"The Compound - Modern Afghanistan" Topic

We had another game at a local convention this saturday, testing the current alpha-version of our modern ruleset "Code Red".

I didnīt prepare much, just threw together two lists of Local Afghans and US Marines that we didnīt pit against each other yet.
The Taliban list was comprised entirely of locals with a good deal of leaders to control them and a lot of reinforcements to call in. The tricky bit to play this list is not to lose too many leaders early on, as soon as the Command structure is broken your Taliban will be in trouble. On the other hand you have to control your irregulars, so putting everything into reinforcements will leave the battlefield to your opponent

The Marines are rather straightforward in comparison, two full squads, a platoon leader, medic and JTAC controlling a Cobra Gunship.

The battlefield was set up by the players, starting edges where rolled and the compound in the middle was the Marine objective. The Taliban just had to cause as much damage to the Americans as possible.

The American deployment was not ideal (despite me playing them, but it was a long day with another game prior to this and I had to explain the most important rules while deploying, so my performance was below the usual standard :-X ) as you can see…
The Taliban had barred the quickest way by placing IEDs (or dummies) along the cover leading to th compound.

Ultimately, bad positioning and a strong command performance by the Taliban left us boxed in on the starting positions with only the right flank to advance. A long firefight ensued while we pushed a single fireteam into the hills on the right, where it got stuck in a firefight on close range (heroes of the day, holding out against a lot of insurgents without taking casualties).

Unfortunately we couldnīt finish the game due to time constraints – though the Taliban where slowly whittled down by the fire of the regulars, they might as well have won in the end with another lucky shot or two.

The full, in-depth report is on my blog: link

We also played another scenario of Cold War Hot before that, though I took no pictures. Again, full report on the blog: link

Thanks for looking!

PS: If youīre interested in the rules: Still in development, internal testing only at the moment. If youīre curious about what weīve done so far, thereīs a section full of dev diaries: link

Good stuff BG, thanks for taking the time to post it. I'll have to take a deeper look at your developmental diaries when I get a bit more time; clearly you have the US Marines underrated ;)

I look forward to your next post.

V/R,
Jack

Thanks Jack, Iīd appreciate your comment & critique, always looking for people who have some real world experience. After all, Iīm just one of those civies trying to model the thing in a somewhat reasonable way :)

Cheers
BG

BG,

Wow, I've only gotten through your first four developmental diaries, but I can say that we see eye to eye on a lot of stuff (probably everything so far). I had the same problems with FoF (which I don't want to denigrate as I really believe it was a revolutionary set of rules), which moved me off of them.

I am a cover/save kind of guy, which I like so much better than the matching up firepower and defense dice, and should help with the goal of moving fire to be less lethal but more effective with regards to pinning/suppressing.

I think most games from WWII onward make fire too effective, and make close assault unnecessary. That's a tough one, because it's not like guys are duking it out in hand to hand combat all the time. There are two issues:
1) close assault isn't a bayonet charge, it's getting to very close range (10-30 yards), where hand grenades are used and men with rifles no longer miss. I only mention this in terms of close assault should not mean opposing forces in physical contact, it should reflect being at extreme close range (I play a lot of 10mm stuff, and for me 6" is a good 'close combat' range).
2) a lot of times close assault is not necessary, not because the enemy was eliminated by fire, but because they took a casualty or two, realized they'd lost the initiative and fire superiority, and abandoned the position.

"At the same time, I abandoned the notion of having two modes of firing (normal aimed fire and suppressive fire) and just merged that – all infantry fire is primarily meant to suppress the target."
I always have a problem with that statement: all infantry fire is meant to kill, not suppress. It's just that we don't hit the target as often as we'd like No one ever said, don't shoot him, just shoot next to him so he'll duck and I'll sneak up on him ;)

I really want to get a look at your activation system as it sounds great. Leaders as actual men that LEAD troops on the table has been hard to make work in rules, in my experience. We may have activation rolls or what have you, but it's been hard to get the feeling that the leader figure was making it happen on the table, and not the 'helicopter general.'

