AAR: Escort the POW

Tonight I played another game of Force on Force to better understand how vehicles work in the game, and because a few of my friends really wanted to play a game this week.  I didn't really have a particular scenario in mind, and I didn't want to play the same scenario 3 times in a row, so I made one up on the fly.  

I wanted to play with vehicles because that is the part of the rules that I have the least amount of experience with, and it is a major part of the scenario that I plan to run at Tacticon this year.  The premise of this scenario was that 2 persons of interest that are either Taliban higher ups, or in cahoots with the Taliban, have been captured by the British.  The local village however is very much contested, and the Taliban have been watching the British patrols every move, and have set up an ambush.  The British objective is to get back to base with the POWs.  As you can see from the map, the British forces are stages near the giant compound on the far left.  They must exit the table on the right side.  There is a somewhat paved road running through the village.  There are civilians, dickers, goat herders, and Taliban all over the village.  Positive identification checks will be part of the rules of engagement.

This was the initial British set up.  4 Land Rover WMIKs guarding the truck used for extraction.  One fire team escorting the POWs out of the compound, with ground forces out providing extra security. Looks to be a pretty decent chunk of fire power.

We didn't even get through the entirety of the first turn and 2 land rovers had been destroyed and multiple crew were down.  We contemplated a little and actually decided to reset and change some things up in the scenario.  This was when I realized that the Land Rovers were very squishy.  Small arms fire was ripping them apart, not to mention the DSHK and RPGs.  

Take 2:

Re-positioned a few Taliban units, took away their mortars, and fast forwarded the British forces to all be in their vehicles.  Essentially this scenario would start after the POWs had been loaded up with the convoy already on its way back to base.

The ambush waiting at the end of the road...

British forces make their way down the road, unaware of the hidden Taliban units.

British forces decide to take a different route to base, avoiding the obvious crossfire awaiting them.  The command teams Land Rover gets taken out and the command team dismounts to leg it across the board.  One other land rover gets a round through the engine block stopping it and another takes a hit in one of its tires slowing it down.  The British do a decent job of suppressing the Taliban, but their numbers are too great, and the Land Rovers are clearly not designed for this type of combat.

DSHK is silenced, along with many other Taliban.

The Taliban in these ruins just continue to appear.  More and more die, but more and more come to attempt to stop the Infidels.

At this point it had gotten late and we decided to call it.  I also realized that we had been playing wrong as all the small arms fire should have had a -2 penalty when rolling on the vehicle damage chart.  This would have meant a lot less damage to the Land Rovers.  I am also of the assumption that the Land Rovers should be considered up-armored in Afghanistan which would make them a lot more durable.  

Kurt and Gary said they still had fun.  In reality, the British forces didn't fair too poorly.  We were contemplating doing a scenario like this again, but with MRAPs or Vikings or just a proper APC/IFV.  Definitely a scenario work in progress.  The major thing though is that I got more exposure to the vehicle rules.  I learned a lot tonight.

I also got to use my new Gamecraft Miniature Force on Force tokens.  They were very handy.