{"id":6838,"date":"2017-08-11T03:48:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T03:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=6838"},"modified":"2017-08-11T06:47:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T06:47:26","slug":"combat-patrol-gaming-in-rippon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=6838","title":{"rendered":"Combat Patrol Gaming in Rippon"},"content":{"rendered":"

While in England, I took the chance to travel to Yorkshire and visit Chris Alley of Sally 4th for a Combat Patrol(TM) game in Rippon. \u00a0Chris has a really nice games room. \u00a0We played Combat Patrol(TM), had an excellent dinner with Chris and his wife, and then played some Settlers of Cataan.<\/p>\n

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Chris, Tommy, and me in Rippon, Yorkshire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris is working on terrain and scenarios for “The Other Partizan,” an upcoming wargaming show in the U.K. \u00a0The game was based on the movie The Wild Geese<\/em>. \u00a0Chris has the mercenaries and simbas all painted up, and the African-style buildings will be part of a future Sally 4th Kickstarter. \u00a0In this scenario I was the wild geese, I had released President Limbarny from prison, and I needed to escape. \u00a0To accomplish my objective, I needed to secure enough transport to take Limbarny and my team off the table. \u00a0Limbarny moved as Green because of his reduced physical state, which slowed me down.<\/p>\n

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A view of the compound at the start of the game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The defenders were in several of the buildings, the recreation room, barracks, and guard room. \u00a0The guards at the gate were awake and active, as were the Simbas in the bottom left of the picture. \u00a0The sections in the barracks and recreation room each had a morale marker that had to be worked off before they could begin to respond. \u00a0In the previous play test of this scenario, Chris had the Accuracy of the mercenaries as Elite, and he thought that overpowered the mercenaries. \u00a0In this play test, my wild geese had an Accuracy of Regular. \u00a0My Melee was 0 to reflect the fact that the wild geese were somewhat older and not in their prime and that the Simbas, with Melee of 1, were in good shape. \u00a0The Simbas, however, had Guts of Green for their troopers and Regular for their leaders. \u00a0This meant that if their leaders were alive, they used the Guts of Regular for activation and movement, but if the leader was killed they would have Guts of Green for activation and movement.<\/p>\n

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My land rovers with a bazooka team and a machine-gun team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Outside the camp, I had two teams in land rovers coming to reinforce my mercenaries. \u00a0One land rover contained a bazooka team, and the other a Vickers machine-gun team. \u00a0As the guards at the gate were active, I elected to halt, dismount the machine-gun, and fire on the gate guards. \u00a0Tom engaged my land rovers with fire, killing a member of the machine-gun team and wounding another. \u00a0The bazooka team fired several shots at the gate defenders and also the Simbas in the recreation room. \u00a0I was very lucky with the bazooka. \u00a0I never received an out-of-ammunition results, so I was able to fire several shots. \u00a0Tom reduced my machine-gun team by killing an ammunition bearer and assistant gunner. \u00a0He even knocked out the assistant gunner for the bazooka, but he never knocked out either team.<\/p>\n

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My wild geese begin to move toward the transport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had two sections move toward the truck park while the third section moved President Limbarny to the relative safety of the headquarters building. \u00a0One section advanced into the barracks and was surprised to run into a section of active and awake Simbas. \u00a0This is when I learned that my wild geese had a poor Melee attribute. \u00a0I lost a soldier and was pushed out of the building. \u00a0The team then spent several turns being gunned down in the open by Tom’s Simbas before they could respond or seek cover. \u00a0The section near the 55-gallon drums advanced toward the truck park. \u00a0As they advanced, they were surprised in the open by the Simba motor transport operators. \u00a0That section also was gunned down in the open before reaching the trucks. \u00a0My headquarters section that began the game in the headquarters moved to come up behind the Simbas at the gate, but Tom’s marksmanship was just too good. \u00a0Though this attack diverted the attention of some of the gate guards and those in the towers from my machine-gun and bazooka teams, it was just not enough force to clear a path for the land rovers. \u00a0By then, Tom and knocked out one of the land rovers with small arms fire. \u00a0At this point, Chris pointed out that my heavy casualty rate meant that I didn’t need as many trucks to extract what was left of my team!<\/p>\n

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My section that was moving to outflank the gate guards had to advance across the open, and Tom had an active section in overwatch from the recreation hall, so I threw some smoke to get across the open area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this point, we determined that I no longer had enough combat power to accomplish my objectives. \u00a0It was a convincing Simba victory. \u00a0Despite Tom’s lopsided victory, it was a fun scenario with lots of interesting decisions for both players. \u00a0I suggested to Chris before he runs this at Partizan that he might want to give the wild geese a couple of blue cards in the Activation Decks to give them an initiative advantage.<\/p>\n