I don't think I'm understanding your morale example (the guys getting caught in the open. I also noticed it was mixing die types, i.e., D6 sometimes and D10 sometimes. Certainly everyone has there own personal preference, and it probably wouldn't stop me from playing a game, but different die types sounded great to me but was a big hassle for me, and I ended up rolling D10 for everything and coming up with houserules to make it work regarding troop type (in FoF).

I like the combined cover/morale roll, and I love the idea of sacrificing command dice to recover from negative morale effects.

It sounds like you're really onto something. I'll try to finish up the rest of your developmental diaries tomorrow, though I need to get my table set for a fight on Saturday morning ;)

I also have an off-topic question: how did you make those rocky hills? I just bought some 20mm models I intend on using for SOF skirmishes, and the rocky hill you had in the last playtest looks exactly what I'd like to have.

Good stuff, please keep posting!

V/R,
Jack

Hey Jack,

thanks for the in-depth reply. Actually you brought up an interesting point that I feel is not 100% reflected yet, which is abandoning positions in the face of enemy fire superiority. How easy would that be if the unit is under a decent volume of fire to classify it as either pinned or suppressed? Right now, we have a mechanism for falling back, i.e. abandon position under enemy fire, which allows you to retreat despite being pinned for the increased risk of taking a casualty during this pull-out. Do you think this is an accurate depiction of how things would work?

Usually pinned units shouldnīt be able to move, which is why they are considered pinned in the first place. Or does that refer more to preventing aggressive maneuvering than retreat?

Regarding the suppressive fire thing, the statement was maybe phrased a bit wrongly. Of course you usually shoot to hit something, but the chance to hit is much lower than the chance to put a bullet nearby – so *in effect*, all infantry fire is primarily suppressive (though maybe not meant to be) and the rate of casualties remains very low. Iīm still using only one mode of fire, you probably now all the discussions about components of suppression and that accuracy might even play a greater role than rate of fire – itīs just that Iīm working at a higher level of abstraction where I donīt care about such details, I believe the troops know what they do and will do what is right for them in the situation they face.

Moving on to the matter of dice – youīll see that I abandoned the notion of having different dice when you read the remaining dev diaries. Incidentally, itīs now also using D10 for everything ;)

The firefight diary contains an older version as an example, which is not up to date anymore (I thought Iīd written that somewhere next to it) to demonstrate the process of development and different steps I took to get where I am now. Sorry if that caused some confusion. Only the last example is up to date, using D10 only and employing the combined cover & morale-mechanic.

And now on to th hill: Itīs a Battlefield in a Box – Extra Large Desert Hill by GaleForce 9, which is unfortunately Out of Production as far as I know.
The trees were just placed on top for the game.

BG,

I think you've really got something good here, good work.

Regarding pins, I think units have three states of degradation:

1) Pinned, in which the men will return fire (probably at a penalty) and will respond to orders having them move away from the threat, but will not maneuver towards the enemy.

2) Suppressed, in which the men will not return fire or respond to any orders to move.

3) Fall back, in which the men are involuntarily (not responding to, or defying orders) moving away from the threat, and they will keep going until they are no longer under fire, and should remain suppressed (or at least pinned) until they've rallied/recovered.

Regarding casualties during fall back, I don't think casualties should 'automatically' happen, but should if it is the result of enemy action. Certainly we try to isolate the enemy by fire to prevent their escape, and so if we've been able to position units to do that the enemy should suffer the results of our fire as they try to fall back (based off a normal reaction test). But if the enemy has a covered route of egress, or we haven't been able to maneuver to take their escape route under fire, then they shouldn't be subject to casualties.

I was just joking with you about 'suppression' fire, and I absolutely believe there should only be one mode of fire. I love the D10 aspect also, and the spotting mechanism is great (1/2 dice for unspotted).

I like your concepts for close combat, but I need to understand the reaction tests at the start. In your example the Brits won and were not subject to defensive fire. Can defensive fire halt the close assault (I assume it can, and I agree that it should)? Also, do the attackers test to see if their guys are willing to close with the enemy?

