First Play: Skirmish Sangin

Impressed with the production and keen to see how the mechanisms would work on the table, Lenin and I gave Skirmish Sangin a spin.

Lenin supplied some of his Paras and I provided the Taliban figures but we each handed them over to the other for the game.  We decided to run one of the official scenarios with the Taliban moving down the board and running into my troops trying to head them off.

As you might expect things started slowly with us becoming acustomed to the rules but we quickly got the hang of them.  I moved my first section up to secure the first set of buildings.  I quickly came under fire from some Taliban - all I can say is thank goodness for body armour!  My first fireteam returned fire whilst the other fireteam secured a building to use as a base of fire.

Once I had my teams in place things got rather hot for the first group of Taliban but soon a second appeared to my flank.

When my second section arrived and took position along the nearby edge of a poppy field we began to win the firefights and I could advance one of my original fireteams.

In the end the volume of fire and having the successful hits by the Taliban absorbed by body armour mean the Taliban were in a fix and so the game was mine.

Whilst the rule mechanisms and dice roll modifiers look a little daunting at first, we quickly got the hang of things and the game flowed pretty well for a first try.  The rules certainly did what I was hoping and provided a more granular game allowing a smaller number of figures to be used.  I suspect I will replace the official markers (as you do need quite a few of them) with something a little smaller (particularly as you quickly learn the modifiers printed on them and they're also on the QRS) to help with the aesthetics.

We will definitely be using these again and I have moved my purchases from Empress up my painting priority list as a result.

First Look: Skirmish Sangin

When I first heard about Skirmish Sangin I took a look at their website and was a little concerned that the mechanisms might be a little heavy for the type of game I was envisaging.  Despite the draw of the Empress Modern British range, I already have the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (using Force on Force) I wasn't keen to have two games that were going to play too similarly.  So I wondered whether I could do the Modern Brits at a different level (the Soviets being at Platoon plus) and so Skirmish Sangin came back onto the radar.

I picked up a hard copy of the rules at Salute but they are also available as either a pdf (£7.50) or hard copy (with the pdf as well for £25) from the Radio DishDash website (and in hard copy from other distributors I believe).

The rules are 170 pages in full colour (in softback if you get the hard copy) and illustrated with plenty of photos from the MoD and of various wargames along with a few explanatory diagrams.  After an introduction and a brief history of the conflict the book moves on to creating a suitable force, provides orbats for British, Australian, New Zealand, French and US ISAF forces before moving onto the rules themselves, followed by an example game, two scenarios, the quick reference sheets and some counter sheets.

Troops are given a "Body" attribute which determines their various combat skills and their initiative sequencing along with an armour rating (to reflect body armour if any) and morale.  Morale and skills are expressed as percentages.

Each turn each figure will activate four times and have three action points available to use.  The sequence in which the figures activate is dictated by their Body attribute which are grouped and this allocates their activations across the ten phases of each turn.  This approach reminds me of the system used by older games like Phoenix Command and Car Wars but in a simplified form.  Actions include various movement modes, kneeling, going prone, getting up, climbing etc. as well as spotting and combat actions.  Since a figure's position (moving, stationary, kneeling, prone etc.) along with their location is significant for spotting and firing you do need to think carefully about your use of actions.

Both spotting and combat actions start with a basic skill level and then the relevant modifiers are applied before a d100 roll.  Whilst the list of modifiers in each case is substantial it quickly becomes apparent which are routinely applicable to your current situation.

If a successful shooting roll is made the damage is then rolled and the target can then roll their armour (if they have any) to reduce or eliminate the damage.  Any residual damage then determines how badly injured the target is and whether any nearby troops' morale is affected.  However, even a miss will result in a morale test being required.

As I am sure you can see there isn't anything revolutionary here but the moving parts are assembled to produce a more granular level of game than say Force on Force - which is what I was looking for.  The rules are very nicely presented and I am interested to see how they play out on the table.

