Red Robin Rescue

Red Robin Rescue , well it is christmas so i thought i would have a go at a "Black Hawk Down" type game.

the insurgents had eight citizen stands which they could roll on to change once per game with the roll being made in their reinforcement phase.

I didn't want the US Rangers getting too overwhelmed so i only diced for one citizen stand change  , this ended up with the insurgents getting :-

2 IED's ( I treated these as indirect off table fire and once used were removed from play )
1 mortar (direct fire only)
1 heavy weapons technical
1 T55
2 normal insurgents stands

There was 1 citizen stand left to change before the Rangers escaped

Table Setup

The Rangers start from their camp at top right and had to rescue the helicopter crew at bottom left

 Turn One

A citizen stand spawns into a mortar stand , fires and suppresses the helicopter crew , the Rangers are sent out to rescue with helicopter support

Turn Two

Rangers advance into town hoping to subdue the Insurgents technical which by the way opportunity fires and consequently there is another downed helicopter through some lucky dice rolls

Turn Three

The Rangers put the foot to the floor and race through town losing a HUMMV in the process , the crew take shelter and disarm the citizens in the building as a group of insurgents fire from across the other side of the road

Turn Four

The Rangers stop outside and proceed with the rescue 

Turn Five

Speeding off down the crowded streets hoping to get out before any more disasters but to no avail as another HUMMV bites the dust , this time the crew are not so lucky

Turn Six

Shock Horror a T55 rounds the corner and takes out another HUMMV but this old tank itself is brewed up by the passing Rangers

Turn Seven

The Rangers finally escaped for the loss of 3 HUMMV's , An AH 64 and 2 Ranger squads , thought the helicopter crew was rescued

 The Insurgents lost a T55 , 2 Insurgents stands  , 1 Mortar and 2 IED stands

Aftermath

I have been using the extra items in the rules over the last few games and have found them very good for solo play in all scales of games and situations , so this i feel will be my goto set of rules for modern engagements, again all played on a 2 foot square table and played in under 2 hours , this time a made up some turn sequence cards which helped tremendously in not forgetting things that should happen in each part of the turn.

6mm Modern Skirmish

This is a 1:1 level game using fistful of tows 3 , ground scale (1” to 100M ) 

All figures are 1:285 GHQ

Scenario

A Russian Recce group is trying to ascertain the strength of the British forces in the area , if the strength is great it will report back and the main Russian advance will be deviated to another area and road network

the British need to kill or capture the Russian command and stop any communication the the Russian HQ

both sides are of good quality

Forces in the Russian Recce are as follows:-

Scout Group

2 x BRDM-2 Scout Group

Tank Group

3 x T-80s with Reactive Armour 

Mech Infantry Group

1 x BMP-2 (2 Squads) 3 x BMP-1 (2 Squads each)

HQ

1 x BRDM Command Car 

AT Group

2 x BRDM-3 AT Cars

Engineer Group

2 x MTLBs (2 Engineer Squads each)

Support Group

3 x Ural 375 D Medium Trucks (1 squad + 1 Morter Squad )

The British

1 Challenger I

3 MCV-80 Warriors (1 Squad)

2 Scorpions

1 FV 438 Swingfire

1 FV 432 Mortars

The British do not need to keep in cohesion distance but the Russians do

The British are setup anywhere on the table and the Russians come on down the road from the bottom left of the map and have to exit of the top right of the map

The river is only fordable by amphibious units , the weather is poor with a visibility of 15”

The table size represents an area of 2.4 Km by 2.4 Km

The table layout and a view from the British controlled village

The British setup , Waiting for the Russian advance

The Devastation after Turn 1

Frantic firing from the British caused the loss of the Russian Armour and its BRDM Recce , thought the British did lose their only Challanger and a Warrior to a lucky dice roll.

Some well rolled dice From the British

The Russians Counter attack across the farmland and smoke off the village to try and give some protection but the British manage to use their Scorpions and Swingfire

 to dispose of the BMP's

With the armour out of the way the Russians counterattack with their mech infantry , the infantry survived but the BMP's bought it , Losses on both sides are starting to tell.

The final Position , the British are escaping off the top while the Russians enter the village from the bottom.

A final view from the Russian position

Aftermath

I was thinking that i may have given the Russians too strong a force but in the end with only Russian infantry and a few transport vehicles left they would decide to hold the village but not to advance any further.

The British could have stayed and held on to the village but they would have lost it in the end due to the amount of Russian infantry available.

Battle honours go the Swingfire Team as they repeatedly took out the Russian vehicles and as they managed to save from all the incoming fire from the Russian infantry on turn 3.

I also thought that using a ground scale of 1" to 100M would effect the game and give the longer ranged weapons an advantage but the close terrain negated that.

