"Hind Commander or Hind and Seek?" Topic

Anyone have experience with both? Aspect of both interest me. HC covers more nations, but doesn't seem to have any support. Post seem to be 5+ years old. Like aspects of H&S but seems to be limited to the Soviet/Afghanistan conflict. More current and looks like there would be support.
Is HC more of an air game with land support and H&S more of a land game with air support?
Ideally, I would like to use 3mm or 6mm figures which doesn't seem to be an issue with either.
Opinions/thoughts?

I do not have HC but I do have H&S but have yet to play it. I have lots of period micro armour but no terrain or infantry! One thing that makes the game stand out is how your forces interact with civilians.

Scale is 1" to 20m, units are squads, individual weapons, and vehicles, time scale is up to a minute. From what I have seen of the games the designer played (and posted here and elsewhere) it looks like 4' x 4' is minimum workable table size. This matches well with the weapons ranges, infantry weapons up to a couple feet and crew served weapons and mortars up to five feet. Terrain is mountains, villages and what the designer calls area terrain (think anything which can grant cover or concealment). This could be crops, broken ground, orchards, forests (in Afghanistan I really do not know). There is no provision for combat in built up areas. This is insurgency out in the rough.

There is a large section of the rules devoted to creating scenarios. Forces, set up, typical terrain layouts, troop dispositions and victory requirements.

It is communists vs Mujahadeen. This is not Europe but could be applied to any insurgency with a little thought. It is oriented towards campaign play in that your actions help or hinder your reputation. This in turn affects how the locals view you and what level of support they provide either the insurgents or the national government troops.

The insurgents have the ability to melt away when the going gets rough but whether they can escape without losses is not predetermined. You buy forces and can save some (up to most) of your "points" for chances at special forces or abilities. You can also use some of your special assets to counter your opponents. Sort of a bidding war on scenario set up. I haven't analysed the rules enough to determine how well the Soviet side is able to "win the hearts and minds" of the locals (proper counterinsurgency techniques) as opposed to how they operated in Afghanistan by depopulating the countryside in an effort to rid the insurgents of support, both military and morale.

Please ask any questions. I am sure I am missing or misinterpreted some aspects and am willing to reread and address.

The reputation "track" is what drew me to the game vs. shoot up everything you see mentality.
Is there hidden movement or units?
Any opportunity reaction?
Is it mainly ground units with air support?
I know it varies, but how many units would make up a force?
Is it random activation? I saw a post with cards on the table.
Sorry for all the questions.
Thanks

The reputation track is one of the really neat ideas, along with the handling of "where is the insurgent/where did he go" and not at all a one sided benefit. But be brutal and nobody is helping you, either side, so human shields is not an option for the insurgents either.

No problem with the questions but remember I have only read it a couple times and not played yet.

Yes, hidden movement and the ability of the insurgents to vanish is well handled. Basically they can go hidden and are represented by a counter. If the opponent gets within visual range the counter is replaced by the unit(s). At any time the player can reveal the unit but within a range from the counter and the counter can move so exactly where they can pop up is suspect. If I remember correctly if the opponent gets a visual on the counter to expose it then it has to be placed at the last position of the counter or very close. There are hidden ambush and IED set ups possible at the start of ambush scenarios. It seemed a good blend of forces being able to evaporate if not being tracked but without immunity when being forced to move.

I don't remember how opportunity actions were handled.

IIRC you can buy ground and heli forces but artillery (off board) and air strikes were more of a chance and result of the randomized scenario generation.

It varied based on points buying but the feel is platoon to battalion level with the emphasis on company size engagements. Just where I like it.

I don't remember the activation but it didn't stand out as awful, which I have seen a lot of lately. The cards may have been part of the scenario set up, the bidding and drawing of "opportunity" forces or conditions. I don't remember but you may have been able to play them during the game. Sort of now I play my benefit card, I have a weapons cache here with XX weapon, or I play my card and now my informants in the town you pissed off last month will expose X number of your hidden forces within X of the village here. Not actual just what sort of things might be available.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. Think I will order the printed version!

I wanted to buy the combo print and pdf when it was on sale for just the cost of the print but it was going to cost $20 USD to get the print copy up to me! Waaah!

Todd636, you are correct in that Hind Commander is mostly air units with some ground units as support, while Hind & Seek is ground units with some air support.

From what I recall Hind Commander is ALL about rotary wing aircraft, so fixed wing (jets) don't really make much appearance, while ground units are few and mostly abstracted (along the lines of one stand representing a platoon, with only a handful of stats, just enough to differentiate tanks, APCs, trucks, AAA, etc) and are mostly there to provide targets/objectives or some AA fire.

As Stephen M has said, Hind & Seek is a insurgency warfare game, and he has done a good enough job describing it I will not bother to. I will say that the cards you recall may have been for assets that either side had purchased (air/artillery strikes, blocking forces preventing escape from certain map edges, etc) to remind them that they had them.

May have to check out Hind and Seek…

Having been involved in a small (non-commercial) way with H&S, I can certainly vouch for the amount of effort that went into the development of the rules (we got to version 29 or so, if I recall correctly).

Any of you in Ontario?

Anybody playing this? I have played a couple incomplete games and would like to compare notes.

Hi guys, I'm the H&S designer. Happy to answer any questions.
From what I've seen of Hind Commander it seems to be a game mostly about commanding helicopters, but with a combined arms kind of feel. Conventional warfare with tanks and infantry on both sides and a focus on electronic warfare seems to be its ethos. Last news I saw from them on Hind Commander was a release in February this year.

Hind & Seek on the other hand is specifically made for the Soviet-Afghan war in the 80s. stephen has done a great job of describing it and the description on our wargame vault page should fill in any gaps.

I will hopefully film an example game in the next few days as I have been meaning to do this for a long time!

If anyone is interested in attempting to try a game over roll20, I would be happy to give it a shot. Roll20 is cool for doing 'tabletop' over the internet and I have used it to play harpoon with some guys long ago.
The main challenge is organizing a time to play as we're likely all in very different time zones!
This would be a nice way to show you guys how the rules work though.
Let me know if you're interested. you can email me on thespidersrepublic@hotmail.com, or join this discord:
discord.gg/ZZjsJ2s

I am keen to try again. Email sent.

Looks interesting.

Joe

I recorded a Hind & Seek example game today, like I promised:

YouTube link

Grab a cold beverage and some snacks, sit back and enjoy the carnage!

Its 2 hrs 20 minutes long but includes writing the army lists and explanation of what's going on and some of the reasoning behind it.

Wow impressive effort. As an american I need a sound bite of about 60 seconds though. ( actually 2 minutes covering mechanics.) That said those videos work. I bought Combat Patrol after watching Buck's videos. I bought Force onForce after downloading and playing the quick start rules.
Thanks

Joe

Ah good point Joe, I guess the example games are aimed at people who have read through the rules and want an idea of how the game plays.

I'll definitely look at covering the basics of a system at the start of an example game in future though – its a good idea

I have watched the video and have responded at The Wargames Website as my most detailed replies were there. Here is the link.

link

Good discussion of the game and related topics over at TWW now.