I know plenty of rules do that, and plenty don't. I really like to keep things simple and don't want to be too complicated, but I think that test should be situationally dependent. That is, well-trained troops (I'd include both the Brits and the Russians in your example) should not have to test (or it should be almost a 100% chance of success) if they are in good order. But if they've lost their leader or suffered 'excessive' casualties, it should be very hard to get them to move into close combat.

I'm also curious about the definition of close combat with regards to distance. Your example mentions the Brits start the test at 8" to move into close combat. I'd say if you're playing with 20mm figures, you probably should already be in close combat at 8". Again, I'm just getting at the idea that close combat is not hand-to hand, it's using hand grenades and engaging at ranges in which men have a hard time missing each other.

Dang it, I really like that hill! I'll have to see if I can pick one up second hand.

Fire support is always really tough, especially at platoon-level and in a COIN environment, as well as the gameplay aspect of not wanting to become unbalanced. You could design a game where R&S guys sneak onto a ridge and call in supporting fires on enemy targets on the next ridge 2000 yards away, but it probably wouldn't be that fun to play. Similarly, you could have a game in which the lead element takes fire, pulls back, and calls in arty to clear the way (we call that "doing it Army style"). Again, not all that fun.

So I like what you've written in there with the delays and deviation, but good luck, that's a tough nut to crack.

Regarding vehicle destruction, I agree with having to test to see if you hit the target first (it's like you're in my head!). The only other thing I could say is, keep it simple and quick. At these very, very short ranges, anti-vehicle fire should be quick and deadly (in my opinion).

Okay, I'm caught up, thanks for sharing all that. Let me know if there's anything I can help with, and I look forward to your next post.

V/R,
Jack

Hey,

glad you like it so far. The involuntary fall back (or rather retreat) is indeed a thing we donīt have depicted yet. Iīll be giving the idea some thought and work on a mechanism (I do have an idea already) – I think it should take quite some amount of firepower to drive units from being suppressed into full blown retreat. Correct me if Iīm wrong. ;)
In my book, suppression should mainly enable your troops to maneuver in closer to force them to abandon the position by player choice rather than just driving them off by a game mechanic.

The casualties during fallback are by no means automatic, your unit has to take an additional cover-save with a negative modifier for exposure while abandoning their position under enemy fire. So there is a decent chance to pull out without any casualties, but there is a heightened risk compared to staying put. This risk has to be weighted by the player against the risk of further exposure to enemy fire – thatīs the idea.

Regarding close combat, there are essentially two modes of close combat represented in the rules: On the one hand, we have the close-range firefight, which is a standard firefight closer than usual to the enemy. Here the defender will suffer a malus to his cover save but he still has it. Units in solid cover will still not be easily dislodged by close range firefights, but the casualty rate will certainly rise above the normal level.
Units in close range firefights (engagements within 10" btw) are also able to act on their own initiative without requiring further orders.

The second mode of close combat is indeed the very very close combat, the last few meters that happen during trench clearing, close quarters combat indoors, assaulting the enemy fighting positions, the real bayonet charge, etc. – this is the part described in the close assault dev diary.
It does not require a check for regular troops though as I feel the player should decide which risks he wants to take. Irregulars are a different thing, if they donīt have a leader attached they might very well hesitate when faced with the order(as they do during firefights)

When talking about ranges for close assault we should also keep in mind that the groundscale canīt be translated 1:1 into the figure scale. Itīs very difficult to find the right level of abstraction here, but considering the men in the fighting units are stretched with 2-5 meters in between while we place them much closer on the battlefield, the groundscale is somewhere around 3-4 times the figure scale. So 10" is actually closer to 50-75m distance rather than 20m. Close assault as defined in the rules thus happens only when the units are actually in contact/cohesion distance (about 1-2")

Now on to the reaction test – itīs just about who fires first. Defensive fire can happen and can easily repel the assault. The longer the approach onto the enemy position, the more likely the defensive fire will hit before the attacker reaches his destination.

