1st Game of Osprey’s Black Ops

[Just Jack]

All,

Two days ago a wealthy businessman was abducted off the coast of Oman while on a chartered fishing expedition.  Section 20 immediately went to work and less than 48 hours later they had confirmed the abductee’s location in a small fishing village near Sur, Oman, right down to the house he was being held in.  The planners of the Command Element immediately went to work, working up a plan, setting in motion the logistics and transportation elements.  Not long after the shooters of Section 20 had donned their gear and were entering the water, beginning their swim into the target area.

The fight is happening on my new mat from War Sigil.

With some freshly painted dudes from Khurasan.

0330 local time, the commandos come out of the water in the shelter of some fishing boats, then begin crossing the beach.

Bravo 05 (bottom left) covers as Bravo 04 hops the wall and sneaks up to the trees (center, from bottom left), stalking a nearby sentry.

Then silently eliminates him.

As the Assault Element moves up the street.

And Bravo 08 eliminates another sentry with his suppressed weapon.

But the Security Element (top left) runs into big trouble when an enemy patrol shows up out of nowhere and fierce firefight breaks out in the center of town!

Which causes the enemy commander to raise the alarm!

Which brings even more bad guys!

Including a suicide bomber!

The Assault Element reaches the objective building…

But the enemy commander has already dashed inside, intent on shooting the hostage!

To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
https://cubalibrewargame.blogspot.com/2020/05/operation-vigilant-sentinel-1.html

So that was a lot of fun, and we’ll be playing again next weekend.

V/R,
Jack

[Thomaston]

The waves on the mat looks really good. Do you think it’s painted onto the texture or applied separately?

Section 20 don’t even have a dental unit, not so special huh!
I’ve never heard of a football team called ‘Peanuts’, I can imagine their mascot though.

And I thought they were going to swim all the way back to Cuba with the hostage in tow.

Tired is enough.

[Darkest Star Games]

Just Jack wrote:

The fight is happening on my new mat from War Sigil.

He does great work, doesn’t he!  I just ordered 2 more mats from him, one of grass for Vietnam and the other a sandy desert to go with my scrubby one.

That game was a blast.  I was with ya right up to Vicky, but I get the reasoning.  Brilliant though that they did all of that scrumbling and came out on top.  i hate melee, it is generally a crap shoot!

Where are those buildings from?

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Just Jack]

Thomaston,

I’m not sure on the waves, it’s hard to tell.  There is something built up on the mat to give texture to the waves, like a clear rubber or silicone, but it doesn’t look as simple as they painted under and put the silicone on top.

Yeah, no dental personnel, so they’re all yuk-mouths.  No hermit crabs, either 😉

Nah, there’s no football team called the ‘Peanuts.’  Peanuts for WIA and Kool-Aids for KIA are relics of a time before freq-hopping and COMSEC, back when we used to talk in the clear over VHF.  The Execution Checklists could use anything you wanted; I recall using football, baseball, and basketball teams, TV show characters, beers and/or other alcoholic beverages, super models, whatever the Ops guy making the checklist felt like using.  The key aspect for this discussion is that Peanuts and Kool-Aid never changed, but the Execution Checklist changed for every mission.

Swimming all the way back to Cuba, eh?  Nah, just out to the waiting boat about 500m away.

V/R,
Jack

[Just Jack]

Darby,

Indeed he does, thanks for turning me on to him!  And I just ordered two more, too: a full desert and a full winter snow.  The buildings are all from Crescent Root Studios.

Yeah, we had a blast, and regarding Victoria picking them up in the bus, the boys had accomplished the mission, that third set of reinforcements wasn’t supposed to be there (that is, all enemy soldiers that were a part of the game had already been used and whacked, but I didn’t want just let the commandos just walk out unopposed, so I added more bad guys), and then we were just worn out after being up there 3 1/2 or 4 hours already.

That fight in the center of town was just poor bad luck (you roll on a table to determine what unaware bad guys are going to do); the Security Element jumped out to eliminate the lone sentry on the street, the patrol just happened to double back, right into them, the melee rolls didn’t go well, and then the reinforcements showed up.  The one thing that went right (read: the good guys got super lucky) was the suicide bomber rolling a 2 when he needed a 3+ to detonate his vest!

I’m really thinking about using these for SOG-type ‘over the fence’ missions.  We’ll see; the boys really like the games, but they’re just really long, hard to keep the boys focused all that time.

V/R,
Jack

[Alexander Wasberg]

That was quite a fight, the commandos were lucky to get out of that one at all!

 

http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog

[Just Jack]

Thanks, Alexander, it was a helluva fight.

V/R,
Jack

[Logain]

Awesome! What a great table and game.  Now that you’ve got a game under your belt, what do you think the play time will be for the next game? Is that a 4×4 gaming area?

[Just Jack]

Thanks Logain, I appreciate it, glad you enjoyed the batrep!

So we’ve already played the next game, so I have the answers to your questions handy right here 😉

Yes, the gaming area is 4′ x 4′.  The rules want you to put the objective in the center of the mat, but that doesn’t seem like a far enough space to have to sneak across, so in both games we have placed the objective area at the far end of the table.  This, no doubt, is partially to blame for our games taking so long, it’s just that I’m scared if you only have to go 24″ to get onto the objective, and only half the sentries are available (the other half, logically, would be guarding the opposite side of the objective), the game might be too easy.

Our second game was played on a 4′ x 4′ with objective on far side of the table and took about 3 1/2 hours.  And it was  BLAST!  I’ll probably post next Wednesday or Thursday.

V/R,
Jack

[Whirlwind]

All good stuff.  How do the sneaking / observation mechanics work since I suppose they must be at the heart of the game?

[Just Jack]

Hey John!  There are two major mechanisms:

1) Visually, when a sentry gains line of sight to your men you have to take a test to see if your men remain hidden, with modifiers for distance, darkness, cover, etc…

2) Audibly, when you do things (like shoot, sprint, climb walls, enter into melee, etc…) it makes noise, and the sentries and enemy commander roll on a table to see if they become alerted.

It really gives a tense game, we’ve had a lot of fun with these so far.  We played the second game last weekend, will post next week, probably playing again this weekend.

I was hoping you’d come back to the ‘Chunky Bandit’ thread, I was curious about your thoughts on reserves.

V/R,
Jack

[Whirlwind]

Thanks Jack, that is interesting – and tempting.

[kyoteblue]

How did I not see this!!!????

[Just Jack]

Whirlwind John – It is pretty damn cool for commando missions.

Kyote  John – Prob’ly cataracts! 😉

V/R,
Jack

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