vehicles, including MBTs

[NurgleHH]

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?

[axabrax]

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.

[grant]

Sold my Canadians. Post is now irrelevant to me.

[Rich H]

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.