Force on Force Trial Game

The 'Modern' movement continues a-pace at the club with a trial game using the Ambush Alley Games 'Force on Force' rules for modern warfare this week.

The game was put on at the club by Dax, who supplied all the figures and terrain (and dangerously low flying remote control helicopter!), with myself, Dave K and Pete taking the side of the insurgents, in the form of Mudjahadeen and Iraqi Regular types, and Chuck being the plucky yank with a pile of US Marine fire teams.

The game was for us all to get a feel for the rules and a generally light hearted time was had as Chuck tried to get from one end of the table to the other and take possession of a mosque and/or a Bathist HQs building while the belligerent locals tried to stop them en-route.

Chuck had six turns to achieve his objectives before; nightfall/enemy re-enforcements arrived/a terrible earth quake/the end of the world as we know it happened.

Unfortunately for Chuck his rolls on the dice, of which there is a lot of in FoF, were to say the least abysmal for the first four turns. His fire teams getting shot up very badly without much progress along the table.

Some Marines have a lie down
 due to over exertion (and bullets)

Not only was Chucks' dice rolling fairly unlucky but the Iraqi's dice rolling for shooting and re-enforcements was the opposite with any losses being more than replaced and lots of wild shooting blind over the side of concrete balustrades and round corners seemed to be miraculously effective.

However the fickle dice gods saw reason towards the end of round four with an off table barrage which caused the regulars some grief and this event seemed to steel the marines resolve, and for the last couple of turns saw a reversal of fortunes with the marines inflicting the more expected level of mayhem and destruction.

However, fairly true to history, this proved too little too late, and when all the victory points were totted up, the Iraqi's had scored a, fairly unexpected, solid victory.

The scenario in fairness can be played either daylight (ours being played daytime rules, if you can see it you can shoot it) or night and I can see the night time version being a totally different kettle of rabbits.

Enjoyable game all round, and thanks to Dax for putting on the game and umpiring it. The gist of the evening being that the rules were pretty simple to pick up and weren't too bogged down with complications, and once into the swing of it, the game played pretty smoothly.

Next up in this mode, will no doubt be the Tomorrows War rules from the same stable, for future war/sci-fi games.