"Ambush Mechanics" Topic

What are your favorites to set up an ambush game?

How can you trick players into not suspecting one? A table with a long road with no opponents deployed is kind of a give away.

What tips do you have for making asymmetric war games interesting for both sides?

The going in argument has to be that there is an ambush. It's kind of like damage control training in the Navy. You're not going to show up to a DC event and have a normal day with no casualty. So the ambushee will have some degree of additional non-realistic awareness.

To offset this, the ambusee should be on a clock. This gives them pressure to both be careful (known ambush) and be aggressive (the clock).

For the ambushers, they need to preposition hidden markers for different forces and lots of blanks. The ambusher gets variable points depending on where the markers are placed. More points for placing them later on the path. The ambusher side can reveal markers whenever waiting for the most advantageous position based on initial placement. The ambushee side can scout markers, but risks wasting time.

It's good if "the path" forks and converges, at least once. Maybe one or two alternate routes that are "slower" – chokepoint bridge, offroading, up and down slopes, etc. This gives the ambushee the ability to foil the plan and encourages the ambusher to either spread forces (too thin) or concentrate somewhere the ambusher may not go.

Beyond that, the milieu and purpose of the ambush (turn ambuhsee back, capture HVU, delay advance, drive to the "wrong exit", etc.) will have an effect, but the core of the ambush mechanic stays.

I like lying about the scenario. It's rare for a totally undetected ambush. Create a scenario where the ambushee is the attacker against a smaller defending force. As they advance and attack reveal the ambush and turn the tables on them. Let them squirm and deal with it for real

A table with a long road with no opponents deployed is kind of a give away.

Not if you start all of your scenarios that way…

To the good advice above, I can add another couple ways I've tried to make asymmetrical scenarios fun:

1) Put all the players on the attacking side. If the GM plays the "bad guys", the defending side can be guaranteed to lose without frustrating any players, and secrecy is perfect. The defending side should be pretty small, so the GM isn't overwhelmed. It's also a good idea for the victory to be guaranteed, but the victory conditions to be something more than victory, like:

• set a maximum acceptable loss threshold;
  
• absolutely do not lose one special unit or formation;
  
• capture something on the table before the enemy can destroy it;
  
• compare captured/beaten stuff to losses to see if the effort was really worth it.
  
• etc.
  

2) Make the "ambush" unexpected things right out in the open. E.g.:<ulL

Units that turn out to be much better than expected

Hidden defensive works that appear only when a certain unit/formation is attacked

Units hidden behind other units, so they only appear when the front unit moves aside/backs up/routs

Secret enemy gambits (a rain of registered artillery on a specific spot, aircraft, unexpected reinforcements racing up from the rear)

Enemy units that turn out to be useless props up close (e.g. ACW "quaker guns")

I think it was Flames of War that allowed ambushers to be set up on the table when the ambush is sprung.

So, something like holding units "in ambush" and then placing them on the table in cover more than X away from enemy is best.

Another thought I've toyed with is to have one player set their order of march, including security elements off the main road (can vary distances based on terrain being passed through. The ambusher chooses from one of several maps on which to ambush then set the terrain up and map hidden units. The ambusher may chose to scout the column before choosing a map by sacrificing a tactical unit. Show them the deployment sketch.
None of these ideas have been tested. Anyone have any thoughts to add?

If you have a standard size piece of paper for the "map", you can use transparency sheets for various forces to lay out the routes, contingencies, ambushers, scouts, etc.

Then you can progressively reveal the appropriate overlays as you go along in the game.

I think its important to have variable forces available for both sides. We use a deck of cards where ranks and suits equate to certain sub-units, then have a random draw before the game. This keeps players from getting "too much hidden information" by counting revealed units.

So, the ambushers could have a possible 20-30 units available (or whatever is reasonable for the scenario) but the ambushee doesn't know whether they are facing 5, 10, 15 unrevealed units when 15 are on the board. Likewise, the ambushees could have a pretty standard set up, but the ability to allocate them "heavy" and "light" and the possibility through progressive card draws to have a low chance of one "surprise" big (or special capability) unit.

I've done this both with physical transparencies and with electronic overlays.

The big thing for this approach is the players need to commit to the additional overhead to reap the benefit of exciting and challenging fog of war.