Programmed Enemy

I have developed a programmable enemy for my solo games , it should work of any scale and genre

For those who wish to download and try it out , here is a link

Pdf File

The  instructions are that you roll one of each of the colours of d6 for a unit or group of units that would be acting together , the results of which are related by the colour of the box , so for instance if you had a unit of horse archers and there is a formed unit of infantry that it can see close by , You roll the following scores on the various coloured

As an example

white = 4

yellow = 2

green = 6

red = 1

blue = 5

black = 3

this would give the result of the following

white = the unit will continue scouting or looking for an enemy

yellow = 2 depending on what is happening on the battle field and what orders were given to the unit on the previous turn this unit may hold position or retire 

green = 6 if the unit is in range of a target or itself is in range it may either move closer or attack

also the horse archers next orders are to continue the attack unless it's situation changes

red = 1 the unit of horse archers will fire a shot and then retire

blue = 5 the horse archers will fire at short range 

black = 3 unless the horse archers situation changes it will continue with its previous orders

Attack on Kiel

This was my first solo game  and the rules used were "A Fistful of Tows 3" , I found that the rules as written were very easy to solo play with.

The models used were 3mm from Oddzial Osmy of Poland and are mounted on 30mm square mdf which worked very well with a ground scale of 10mm to 100M

Game Setup

This is a game set in 1985 It is a Soviet 2nd line regimental attack on a West German brigade comprising of a panzer grenadier battalion , mixed battalion and panzer battalion all supported by a battery of M109’s.

The Soviets will need to secure the town and bridgehead in order to advance further into West Germany , the town pieces are to scale as i did a screen capture from google maps which represents and area of 6Km by 6Km. or 10 cm to 1 Km

The red numbers spots denote the soviet objectives in order of priority , i have decided not to put down roads due to the ground scale.The first is a bridge and a town with good logistical access of road network.

The second and third are major hills in the area.

Soviet Quality = Marginal , Artillery = Accuracy 4+; Response 2+

West German Quality = Fair , Artillery = Accuracy 3+; Response 2+

Visibility is good , Weather is Clear

Rules Mods

the only modifications i used were to combine the infantry and itv vehicles into one stand , i treated this single stand as two stands for game purposes and just marked those stands if they were traveling in their vehicles , for combat i rolled the equivalent number of dice as thought they were separate stands.

Turn 1

The soviets have advanced on Kiel , their artillery caused two coy of the grenadiers to be suppressed and together with massed fire form the other parts of the regiment managed to eliminate one of the german grenadier coy’s. 

The germans managed to pour some accurate fire into the lead battalions which resulted in the loss of one from each soviet coy.

It is now the beginning of turn 2 , the Soviets need to secure a bridgehead to continue the advance

Turn 2

Both sides engage in an artillery duel causing the engineers and the panzer grenadiers to become suppressed but the engineers manage to create a bridge which will allow the Soviet regiment to cross the stream.

Turn 3

The Soviets cross the stream and enter into the town , the West Germans respond the this attack and close combat ensues , both sides take heavy casualties , the panzer grenadiers are whipped out but manage to take both the Soviet mechanised battalions with them , the Soviets lost 1 stand to each battalion and also failed another quality check as they were at 2/3rds strength ,this town has been costly to take for the Soviets.

The West Germans realising that the town was lost move the panzer battalion to cover the central hill and their HQ.

Turn 4

The Soviets move through the town and take up defensive positions on the outskirts of the town and the West Germans complete their manoeuvre to defend the centre hill.

If the Soviets advance and try to take the defended positions on the hills they would surely be severely bloodied , if the West Germans try to retake the town they themselves would suffer extensive casualties.

It is now down to who would get any available reinforcements or win the artillery duel.

Perhaps those who read this aar would like to comment on what would happen next.

This is the final ending position of the forces involved.

In any event i decided to end this battle here as i think that if either the West Germans decide to retake the town or if the soviets try to continue the advance then both sides would be severally bloodied and perhaps loose more than they would gain.

After thoughts

i thought that the rules flowed very well for a solo game , they do have a lot of of information with regard to the various combat systems in the various vehicles used in the game , the West Germans had Leopard 1A4 & Marder Ifv , whilst the Soviets had T62 and btr60's. one thing i did notice is that if you do not suppress you opponent you will be on the receiving end of a lot of firepower.

Once i got the general hang of the rules the game preceded reasonably quickly with the four turns being completed in about two hours which did include rules lookups and some thought pondering on what to do next with the specific side.

Introduction

I have started this blog to show everyone my attempts at some solo wargames , i will be posting my battle reports together with pictures and insights into the rules used for each game which i hope will be of interest to others.

all games will be played on a two foot square table as that is about as much room i have available  with the scales of figures ranging form 3mm up to 28mm.

Most of the games will be of an attack/defence type as i think this will be the easiest type of games  for a programmed or planned enemy and give me some enjoyment in trying to beat the enemy so to speak.

This will also help me clear some of my lead mountain as i think it is nice to play with "new toys"

so if any of you have any comments i would welcome them

Rob