"Operation Rush Delivery, Fight #3" Topic
8 Posts
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Just Jack | 13 Apr 2017 6:17 a.m. PST |
All, AKA, the 12th fight of Operation Payback It's 0532 on 20 July 1990, and the invasion of Avalor, a small Caribbean island-nation near Cuba, upon which Castro-regime holdovers have been organizing, training, and launching attacks on the homeland, is underway. Previously three Reconnaissance and Surveillance teams from 10th Special Forces Group were inserted to support the invasion; one is in position in OP India, but the second team was compromised and extracted, and the third team (Rebel 33) was ambushed and wiped out. Now 1st Lieutenant Huerta's 18th Grenadier Guards of the 6th Parachute Battalion are jumping from C-130s onto three separate Drop Zones (DZs) in the pre-dawn darkness. They will immediately form up and march on their objectives, the terrorist training areas and barracks on Avalor, manned by terrorist trainees and their Venezuelan and Iranian trainers. Here we pick up the action at DZ Crow, where bad guys alerted by the earlier firefights with Cuban R&S teams are watching paratroopers of 2nd Lieutenant Jaramiho's 1st Platoon descend and crash to the earth.
Overview, north is up. We've got a small village at center/top center left, a dirt road/intersection, several crop fields, and scattered jungle. The table is 3' x 2' and I'm playing these fights solo using Ivan's "Five Men at Kursk," slightly modified to get a more modern (and deadly) feel. As luck would have it, this is an even up, six-man on six-man fight, and the two sides are intermingled due to bad guys trying to concentrate forces from outlying areas and the Cubans being air dropped onto the field of battle. Let's get some closeups.
The fight is hot and heavy; a rifleman moves up (far left) as his partner takes fire and is pinned (yellow bead at top) and the machine gunner is suppressed (red bead at bottom right). To see how the fight for DZ Crow went, please check the blog at: linkNext up is 2nd Platoon hitting the DZ, and it's a real doozy! V/R, Jack |
capt jimmi | 13 Apr 2017 4:28 p.m. PST |
great stuff Jack !, your paras musta sold their bayonets !? kit check and some 'combat PT' when we get home …. |
Just Jack | 13 Apr 2017 6:53 p.m. PST |
Thanks Jimmi, and yeah, pretty damn ridiculous if ya ask me. Please note they were doggies, this kinda stuff doesn't happen with Marines ;) V/R, Jack |
War Panda | 14 Apr 2017 6:48 a.m. PST |
Great fight Jack. Great descriptive narrative as always and a very interesting cat and mouse. Love the close ups too (which are ever more justified by the quality of your wonderful minis and terrain.) The bad guys certainly rolled a lot of scurries which lengthened the chase? but cut their claws a little? Could have been worse for you if they were shooting back at you I imagine. You mentioned that on review you had inadvertently rooted for the bad guys. The conflict within the conflict we have in this type of scenario is that while you are playing as the good guys deep down (not very deep) you're a bad guy Jack and you will always unconsciously root for them :) Anyway keep up the good work. |
Defender1 | 14 Apr 2017 1:29 p.m. PST |
I think War Panda touched on why I like these battles so much. Its our traditional good guys v. bad guys that we have all been playing since the toy soldier sandbox days. About the same time I realized this I also realized I am rooting for Castro! I think I'm backing the bad guys from now on Jack. Keep em coming! |
Just Jack | 14 Apr 2017 2:43 p.m. PST |
Panda – Thanks man, glad you liked it. The bad guy scurries did indeed draw the chase out a bit, to the point I was worried he might actually escape. If it had been a 'normal' activation he might have got one of my guys, but then I'd certainly have gunned him down with one of the other two. Of course, when dice are involved you can never say never, but it would have been pretty hard for the bad guy to survive a couple Cubans getting right into his face and blazing away. The only thing I'd have to worry about is knocking him down, rather than killing him outright, and having to head into close combat again ;) And I was not rooting for the bad guys, I made a mistake. Perhaps you're correct in your assessment and it was Freudian, but a mistake nonetheless! When are you going to set your board up so I can kick your ass again via e-mail? Defender – Rooting for the bad guys, eh? You bastids! You'll like the next one then ;) It is indeed the good old Army-men days, and I'm having a great time. If there's any problem for me right now, I feel like I'm trying to do too much too fast. I feel like I'm having the most fun and my batreps are the most engaging. That is, when I try to spread operations (like this one) out over too many different units, I end up with too many guys to track, so I don't even name all of them and I don't even really continue to track the ones I did. I feel like these are fun games, but it's not the same drama as when I follow a group of guys and I know all their names. Lately I've even noticed that I'm going too fast as well; when I know everyone's name they seem to start to form personalities, and I play them on the table in accordance with that personality. I feel like right now I'm pushing a bit too hard, so it feels a bit generic. That is, I activate a guy and I just push him ahead and shoot at the nearest bad guy, rather than thinking, 'that's Smith, and he's been around a bit, pretty savvy. Rather than rush out into the open and take a shot, he's going to creep around the backside, see if he can get onto the flank.' That's the most fun, but I'm a bit worried as I'm preparing to embark on a campaign in which I'm following the equivalent of about two battalions' (five rifle companies, a tank company, three SOF teams) worth of troops in some hot and heavy fighting, usually at the company level. My challenge is going to be to resume my previous levels of personality. I think I'll do it by focusing on the company commanders, like I did in the original War of Liberation (for Cuban Libre). Sorry for the novel, but that's what I've got rolling around my head right now. V/R, Jack |
Defender1 | 14 Apr 2017 9:38 p.m. PST |
Your game Jack and your fun. I appreciate you sharing it with us but make sure its fun for you first. |
Just Jack | 15 Apr 2017 7:43 a.m. PST |
Thanks buddy! Don't misunderstand, the games have been fun, I guess I'm just reminding myself to slow down a bit, stop and smell the roses a bit. V/R, Jack |
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