Solo Black OPS

Some time this weekend to carry on with my solo gaming initiative and teach myself Black OPS. I laid out a 4' x 4' table for an "encounter" scenario between a team of JTF2 and a mix of Tier 1 and 3 Taliban.

I wanted to include my sexy sniper team, so for 147 points I ended up with two 3 man fire teams, one with a C9 SAW, the other with a UGL, the 2 man sniper team and a 4 man command team of leader, C6 GPMG and no. 2, and a signaller with UGL.

The Taliban got a leader, a sniper, two 4 man Tier 1 cells with RPGs and PKMs and four local Tier 3 cells (one of which didn't get an RPG).

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

JTF2 on the left, Taliban on the right

Table

Drone view of Canadian deployment

Local Taliban enter the pot field

Sniper in overwatch

Great view, can't hit a thing though!

Local Taliban move through a ruined grape hut

Tier 1 cell cross the ditch and start the fire fight

Team on left occupy a grape hut and engage the Tier 3 fighters across the ditch 

Taliban at foot bridge caught in a cross fire and cut down

More locals move up on the other flank

Fire fight across the irrigation ditch

Team 2 moves to lock down the right flank, taking out 3 of the 4 fighters

Team leader stabilises the man down

A good volley from team 1 and bad saving throws result in a lot of dead Taliban

But return fire takes down another operator

Air strike! Not terribly effective but dumped a lot of suppression on the fighters across the ditch forcing a dedication test which they failed

The remaining Tier 1 cell hiding in the bushes. I forgot to activate them!

GPMG sets overwatch and the casualty is hustled to the medevac

Getting their casualty out under cover of the air strike

Game end. Lower right Commander and Tier 3 Taliban fleeing the airstrike into the pot field. Sniper holding position on the ruined grape hut. Cell in upper left has been shot down. Tier 1 cell in the middle can't do much but cover the retreat. Canadians focused on getting wounded to the dust off covered by the sniper and GPMG.

Final thoughts. Not bad, but a lot of flipping through the book referencing different tables. I need to print of the PRS and do some pregame prep like including ROF and ranges for each figure on the orbats. Also having things like the RPG gunners activate on the King card while the rest of the cell activates on the Jack makes it hard to coordinate movement and keep cells together, but maybe that's not a bad thing.

I was disappointed by the sniper team. The points might have been better spent on beefing up my fireteams or buying some skills like "medic" or another airstrike for the signaller.

For a first go at a more detailed very small group skirmish game it was pretty good. I can see this being a good set of rules for something like Firefly games with less role play and more shooting. I remain confident that once I get the basics sorted and introduce the stealth rules then this game will really shine.