Cangames - Battle Report - Danger Close Scenario

Howdy folks,

I hope the start of summer is treating you well. I am finally getting around to posting on my Danger Close game from Cangames a few weeks back. Given the weather and some of the Cangames standards, it ended up being a tough sell…lots of folks game by and took pics of the table, but not a lot of takers on the Danger Close ruleset. Regardless, Duncan and I pressed on and I really like how the rules played out…this also gave us a chance to really run all of the game elements and effects, in particular the morale mechanics.

The Setup: Local confidential informations (CI’s) have been all abuzz, seems like the infamous Little Tony Michigan and his Vanilla Cartel group have been working out of a camp in the middle of the Arkansas woods. DEA have responded and are getting ready to hit the camp and prosecute a high-risk arrest to take in Little Tony.

The Players: the scenario can accommodate up to 4 players, with 2 teams of law enforcement and 2 teams of Cartel/Mob. The DEA had a team of 4 x field agents and a Special Response Team of 4 x agents who are extra trained in breaching ops and carrying out high risk arrests. The Cartel had Little Tony with 4 x thugs and there was a Russian Mob team that was 5 x thugs. Each team has a special skill and rule that is relevant to them only. It either let them re-roll a failed test/shot, shrug off morale/stress, or share action points with their team. Each team also had their own objectives so that this wasn’t just a kill game.

The DEA field agents…they can take a free move into cover or re-roll failed to hit. The field agents had to collect evidence along the way to get a solid case on Tony (for this, I used Fallout search tokens).

The DEA SRT team, they are breachers and can re-roll melee dice. The SRT had to ensure that the field agents were not in harms way and provide overwatch protection.

Little Tony (apologies for the messed up photo)…he can share action points with his guys if they are in LOS, his Lt. can extend the range of LOS, and the boys can make a free move if they are carrying any boxes of product.

Another wonky photo…sorry. The Russian mob, they were partnered with the Vanilla Cartel, but they had the task of finding the Accountant before the DEA did. Their special skills were shrugging off melee hits and re-rolling melee attacks.

The Game:

Little Tony’s camp is setup at a scrap yard, plenty of beat up vehicles, random corrugated walls, and trash to block LOS and provide cover. The tokens that look like binoculars are search tokens (from Fallout Wasteland Warfare) and key holes are locked doors (from Fallout as well). There are several wooden boxes scattered around the table, the yellow and light brown are full of product. If the camp is going down, Little Tony wants to get some of the goods out to ensure the financial survival of the Cartel…not to mention, keep those Colombians suppliers happy.

The overall table layout…top pic is from Cartel/Mob view, bottom pic from Law Enforcement perspective. You can see the various search and locked tokens…and plenty of scatter terrain with a few pieces of terrain that can be interacted with, i.e. house, shed, garage, and sea cans.

Initial moves: you can see Cartel and Mobsters getting into position behind cover. Jersey Lee and Greyman get in behind a sea container…you can see the DEA have moved up as well behind the barricades.

Little Tony gets in behind some oil drums, Moo Moo Mike is to his right on overwatch, with another thug in a prepared position up ahead of Tony’s location.

The DEA had the option of walking in or driving in…Duncan elected to roll in hot with the wheels. On entry into the camp, he had to roll to see if the vehicles hit some hidden tire popppers or not. The initial move by the SRT armoured van made it through and headed over for the shed. The field agents were not as lucky and tripped the poppers. Their car came to a halt at the entrance…they scrambled out, using their actions to move and their special ability to get a free move into cover.

The SRT disembarks and stacks up at the shed entrance. They successfully breach the door and find it occupied by the wild eyed accountant who is armed with a 44 magnum. This triggers an initiative roll…which the SRT agents win and they are able to get inside before the accountant squeezes off a shot. Duncan was able to get to base contact and rolls for melee/arrest and brings down the accountant.

 

They successfully roll for the breech and charge into contact. They then roll a successful evidence search.

The DEA field agents toss a smoke grenade (green paper…I had forgotten my smoke clouds). You can see, the SRT is in the shed, the field agents are slowly making their way to centre field, Little Tony’s guys are making their way to vantage points as well as recovering boxes of product.

The accountant is hauled into the back of the armoured van for safe keeping - this will put pressure on the Russian Mob team and force them to close in with the SRT and ‘rescue’ the accountant.

A small firefight erupts by the 10 foot blue sea container with a DEA agent getting wounded. The DEA were restricted by their Rules of Engagement so they could not fire unless fired upon.

