ACP164: Erma, Toki, Terrorists and Resistance Fighters

 

Finally go the next batch of ACP164 figures done. There are 6 terrorist/resistance fighter figures (mix of lapine and non-lapine) and the character figures of Erma and Toki in EDF battle dress. Particularly like the rabbit in the black leather jacket and the vixen. Erma and Toki came out a bit flat as I was rushing it as I wanted to get them done before the Christmas break.

The terrorist figures will mean I can make a start on the Almata campaign next year (if I get the time!)

P.S. I do have a WOTR game on the table at the moment but other things keep getting in the way :-(

ACP164 Shipboard Action

 

Ahead of painting up my ACP164 Spacers and as part of some testing for a Star Patrol(ACP164)/Cepheus hybrid I've been playing some short sharp shipboard actions. A crew of 6 critters (2 typically staying on the bridge) trying to fight off a boarding action by 3 armoured droids.

As ever the ACP164 card mechanic gave a nice slick game and the morale draws through in some nice curve balls - although perhaps the droids should have been less susceptible.

One thing I did decide was that an SMG/Shotgun close range of only 3 squares just seemed too short in the context of confined spaces, but conversely the movement rates (often 7-9 squares) were too much so I doubled ranges and halved movement and the net result was a far better game I thought.

Out of the 3 games I played I think the critters won all three, for no loss on the first one, one casualty on the 2nd and 2 casualties on the third (with a third critter curled up sobbing in the corner). Since the critters were being played as "PCs" rather than NPCs I'd given them higher Resilience and pulled them out of the fight once they'd had 3 hits so none of them died (although the auto-doc might be busy).

All worked pretty well I thought, now just need to finish off the Star Patrol(ACP164)/Cepheus idea.

ACP164: Dead Rabbits (and other critters)

Playing the ACP164 Lockdown campaign earlier in the year I half joking suggested to the group that we needed some dead rabbit figures (I hate the look of tipped figures in skirmish games). Chris saw the opportunity and so now we have a range of dead critters to buy! I bought 6 ILR and 6 EDF, and had great fun with pliers bending arms, snapping legs and then with a drill making bullet holes!

Rumours are that the campaign may restart which would be great, and a chance to use the figures - and there's the boarding action Kickstarter imminent.

Deliberate Attack on Chanzori

The Story So Far

Lupus Company of 3rd Battalion, 15th Armoured Infantry Regiment EDF was deployed rapidly forward to Topi Junction. Leaving 3rd Pl and Sp Pl to hold Topi, 1 and 2 Pl moved rapidly to take Chanzori but arrived to find the ILR just digging in about company strength. A hasty attack was a tactical success, knocking out the Satcom, but failed to dislodge the superior numbers (and quality) of the ILR Assault Company there. As the rest of Lupus Coy moved up (along with elements of Kilo Company) 2 and 3 Pl spent two nights in heavy patrolling conducting nighttime raids on the ILR, succeeding in the first to kill some critters but failing in the second to take out a LARC. Once the rest of the Company arrived it was time for a deliberate attach on flank of Chanzori, whilst two platoons of Kilo Company attacked the other flank.

Set-Up

Checking points EDF was meant to have 34 pts against an ILR force (smaller but more capable) of 20 pts. I scaled that down to 7 pts for EDF (2 sections, and extra fireteam plus a PML), and 4 pts for ILR (Assault section plus an Assault Pl HQ). The table had open ground in front of the town, and the IRL had rigged barricades on most of the main entrances. The EDF rolled for the train station as being their objective, to be held for D3 turns (determined once taken). ILR was controlled by the Solo/AI rules as in the latest issue of MW&BG.

EDF moving in form the L with ILR holding Chanzori R

How It Played

The EDF sprinted across the open ground as fast as they could, but still took several turns (low cards and body armour), and for much of the time were out of range of the puny ILR carbines. The forward ILR positions began to cause problems as the EDF neared but a few rounds from the PML took one of the main ones out. The extra fireteam tried to go right flanking but found no entry point, so back-tracked to where the PML had just struck and tried to sneak in their to enfilade the ILR team. An ILR LMG on a roof opened fire causing casualties so a brave EDF trooper lobbed a grenade up onto the roof, which bounced and came back down on top of him and killed him!

ILR LMG team with brave but dead EDF critter below

Better progress was being made on the other flank, with EDF coming off the best on the firefight. But down to 2 critters the ILR fireteam leader decide to charge the EDF and in a multi-turn melee managed to wound one EDF before being finally killed. 