Letīs do this with another example:
A few Insurgents are trying to assault a position of government troops that are pinned down by preparatory fire from other groups. They have to cover quite some distance, 9" to reach the government position.
Now both units roll a dice for the reaction test, my insurgents roll a 8, the government troops also roll a 8.
Due to the long approach, my Insurgents suffer -3 due to the distance to cover, -1 for their bad training. They end up with a 4.
The government troops are just pinned down (-1) so end up with a 7.

So the government troops fire effectively before the insurgents can finish their charge.
They roll 7 firepower dice achieve a 1,2,3,6,7,9,9 – only the last three are successes, the 6 would have been if they werenīt pinned.

With 3 hits the attacker now takes 3 saves, he is advancing through the open and exposed, so takes casualies on anything below 7+. They get 3,3,9 and take two casualties and are now forced to take two morale tests. They fail one of them an are pinned, which aborts the assault and has them falling back into cover. During fall-back another Insurgent is shot down while retreating over the open ground.

Actually, finishing a close assault is not very easy if you havenīt suppressed the enemy troops properly. Such assaults can also be interrupted by nearby groups that are not your original target of the assault, so mutual support is important.

Now I have to leave, I could go on. If you want to know more, please leave another post, Iīll happily respond and would like to hear your opinion on the more detailed explanation.

All the best
BG

BG,

"…I think it should take quite some amount of firepower to drive units from being suppressed into full blown retreat. Correct me if Iīm wrong. ;)"
I dunno man, I think there are plenty of guys that get into a situation where the fire is pretty heavy and you think to yourself, what are we doing here? We'd better back off and take another look at this. That may have even have happened to me once in April 2004 ;)

I think your point is, it would take a lot to have a group of professional troops lose their discipline and run away like a bunch of children, and I agree with that. But what I'm talking about is not the undisciplined route (though it should probably have its place), but the representation of the unit not doing what higher-level leadership expects it to.

I.e., the Platoon Commander says advance up to the corner, then turn left, but the squad leader, in the process of following the Lieutenant's orders the squad takes an unexpectedly heavy amount of fire, or fire from an unexpected direction (I thought 2nd Squad was on our flank?), or both, and the squad leader decides of his own accord to back the squad out of contact and take another look at the situation.

"In my book, suppression should mainly enable your troops to maneuver in closer to force them to abandon the position by player choice rather than just driving them off by a game mechanic."
I can agree with that line of thinking as well, but the only issue is you may be allowing the player, who is ostensibly the platoon commander, the ability to make the squad leader's decisions too. Which is okay, if that's how you want to run your game, that's how I play most of the time, it's easier and quicker.

I understand regarding the two types of close combat. If you don't mind, I'll provide my two cents: I agree with the concept of two types of close combat. Let's call them 'fistfight' (the closer of the two) and 'the kill zone' (the further, 10" out). In my mind, the 'kill zone' is where I want to be. I want to utilize fire and maneuver to get an element into the 'kill zone,' which is where we (the better trained and organized force) are going to end the fight with an awesome display of firepower at extremely close range.

That's where I want to be. What I do not want to do is make a mistake (not understanding the enemy location well enough, or not properly controlling my men) and get too close to the enemy. I want to use my high-velocity firearms and grenades, not fists, knives, and pistols, which negates my advantage, and I don't want to stumble into someone and be surprised.

So, my point is that when modern, professional armies say things in their pubs like "To locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat," they mean getting into the 'kill zone,' not the fistfight.

In game turns, I'd give the better trained and organized force a definitive advantage in command and control, fire discipline, communication, cohesion, etc…, and I'd make it much easier to hit and much easier to put the target out of the fight (for both sides).

Regarding the 'fistfight' zone, I'd literally make it a toss-up, where (all things being equal, i.e., the two enemies are both in good order and alert) you have a 50-50 chance of winning the combat. To me that's bad odds, and that's why we don't like to do it in real life; closing with the enemy is getting close enough to use grenades and shoot without missing, not getting close enough to roll around on the deck with your adversary.