The green smoke sticks around for a while providing some good cover for the field agent stuck behind the blue truck in the centre of the table. You can see that the agent is spotted by multiple thugs (green token) and is piling up the stress (red tokens). The second pic gives a great view of the agent with Little Tony taking a few shots at him.

At this point of the game, we triggered a couple of game events, the first one was inspired by the song Copperhead Road by Steve Earl, “DEA’s got a chopper in the air”…so Duncans agents did not have to spend any actions for spotting, they had visibility on all figures on the table. The second was inspired by the movie Den of Thieves, “we aren’t the arresting type”…for that turn, the DEA were in a permissive ROE environment so they could shoot to kill without having to take fire first.

This did make things a little more challenging for my Russian crew who were trying to circle around the camp to get to the Accountant, and Little Tony’s guys were about to start feeling the heat. The BlueJean dude jumped on top of the garage to try to get a shot off at the field agents, he is subsequently hit and killed. Jersey Lee is heading for boxes of product and moving them back to the truck near Tony. 

The Russian’s are in a firefight with the SRT, brown jacket Igor goes down hard, and if I remember correctly Boxershort Gregor puts a shotgun blast into one of the SRT agents for the kill. The green chips denote being in the prone position.

The gunfight keeps going…folks are going prone to try to get some advantage, or they have tripped morale/stress conditions. You can see that Boxershort Gregor has taken 3 stress and 1 injury token (3 injuries and you’re out…light, seriously, and dead). Greysuit Yuri is trying to get cover behind the green car, having failed his stress roll, he is in cover, no actions, and in prone position.

You can see everyone is making their way forward, grabbing cover where they can. Tommy Gunn is hunkered down behind the DHL van, agents are in the centre of the scrap yard using old fridges and vehicles for cover.

The following turn, a lot of action has happened. The field agents and Tony’s boys are heavily engaged on the right side…in a big upset, the Greyman took a few injuries and was subsequently knocked down in melee and arrested. Duncan secured Grey and moved him behind the barricades. As well, Tommy Gunn was taken down hard and killed by a SRT agent. Little Tony is starting to feel the stress of it all as well, he has 2 stress tokens. Sensing some desperation, one of Tony’s guys finishes loading the truck and starts to drive out of camp…only one way out unfortunately, so he has to thread the needle between the barricades. 

Moomoo Mike, who had been trying to hold the right side of the yard goes down in a hail of bullets.

Followed-up by the thug in the truck getting taken out by a headshot. The second pic, you can see Jersey Lee falling to the brutality of the DEA.

The SRT is rolling up the Russians…the field agents are doing a great job of holding on, Duncan is making his normal amazing die rolls. And in a blaze of glory…Little Tony Michigan, falls to a hail of dirty law enforcement bullets. 

Overall, it was a really enjoyable game…there are a lot more mechanics involved in the game, but it is really easy to dial it up or down should you choose. Glad to have the chance to run a game, certainly the larger tabletop was a lot of fun. Thanks to Duncan for taking up the challenge of playing DEA for the afternoon.

Danger Close - Another Test-Run

Howdy folks,

I hope all is going well on your sides of the internets. Well, as the title says, this is another play test of the Danger Close rules from Empress Miniatures. This time out, I had a little help from Duncan…I wanted to get his thoughts on the flow and mechanics of the game. So,we both squared off against each other and gave the rules a try. Spoiler Alert, it was another successful go with the rules, I think they are nice and simple, and yes, I am horrible at rolling the dice…Duncan soundly trounced all over my team.

So with that, here are the main details of the game and some pics to enjoy…take care.

The details: 

The crew: Duncan and I each had a fireteam of 5 personnel, fairly standard armament - carbines and one SAW (squad automatic weapons, ala C9, M249, etc.), I think we included optics (give a modification on spotting and shooting), and body armour of some type. 

Objective: again, I didn’t really think of any going into this…I ended up dropping a bag of weapons in the middle of the table and each crew was tasked with retrieving it.

Thoughts: again, fairly straightforward, but it was really good to get the perspectives from Duncan. There is a little bit of administration that goes into the game, token keeping stuff and whatnot. There were some ‘holes’ in the rules, but again nothing that some improv couldn’t fix. I think the biggest thing is that the tables can be a little problematic and confusing…I didn’t notice that too much the first time, but it was definitely a factor in our game.

And now, the pics:

The layout, kit bag of guns (blue bag) in the centre of the table. Duncan at the top, deployed and moved in behind some barricades. I’m ingress in from the bottom of the pic, between the two buildings on the right.