Soviet Afghan War: More Mujahideen

Here are a few more Afghan figures I actually managed to finish basing over Christmas:

First Play: Force on Force

Our final tabletop miniatures game of the week was a chance to get the new edition of Force on Force to the table along with my Mongrel Soviets and Afghans.  I decided to try a asymmetric engagement as I thought this suited the forces better so we still need to try a kinetic game in order to properly try the rules out.

The scenario was adapted from one kindly published by [insert] (the adaptations were largely due to the fact I didn't have the vehicles).  Lenin, as Soviet commander, was required to identify, isolate and neutralise the Mujahideen forces in the compounds.

The basic concepts behind the rules are fairly straight forward; however, the way they have decided to cover all the aspects in each section of the rule book makes them a little daunting at first.  We weren't phased by the reaction based approach as we are both very familiar with the Two Hour Wargames rules which use a similar approach.

The scenario did not start well for the Soviets.  Their first fire team advanced cautiously from behind a field of crops into sight of a group of Mujahideen concealed within one of the compounds.  This resulted in my group opening fire and causing enough casualties to effectively eliminate the Soviet fire team.  The other half of the Soviet squad then advanced to try and extract the casualties and a similar thing happened.  This rather gave us pause as, if this was going to be repeated each time the Soviets came into sight there was no way for them to get a team onto overwatch and hence be able to make any headway at all.  In fact I had rolled rather well for all the tests and firing rolls on both occasions (which happens some times despite my reputation!) so we decided to reset the game and try it again.

 The second time I rolled somewhat more normal dice which gave the Soviets the chance to fire first and get a team into position.  This completely changed the situation and we both breathed a sigh of relief that it was simple chance and not any failure of the rules themselves (although it is something to bear in mind with small groups vs large ones when designing scenarios!).

With the Soviet left flank engaged they also began to advance on the right.

 When they came into sight of the main compound another fire fight broke out, with the Soviets getting the drop on the Afghans again.

With things going well for the Soviets some Afghan reinforcements arrived.  This gave the Soviets pause but didn't prevent them from rushing and taking the first compound on the left flank.  The Afghans now concentrated in the larger central compound.  The Soviets brought up some reinforcements for an assault.

The Soviet launched their attack and quickly secured a foothold in the buildings on the edge of the compound.  A firefight broke out between the Afghans reinforcements and the Soviet ones but the Soviets quickly got the upper hand.

Even with more reinforcements arriving directly in the compound, the Soviets, now in position, make quick work of them and secured the entire compound.

The game was a lot of fun and so we will be giving the rules some outings in order to test the other aspects of them, particularly the kinetic (regular vs regular) engagements.

Soviet Afghan War: The Soviets

Next up, some opposition for my Mudjahideen:

Soviet Afghan War: The Mujahideen

Switching to another current project, here are the first batch of figures for the Soviet Afghan War - the Mujahideen.  These are Mongrel Miniatures figures (available in the UK via Newline Designs).

Project Update: Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

The idea for this project came from seeing the Mongrel Miniatures Soviet and Mujahideen ranges some years ago. Then Mongrel disappeared and it wasn't until Newline Designs started to import the figures again from their new owner that it resurfaced as a potential project. I was just about to put an order in when I spotted some of the figures on eBay in their original 8 figure packs. Never one to ignore a bargain, I put a bid in and was lucky enough to get them for a really decent price. I then picked up a few other bits and pieces from Newline to fill in a couple of gaps.

The first batch of figures are now back from the painter and I have just started basing them up. I've got a platoon plus a couple of support weapons for the Soviets and about the same for the Mujahideen. The packs I bought also had some figures in winter uniforms and it's these I will be using for my Cold War Gone Hot project (although I had quite a few more to get to bring these up to platoon strength).

In the interim I have picked up a BTR70 from Copplestone (which I believe is the old HLBS range) and am considering getting a BMP or two but at £25 each I suspect that may be a little while off! Other than that I already have pretty much everything else I need in the way of terrain from other projects.

I plan to use this as my first real outing with the new Force on Force rules and I have managed to find a copy of The Bear Went Over the Mountain to provide some inspiration for scenarios.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I have the figure basing completed.