I gotcha regarding scale and distance, and I like the movement distance into close combat being a determining factor in terms of defensive fire. My only question is regarding this:
"With 3 hits the attacker now takes 3 saves, he is advancing through the open and exposed, so takes casualies on anything below 7+. They get 3,3,9 and take two casualties and are now forced to take two morale tests."
I thought you had combined the fire results/morale rolls? I know I read you had combined them, so I'm guessing you mis-wrote while trying to explain your ideas to a guy that's not smart enough to understand ;)

It all sounds good, and I saw you added another post to your blog for the development diary. I'll read it soon, I've just been very busy this weekend with gaming and writing up batreps! ;)

It's good talking to you, and I think you're rules are looking great.

V/R,
Jack

Hey,
glad to hear you had a good gaming weekend, Iīll take a look at your reports as soon as I get home ;)

So, in reverse order:

Morale Checks: Itīs true that the morale effects caused by firepower have been merged with the cover roll. There are other circumstances that trigger morale tests as well though, like units taking casualties. In this case, Insurgents who donīt care for their fallen and donīt have even rudimentary first aid will take a morale check immediately after taking casualties.
Itīs kind of a special rule and probably wasnīt exactly the best example. Not sure if this special rule wonīt be purged and streamlined into a general mechanism at some point

Regarding the close combat definition, thatīs pretty much the distinction between close combat and firefights on close range that is represented in the rule.

Close combat is a bloody affair, equal skill, manpower and morale status will literally be a 50-50 affair. Of course you can influence that to your favour by numerical superiority, pinning and suppressing the opponent, having better training… Itīs still risky though, but very very effective if you really need to clear a position.

The "kill zone" or close range firefight is just another firefight with an increased chance to cause casualties. Again, better training, having the initiative and superior firepower will make itself felt as you shoot faster (better chance to win reaction tests), spot better (better chance to roll a success on said test), hit better (bigger chance to roll a success on firepower dice) with the added bonus lethality of short range.
Furtermore your troops donīt need to be given orders to fire when close to the enemy, so you can employ your command dice elsewhere. Insurgents without leaders still have to check to activate, so your troops will usually perform much better against insurgents, who also tend to die more quickly rather then retreat.

On the morale issue, I think I know what youīre talking about. I might be an inexperienced civilian, but Iīve been playing military simulations in coop for a while now (on all the positions, from soldier to platoon leader) and have experienced these moments when you donīt care about the order anymore and just fall back to reorganise. (Or, on the other side of the radio: "Negative, weīre under heavy fire and falling back now")
Itīs definitely not the scared "running away" that terms like "routing", "retreat", etc. are triggering as mental images.

The reason I said it should not be easy to rout units was directed at the gameplay aspects more than for realisms sake. I donīt think it would make great gameplay to have your units going into retreat just due to some less than good luck on the dice. It should require some amount of intention by the opponent to trigger this result, or at least an unusual amount of lucky rolling.

Right now, units are forced to fall back when they suffer from morale effects while exposed, i.e. too far away from cover or conceilment or shot in the flank or back.

Iīm thinking about adding a third condition if they suffer several (two?) consecutive morale failures after already being suppressed, i.e. the unit is under heavy fire and already distressed.
If the troops are not rallied, this condition can keep triggering retreats again and again as long as enough firepower is applied.

Generally, itīs very difficult to divide between the squad leaders decisions and the platoon leaders perspective on the gaming table. Ordering full squads around would leave you with 3 controllable elements in a platoon level game, which is not very much for a tactical game. Controlling full squads is more of a company-level game concept, where youīd usually control 9 elements + supporting units.
So, essentially Iīm fine with the player making the decisions of both the platoon commander and the squad leader, even moreso because it makes the game more scaleable. Just want to play two squads? Fine, you can do that with the system! Want to play full blown platoon will support assets? No problem.

So, all in all we seem to be in the same boat ;)
You definitely provided some interesting food for thought on the issue of infantry morale and retreats which might be exactly whatīs been missing the game so far – the fights always started out with fluent maneuver and then bogged down as the firefight raged on, with neither side able to break the gridlock until very late into the fight. This somehow felt wrong, and now I think I know why and have some ideas on how to resolve this. Just need to launch another playtesting session :)

Cheers
BG