ILR Fireteam commander makes a fanatical charge into melee

His colleague hunkered herself down by the station platforms and managed to hold the EDF off for several turns as the rest of the ILR abandoned the (their) left and centre zones and came to her aide. As she fell to a UGL grenade the EDF went firm and rolled for 2 turns to defend the station. 

ILR holding out at the station

As the ILR rolled in the EDF shot the lead critter at point blank as they emerged from an alley. Another EDF fire team pushed forward and flanked the ILR taking out two more critters, but losing one in the process. The second Shuffle card was drawn and the game was over.

ILR Commander rushing in, but all too late

A firefight round the alley, and it's all over

Conclusion

Another great ACP164 game. I think the solo/AI rules are a little bit cautious, the ILR HQ in particular hung back a lot and a lot of "do nothing but react" results. The ILR stepping up to "aggressive" as the game went against them was I suppose a reasonable reflection of their last ditch attempt to save the game, and was triggered by the fact that EDF was able to attempt more shots as they had more figures, but then kept missing due to their Green rating.

Raid on Pebble Park

For the second night running it was night-ops in Chanzori as Lupus Company tried to keep the ILR Assault force occupied whilst its fellow companies engaged in bigger battles on its flanks. For tonight the target chosen was a LARC (assault flyer) pad based in the old Pebble Park.

Lt Chapais took two sections along and no heavy weapons. The opposition were two sections of ILR Assault troops - better armed and armoured than his own. Chapais sent 2 Section rifle group right to provide a diversionary attack against the main entrance, with the gun group on a roof top ready to provide covering fire to whoever needed it. 1 Section would go left flanking and in through a back entrance, hopefully less well guarded.

ILR security patrol, heading for the corner where the EDF will emerge

Unfortunately two ILR guards randomly headed towards that same entrance and the EDF emerged straight into their line of sight. A brief firefight saw 2 dead rabbits, but the alarm had been raised and the main ILR force came streaming out. 2 Section managed to catch a few as they headed for the main gate, but then got bogged down in a sporadic firefight.

ILR stream out, three of their number downed by 2 Section

Chapais drove 1 Section forward, taking the Rifle Gp round to the left of the pad, whilst the Gun Gp went right. Unfortunately the access ramp was on the far side. 1 Section came under fire from emerging Assault Troopers, but Chapais and two troopers held them off whilst two other trooper bravely legged it for the ramp, and made it up to the LARC.

1 Section holds off the ILR whilst 2 critters make it up to the LARC

A nice shot of the 1 Section firefight - note two out-of-ammo markers!

Setting the charges!

A random throw then showed that the EDF needed 2 activations in undisturbed contact with the LARC in order to set the charges and then blow it. The demolition team got one activation, but needed one more. But the ILR Assault Troopers had managed to kill the two critters with Chapais, and Chapais, now wounded tried to hold them back but his gun jammed and he was soon down too. Two ILR rabbits dashed forward, up the ramp, and charged into the EDF critters setting the explosives. The first round went one all, but the second round saw both EDF critters pushed away from their explosives. One of them, nursing a wound, thought better of the fight and left off the platform and ran for cover. The second bravely fought on but succumbed in the third round.

Two ILR charge into the back of the EDF demolition team

Any chance of blowing the LARC was now gone. OC 2 Section took charge, and ordered a withdrawal. His team had been fighting off ILR coming round both sides of a container, having a lucky break when a grenade failed to explode, but had inflicted enough damage on the ILR that the ILR section was temporarily stunned. 2 Section, and the Gun Gp of 1 Section slipped back into the dark and off the board.

Demo team pushed back, and effectively game over

A great game, and a real nail-biter as to whether the EDF would blow the LARC. The EDF suffered from 2 Section Gun Gp having blocked LoS to the action the whole time and never firing a round, and even 1 Section Gun Gp was poorly utilised. Had the ramp been in any other configuration (randomly chosen) it could have been a very different game. EDF suffered 4 losses, ILR 5, but an ILR victory as the EDF failed to blow the LARC.

Albedo ACP164 Beta Rules Test

Moving out...

I finally got the chance to play with the Beta of the full ACP164 ruleset. Time (and space) only allowed a small scenario (6mm FKaP Adwalton Moor is still on the main table), so I had 4 EDF patrolling through a starport district (wonderful SF ISO containers from Wargame Model Mods - more on them once painted up) about to be ambushed by two ILR critters.

The intent was to test the new bits of rules, and in particular:

• Spotting
• Fire when moving
• Sprint/dashing
• Numeric cover/save ratings (so can be combinatorial)
• UGLs

In the end I played the scenario through twice, once with the EDF clustered as two pairs, and once with each EDF pair starting from opposite ends of the base line.