Slowly making my way up the table.

I made my way into the building…and Duncan made some pretty great rolls to snipe my guys on the inside.

Outside, I am having success spotting Duncan’s crew, but my die rolls suck hard…

Another one bites the dust…sniped..and down. 

And the rest of the team is feeling the pain.

Battle Report & First Thoughts - Danger Close

Howdy folks,

I hope everyone is doing well. As the title says, this is a 'quick' (albeit a long one) battle report on the Danger Close ruleset from Empress Miniatures as well as some initial thoughts on how they work and impressions. I played the game a few days ago and have had a chance to also collect a few other thoughts on the whole thing...so here goes:

First, the ruleset comes in super light at only 4 pages...and if you're not using any vehicles or large assets it is literally 2 pages. The made thumbing of pages trying to look things up is not really a factor in this game; at the same time, there are a few small gaps in concepts or defined terms - personally I was really good with that, it gave me a chance to be creative or go with what jumped to mind. 

Second, the game is a straight up d-20 affair, and relies heavily on calculated dice mod's +/- to applicable rolls. 

Third, in terms of who's who, the game breaks that down to a quick stat line per figure - with the most important stat being what is the Skills & Drills for that individual figure. YUP, these are for individual figures or characters if you want to do a narrative campaign thing. This made it pretty easy as S&D's drive everything in the game (number of actions you can take, modifiers, and who goes first), but also keeps the figure count relatively low...lots of metal/resin/plastic to control, so the suggestion from Empress is 20 figs or less.

Fourth, it does help to have some knowledge of military/combatant organization or load-out; but conversely, don't let that stop you. Have some belligerents in mind and kit them out accordingly - so you could have some creative license.

Bottom Line: I liked it...it was a lot of figs to manage for a first go, I made some mistakes, had to ad-lib a little, but really liked the flow and how it went. I hadn't looked at the ruleset in sometime, dove right in and had a 17 figure game in about 2.5 hours.

The Setup:

I didn't think far enough ahead to have any set objective...so that kinda developed as I rolled along. The terrain was extremely rudimentary as I also wanted to see how forms scaled with the figures and overall look and mechanics. So this was also a terrain build planning exercise.

Basic objective: Regular force (tier1/2 operators) converge on insurgent/militant/criminal safehouse. In this instance it was a sweep and clear operation or similar.

Good guys: Operators, broken into 2 loose teams; Team #1 was 3 pers, with silenced weapons; Team #2 ended up having the SOF Commander and 3 operators without silenced weapons. As these were SAS, SEALS, or JTF'ers they had 4 and 5 for S&D's (5 is the max). So this crew is built for speed and action.

From left to right: Boomer (5 points, M4 w/grenade launcher - team #2), Slick Pete (5 pts, M4 and silenced pistol - team #1), Face (5 pts, SOF Cmd, M4); Thud (4 pts, silenced M4), Swing Joe (4 pts, M4, pistol and tomahawk), Thump (4 pts, M4 and shotgun), and Fabio (4 pts, FN Minimi SAW).

Bad guys: The Milli Vanilli crew, mix of S&D's from 1 to 4, variety of kit but predominantly AK's, no body armour; 10 figures total, not grouped into teams but a variety of functions and placements on the map.

From left to right: Map Jerry (3 points, AK w/grenade launcher), Captain K (the bossman, 4 pts, SMG), 1-Eye Will (3 pts, AK), Walkin' Pete (2 points, Dragunov), Tower Tom (kneeling, 2 pts, AK), Carl (2 pts, AK), Mobile Mike (cell phone, 2 pts, AK), Helmet Hal (1 pt, RPD), Mark (1 pt, Dragunov), and Beret Boris (wearing a...beret...1 pt, RPD).

The table:

As marked on the pic, the compund/safehouse is 3 buildings with 1 guard tower. There are 2 vehicles, with one backed into the Garage. Tower Tom is in the tower, Beret Boris in the Garage, Mobile Mike is near the blue van, and Walkin' Pete is pulling sentry duty. The rest of the crew is in the main house, the higher skilled folks are having a meeting, making a plan; the remainder are in the next room grabbing some racktime. 

The dice are there to denote doors (6's) and windows (anything else, but then I changed this to 4's). The green shaded areas are brush and forest (so light-ish ground terrain, impedes movement) with the general idea that everything is just a smidge lower than the tower - so relatively easy to stay out of line of sight.

