Ivan's Checkpoint - more Black Ops action

Our enthusiasm for Black Ops continues. We organised a game for a couple of other members of Hartlepool Wargames Society who had shown an interest - basically laying a trail of breadcrumbs :-)

We were also interested in trying a game with both sides being lower grade troops, as our previous games had been dominated by Special Forces and Professional types.

Paul has finished painting his new troops - Empress Miniatures Taliban, so as I had some Russian regulars from The Assault Group we quickly put a scenario together using the Assault mission\scenario on the "defile" map. Our initial intention was to set it in Afghanistan in the 1980s but it quickly became apparent the same scenario and forces could have been set at any time or place from Afghanistan in the 80s to Syria today and anywhere or time between, which was a bit of a sobering thought.

The scenario was simple. A squad of Russians are manning a check point where a road crosses a gully, and the opposition are going to assault it. The forces broke down quite nicely, with the Russian fielding a standard squad of  an NCO (Ace), a Heavy group - PK GPMG, RPG and loader (Kings) and a Manoeuvre group of a Senior Rifleman and two other riflemen with AKs (Jacks). All the Russians were graded as Conscripts, with the Senior Rifleman being a Veteran, All had body armour, and the Manoeuvre group had grenades.

Facing them were a group of Irregulars, taken from the Fanatic faction list. They had a 50% points advantage, and fielded two cells with 3 AKs and grenades (Jacks) and either an RPG or RPK LMG, two Heavy cells with an RPG and loader and a PK GPMG team  (Kings). The leader carried a SVD marksman's rifle. All were graded as Fanatics with the GPMG gunner upgraded to Veteran,

The game went really well, with the Russians fighting from the roof of the checkpoint and the edge of the gulley. Both sides used lots of suppressive fire, probably because very few of the combatants had the ability to hit a target at anything other than close range. Casualties mounted on both sides and it was a very close result, with the Insurgents assaulting the check point but the Russians managing to hang on for the required seven turns, but only just.

I didn't have much chance to take pics as I was providing umpiring \ guidance to our new players, but here are a few snapshots of the action

Russians under heavy fire behind their sangar on the checkpoint roof

Manoeuvre Group in cover at the edge of the gully 

RPG Team infiltrating forward along the other side of the gully

Bad news for the Insurgents as one Cell gets pinned and takes casualties 

Crisis for the defence as one audacious Insurgent cuts down the Russian RPG team and threatens to outflank the main position. 

Everyone seems to have had a good time and our "guinea pigs" have ordered some figures and have the rules so it looks like our Black Ops group will be growing.