In the first run through EDF kept failing to spot the ILR man on the container roof, and in the end the critter had to open up on a reaction roll before the EDF disappeared into her blindspot. EDF rapidly returned fire and took her out. Her colleague then took a morale check and decided it was "death and glory" time and charged out into the open firing at the nearest EDF, caused a wound but was brought down in a hail of bullets.

Second time round the she-rabbit was spotted immediately. Both EDF teams dashed forward (no real suppression option) and the boss caught a wound but shrugged it off and hunkered down in cover. The right hand team got close enough to use their UGL and after a first overshoot scored one hit. Then a second miss (this one almost taking out the 2nd rabbit), and the fourth on target and one dead rabbit. Her colleague took a morale test again, and this time thought better of it and retreated back off the table.

All in all the new rules worked well. I'd like to see a few more factors on spotting, and something around character pose/stance, but could probably fix that and a few other things with some house rules. The card system works so quickly and smoothly I think you'd then have the best skirmish set on the market - and I haven't even started with the zero-gee and blowing holes in walls rules yet!

The set up, 4 EDF walking into a 2 critter ILR ambush

The boss checks her iPad

EDF almost underneath the ILR and still haven't spotted them! 

Rain of fire to the top of the ISO and one rabbit down!

Bullish Morale draw and the remaining rabbit charges out, guns blazing!

ENDEX just as the rabbit falls

Albedo ACP164 Introductory Scenario - Part 2

Finished off the Albedo ACP164 introductory scenario. Stayed with the v1.1 beta ruleset even though I got the v3.7 draft full set mid-game. Read the initial set-up blog post for background.

The EDF guys were perhaps a bit over ambitious, but there orders were to patrol forward, not to wait to be attacked! Due to poor sight-lines both sides saw little til they were almost on top of one another. An EDF critter spotted the ILR gun crew dashing across from one building to another, rolled a successful interrupt, but got an out of ammo card. The ILR crew could now lay down enfilade fire with their LMG on the flank/rear of the most forward  EDF critter who soon went down. The first EDF critter has reloaded in time to see the ILR boss poke his snout out, but got another OOA! The ILR #2 on the LMG dashed forward, and managed to get to the EDF critter who was busy reloading, and a brief melee saw the second EDF critter down.

Two EDF critters down!

The EDF commander had amassed a handful of morale chits, and on their activation rolled for the lot but for no negative effect - in fact she was ordered to engage the nearest enemy - just as well as an ILR rabbit was now bearing down on her. Another OOA! ILR took their shot and the boss went down. Paddy, the remaining EDF critter, then remembered an urgent engagement with a bone and the game was over, for no ILR loss.

The EDF OC stunned and at severe risk!

The game played out pretty well, just a few observations:

• Out of ammunition does seem to frequent - had my suspicions the first time round
• The morale results seem unduly neutral or even positive, the EDF leader had lost half her team but still go no real penalty

The deadly ILR LMG

Time for some other gaming now, and then back to ACP164 to try the beta rules out in a while.

The EDF OC ought to have other things on her mind than checking SnoutBook!

Albedo ACP164 Introductory Scenario

With my EDF and ILR squads painted and the TerraBlock terrain done its time to try and get the Introductory Scenario played through before the dining table has to be cleared for Christmas.  ILR fighting patrol (6 pax)  coming in from top left, EDF defenders (4 pax) from bottom right. The three coloured decks are Activation (blue), ILR (yellow), EDF (red).

EDF critter moves past a back door, no rabbits in sight yet.

Half way through the first turn and both sides are on the board creeping round the sides of their nearest building. Being me I've converted the rules to 1" square grid play, and using the nice 2ft x 2ft battle map I got at Games Expo.

ILR ready to round the corner, fireteam OC and the LMG critter.

ILR round the other side of the building - dice are activation numbers.

EDF Albedo fire-team almost done

The EDF team for Albedo ACP164 is almost done. Going to redo the grey cat as was just too dark.

Albedo ILR Done

Just finished painting my ILR squad. bases still to be done. The hare's didn't come out as good as I'd hoped, or the white rabbits, bu think the standard rabbits are OK. My first real attempt to do 3/4 colour/shade 28mm painting too. Now on to the EDF!

Hare and rabbit in the  in-progress Terra Blocks Sally 4th MDF system

Two rabbits - I gave the hare's the big guns!

Probably the best of the figures. My normal "lived-in" look.

1st of the Month

1st of the month so what better than 7 white rabbits! (I know, they look cream in the photo and more like hares than rabbits!) Albedo figures he we come. Hardly ever painted 28mm so should be an experience!