I like how AK47 handles this.

Run a double-blind game with a referee. Each side has limited information at the start of the map and must employ reconnaissance operations to find the other side. It's a lot of work, takes a lot of time, but the results are usually memorable.

pjm

etotheipi – has it, if you have a convoy to control you would know what to expect. 1/144 is ideal for this, run a road round the outside of a 6 by 4 or better 6 by 8.
set a time limit and a convoy speed to do that in half the time. Give the convoy a protection detail for close in or recon. We often make abushers losses count badly in deciding victory so do damage but escape is the ambushes task. Obviously ambushes are mapped in so the convoy has to take risks, failure to get anything round even with no losses is complete failure.

Ps model fans could use Vietnam US gun trucks, may need a few special rules for them.

I like the ambush mechanics with the tire irons behind the garage.

: 3

Ambushing units are normally concealed (makes sense right). What the ambushing player does is before the game starts put a small piece of paper with a number on it under the terrain piece, building, haystack, etc. showing the direction the weapon is pointing.

To spring the ambush, he replaced the piece of paper with a unit model and shoots. It has now been spotted.

Wolfhag

Double blind games are great.
Difficult to set up and ref though.

Like defenders in attack defence scenarios, you can map deploy ambushers.

Spawn points like ambush alley are another interesting mechanism.

None of these solutions are particularly miniatures focused.

I suggest the players model multiple emplacements that can hold a unit. The ambusher or referee places them. The ambusher player writes a deployment index for the referee to hold, or simply uses face down cards inside the emplacement model. Some emplacements should be empty.

Other units from either side are placed normally.

The ambushee can scout or otherwise reconnoiter an emplacement to reveal its occupant, and the ambusher can reveal by activating the unit by firing or moving. Once revealed, the correct unit is put in the emplacement.

I remember one set of rules simulated ambushes by allowing a player to put to one side an ambushing force and then it could appear in any woods which the opponents first gets within a set distance. I can't remember the rules, but this seems to work well. It also encourages player scouting an area out first.

CeruLucifus – not Shaw how any of the above are not particularly miniature based. Your seems potentially limited, emplacements, should that include complex ground or tall crops (a miaze crop late on) or a wood. If so no different to Wolfhag's unless I have missed something.

pfmodel – a bit too close to infinite improbability drive for me. However it may be a size of game that prevents it from becoming that.

CeruLucifus brings up a very historical point because defenders normally had several positions the defenders could occupy in their forward line of resistance.

When the lines are static, both sides conduct patrols to identify these positions and minefields and conduct a route reconnaissance.

You could pay an entire game scenario of attacker recon units "fighting" for information on the defender's locations and dispositions.

When an attack starts, these previously identified positions would normally be targeted by an artillery barrage by timed unobserved fire. They could also be screened for smoke.

If you are going to allow the defender to have hidden ambushing positions you should also allow the attacker to conduct recon by fire against suspected ambushing positions.

However, this can be problematic from a playability viewpoint because the attacker could spend most of the game time firing at every treeline, building, haystack, etc. There are accounts of US Shermans going into an assault overloaded with HE rounds because they are expending so many on the way in. You'd need a way to make it playable with abstractions.

In larger games of micro armor (12-15 foot table, 1" = 20m) the defender will start out with his AT guns in tow and then deploy them into an ambush once the attacker's route is confirmed.

A flanking ambush of a column on a road that cannot be moved off the road by knocking out the front and rear units first is historic but not much fun for the defender.

For some historical examples of ambushes, download this document and do a search on "ambush": PDF link

There are some good scenarios there.

Wolfhag

a bit too close to infinite improbability drive for me.

For me, it's one of the most entertaining quotes I've seen in a long time. LOL.

Wolfhag

UshCha
emplacements, should that include complex ground or tall crops (a miaze crop late on) or a wood. If so no different to Wolfhag's unless I have missed something.

The point of using modelled emplacements is to have a limited number of hidden locations. If you allow any terrain feature to potentially conceal a unit then you run into the game complications Wolfhag alludes to, where the ambushee player is too afraid to advance and ties up the game reconnoitering every section of terrain.

There's a secondary point which is that troops in ambush emplacements usually fortify their positions as much as they can – sandbags, camouflage netting, foxholes. Using modelled emplacements simulates this.