Skirmish Rules Testing: Part 5 - Black Ops

Presentation

Probably the glossiest rules set in this sequence, a 64 page book from Osprey. Layout pretty good, but like most commercial sets lots of words between the main rule tables.

Set-Up

Black Ops is all about stealth so I decided to change the set up. Rather than a presence patrol through town I now put a big compound in the middle of the table, with lots of cover to approach through. The TV crew were now "hostages" in the compound, the boss and his main crew were asleep, whilst guards patrolled outside and  in a sangar on one of the block-house roofs.

How It Played

The attacking Brits moved in two groups, coming from SE and SW and converging on the back gate. The random guards drifted close, then away, then finally the sangar spotted Fire Team B, who immediately took casualties. The shooting caused a nearby guard to walk over and a firefight developed around the small sheepfold, but eventually the sangar was taken out, and the guard. Despite the firefight and lots of noise markers though the enemy leader stayed sound asleep!

On the other corner a guard drifted around the corner right into the rear-guard and was shot dead - but still the boss snored.

Now it was time to get into the compound. The grenadiers put smoke rounds up over the wall and filled the compound.

Cpl Hore made a dash through the smoke whilst his 2ic took a gun group to try and get on top of the sangar to provide covering fire once the smoke cleared. The insurgent boss finally woke up but with all the smoke his team had nothing to fire at. Hore and co burst through the smoke and were lucky to get two initiatives before the enemy and took the boss and his 2ic out, liberating the prisoners. The two remaining enemy on the roof, and the one guard behind the compound decided it was time to bug out!

Rules Impressions

The random activation as OK but meant you couldn't plan things, and the single action on activation gave limited options. Firing seemed pretty lethal, with guys going down all over the place, hitting on 4+, 3+ if aimed, saving only on 5+. The observation test is very weird and I needed the Internet to try and sort it out. It looks like is actually a REVERSE observation test - you take it to show that you are still hidden, not to see if you've been spotted. UGL rounds were pretty useless, needing 6+ to be on target.

The random walk for the guards worked well, but what surprised me was how poor the much vaunted noise mechanic appeared to be. The problem seems to be that the noise count is halved for hard cover, and halved again if further than 12" - so the boss hardly hears anything. Nice idea, just doesnt seem to be executed well.

Overall

A bit disappointing given that they are Osprey (but in some ways not surprised) and are likely to be one of the more heavily played sets tried here. I might bring through some modification of the noise mechanic (although interesting that there's also a version of that in AK47), but otherwise nothing much for me in it, Overall 6/10 (just).