Skirmish Rules Testing: Part 7 - Albedo ACP164

Presentation

ACP164 is Buck Surdu's SF version of his WW2 Combat Patrol card-driven rules for the new Albedo wargame on Kickstarter. A quick-start version of the rules are currently available to backers as a PDF with a PDF card set. Didn't take long to print the cards out and stick onto card stock. The rules are pretty well laid out, and as it is the cards have most of what you need to know. I made rough equivalences between the ACP164 weapons and SA80/AK47 etc.

Set-Up

My standard set-up was used, with 10 encounter points to be randomly diced for pairs of insurgents as they cam into sight. As with almost all my games I converted the rules to Hex, one (4cm) hex = 1inch in the rules. Figures were my standard 15mm, not ACP164 28mm (not yet painted!)

How It Played

Cpl Hore and the team (EDF) got a fair way onto the main drag before coming under fire from insurgents (ILR) on the roofs of the two central buildings. Wade and Jones were caught in the drainage ditch, Hore and Kronfield raced to a building roof to give covering fire, whilst Wall's team provided the fire base. A few lobbed AGL rounds missed their mark, there was a lot of running out of ammo on both sides as rounds flew, and even as the ILR took casualties their morale held up. But in the end the body armour meant that most ILR hits were ineffective, but the EDF hits were deadly. 

A UGL round bursts harmlessly in the street, but one ILR already down

With the first obstacle cleared Hore pushed on, but he and Kronfield were on point then another ILR pair opened up from behind one of the houses on the south side. Luckily the RPG failed its reaction role, as did Nufail the ILR commander. Hore and Kronfield returned fire, taking out Nufail. Wall and co did a rapid right flank, came up behind Mahamadou and his RPG acting as a club was no help against their SA80s and cold steel.

Mahamadou taken in the flank

No sooner had the EDF regrouped when an ILR pair on the compound roof opened up, wounding Wade. Wall managed to take Olasyar and his PKM out, but Hore was beginning to feel the pressure and his team got an adverse morale check, with Wade and Jones becoming stunned whilst Hore and Kronfield decided that the only way to save their exposed comrades was to charge the enemy team by the compound gates!

Hore and Kronfield charge the compound!

Luckily Wall saw the problem and in a fast move managed to get his guys to the gate just before Hore, but incoming fire from Jandol wounded Wilson. 

Wall & co pile in!

McDowell and Gallagher went into the melee, but the ILR ML199 had a massive edge against the EDF L1-56 in melee, and both were forced back. Wall took a morale test and whilst McDowell and Gallagher stayed firm back at the ditch Wilson had had enough and fell back to the sheep pen. Meanwhile Wade and Jones had managed to pin Ali on the compound roof, but by the gate Jandol and Karwan now had Hore, Kronfield and Wall all right in front of them. Luckily BOTH of them rolled out of ammo. 

Returning fire the EDF took out Jandol. Karwal took a reaction test and got a CHARGE, and so Butch Cassidy style charged out of the gates into the withering fire of the three EDF soldiers and it was game over. The ILR had lost 9 , EDF had only 2 wounded. The game lasted about 8 turns.

Karwal's final charge!

Rules Impressions

As previously mentioned I had Buck's WW2 rules on my to-play list, so it was nice to be able to try them out in their Albedo/SF version - and I must say I really liked them. The use of the multi-purpose cards worked really well and meant that there was hardly any table look-up.

Sample prototype ACP164 cards. Almost everything is on them, some elements are dual purpose, and you may need 2 cards to resolve some issues - e.g. one to hit and one for damage, creating more randomness. They work well.

The double random activation worked well, with fire-teams not individuals activating. The random movement was also good.  I did seem to get a lot of out-of-ammo cards at the start, but that eased. ILR morale also almost always held up - so they had to be killed one by one (which probably reflects the "Japanese" morale they've been given to start with). Cover also looked like it was going to be problematic, with lots of cover saves, but again they eased off. EDF body armour kept their casualties low, but they certainly suffered worse morale wise.

There are probably fewer DMs then I'd ideally like (to/from different heights, aiming) , and in the current version no spotting rules or suppression (but pin has a similar, even bigger, effect). 

Overall

Overall I'd have to give them 8/10 - but I might need to edge the Danger Close rules up to 8.5 as with the sets as they are I'd marginally prefer the added detail in DC - but ACP164 gives a faster game and would certainly be better for "playability" - and once the final rules are out they may also be at 8.5 or even 9. They've certainly also given me some new ideas for my own set.

All in all a great game, with probably the best balance of hits and morale effects so far.