US v the Taliban in Switzerland

My company's head office is in Basel, Switzerland and I get over there occasionally for meetings and courses.  Some time ago I managed to track down a fellow wargamer over there and whenever I get the chance I call over for a game.




Just such an opportunity presented itself a few days ago.  I flew over on the Sunday afternoon and as well as enjoying excellent hospitality from Mick and his family we managed to get in a couple of games of Force on Force.




Mick has a good selection of US, UK and Taliban figures.  We set up a scenario where the US forces had to cross a river, go through a small village and clear a compound.  We used reinforcement tables from one of the books.






In the first game I took the US forces and did a lot of damage to the Taliban, advancing half my forces over the river and was making good progress when substantial Taliban forces arrived in support.  I kept taking them down but they kept advancing and in the end numbers told.






We reran the game taking opposing forces.  I got a lucky deployment (Taliban deployment was random between the buildings) dominating the river and the US troops took early casualties.  Despite a Fog of War card providing a British Jackal as a reinforcement all it could realistically do was cover the withdrawal of the survivors.






Balancing a Force on Force scenario is quite difficult.  At the start of the first game the Taliban were going down like flies and it seemed unbalanced in favour of the US, but for the second half of the game and all the second game it seemed virtually impossible for the US's troop superiority to offset the numerical advantage of the Talban.  Initiative was a key factor, once the US lost it in the first game they advanced no further- in the second game the Taliban held it virtually all game.






Still very enjoyable though






Unfortunately I am having problems downloading pictures again so sorry no photos