A Few Blocks of Hell

This is a Force on Force scenario form the rule book depicting an incident from the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

It is a good way to learn the basic rules as it is a straight infantry v infantry slog. The US objective is to fight their way through crowded streets and take 2 target buildings within six turns.

The scenario in the book has the US with 4 fireteams of 4 men each plus 2 squad leaders.  Troop Quality is D8 and Morale D10 (expressed as D8/D10).  Their opponents are made up of two 5 man cells of foreign fighters, also D8/D10, and 5 groups of 5 local Jihadists at D6/D12.  The version we played reduced the Jihadists by one group but introduced reinforcements (a common concept in the rules) which arrived at the end of turn 1,3 and 5 for the insurgents and 2 and 4 for the US.

Chuck took the Americans and Rory and I the insurgents (also Pete who arived a little later) with Dax, who provided the figures and terrain, acting as umpire.

The US set up one fireteam on overwatch and sent their other three teams forward, keeping to the flanks to avoid cross fire.  Their opponents proved more resilient than most of their real life counterparts, helped by waves of reinforcements which succeeded in keeping the Americans at bay.

Highlights included an Apache strike on a crowded building which only resulted in 2 minor wounds. A series of human wave attacks which ended with the capture of 3 Americans.  Some truly appalling American dice rolls.  A remote control helicopter hovering over the battlefield (I forgot to take a picture).  Lots of laughs.

Thanks to Dax for setting it all up – we had a ball.

                                                The view from the initial Iraqi positions

My two groups of local Jihadists, one taken out by fire from the US firteam on overwatch, the other killed to a man after rashly charging into hand to hand combat (you can tell that I'm an Ancients player at heart)

Next week (cue drum roll) WRG 6th