The Game:

The view from the left side of the table for Team #1, and right side for Team #2. The plan is pretty simple, stay in cover and move converge on each side of the table. I realized mid-way through turn 1 that I had all silenced weapons on the left side. 

I was randomly rolling for the movement of Walkin' Pete and Tower Tom, whether they would turn left and right, and then make their own actions accordingly. For Tower Tom that kept him looking in the wrong direction for almost the entire game...so not a lot of use having Tom on watch. Funny enough, Walkin' Pete had started heading towards Team #1, but rolled to move the other direction and kept on going towards the tower.

Before you can shoot, you have to spot the target first. This worked relatively well for the SOF dudes, and not so well for the Milli Vanilli's, they only had 1 successful spot. If equipped with radios, then you could make a roll to pass on any successful spot to the rest of the team...this ended up working well. Spotting is kept until the target breaks LOS with all team members...so bonus!

So, in the pic above, we see Team #1 keep working their way up, making it to the edge of the brush and trees. They would hold here for a spell, getting into shooting position, spotting targets, and reporting to the rest of the team.

View of Tower Tom, looking at the vans...poor Tom, and Team #2's progress on the right side. For the most part they stayed close together at the start and would then break into two 2-man elements and ingress to the structures.

Overhead drone shot...you can see that Walkin' Pete has made it to the DHL van, Mobile Mike finally rolled to start moving and heads towards the main house. Tower Tom is spotted, but only by 1 team member, comms issue and he failed the 5+ roll to tell the team, sigh...but all the others in the open are spotted and position reported to the team. And the arrows show the SOF movements...on the right, you have 2 operators by the guard tower, 2 moving up along the treeline just short of the shed. On the left side, all operators are now on the edge of the brush and treeline.

Closer view from the right side...

and the left side...

Tower Tom is finally reported to the rest of the team; SOF moves on the right: 1 operator on overwatch (red and blue die), 2 move in behind the blue van (out of LOS of Tom), and 1 in behind the shed.

Alternate view of the above actions.

Thud is lining up for a shot on Tom from within cover...spoiler, he misses...luckily he's using a silenced weapon and no one was alerted.

This pic is just before things go somewhat wrong...if I remember correctly, shots are fired, but the noise alerts Captain K, Jerry, and 1-eye...

1-eye Will points to where he hears the noise...

Lots of quick action...2 operators move behind the garage and stack up near the backdoor. 2 others are behind the blue van and lay down some fire on Walkin' Pete and Mobile Mike (who are both seriously wounded)...Mike fails the subsequent stress roll and surrenders to the SOF troops, getting up against the side of the van.

Alternate view and other moves...Team #1 takes out Tower Tom, and they start their move towards covering positions near the tower. Beret Boris lets loose with a burst of fire from his RPD and misses Boomer and Thud by the VW van. Boomer has enough of that and fires his grenade launcher at the house. The sleeping troops in the house are woken by the RPD fire and jump out of bed to join the action.

Anyone within 4 inches is hit and rolls for injury (point of green pen is impact area, 4 inches is up to the black band at the top of the pen)...Captain K and 1-eyed Will are lightly wounded, Map Jerry is seriously wounded, and Mark is lightly wounded as well (although he would end up in the corner of the room from failed stress roll. Captain K, peeved off, runs out the door of the house to let loose with his SMG. Helmet Hal, with his 1 action moves to the doorway.

Another flurry of action...SOF'ers move through the garage and take aim at Captain K, taking him down as he gets out the door (he does fire a burst, but it has not effect). 1-eyed Will moves to the gapping hole in the house and jumps through, and falls to overwatch fire from Slick Pete. From inside the house, Carl jumped out the backdoor and was immediately taken out by overwatch fire from Thud.

More action, SOF Cmd Face rushes the open door near the fallen Captain K, and drops Map Jerry with well aimed fire. Boomer rushes past 1-eyed and sprays the inside of the building. Slick Pete gets to the doorway, opens the door, and puts a couple of rounds into Helment Hal before he can react - definite difference between in S&D, 4v1.

Subsequent moves...SOF converges and consolidates on the house. Swing Joe gets into the house and drops Mark in the corner of the room. Thud jumps in through the backdoor and provides cover into the house. Fabio rolls around the corner of the VW van and secures Mobile Mike for recovery.

THOUGHTS: all in all a very enjoyable game...yes, I did decide on running through it last minute, hence the improvised markers and 'measuring' template <cough, green pen>. I think this will also serve as a good scenario to playtest some other rulesets and then I have a proper baseline to compare against.

Take care folks.