Presentation
FiveCore is a rules family/system from Nordic Weasel Games, available through WargamesVault. As well as the Core book there are loads of supplements with additional and optional rules and even different ways of doing things (e.g. activation, damage). I picked up several which looked like they'd be useful (which was probably a mistake). Good production quality and each individual book is well laid out.Set-Up
No major variations, most weapons covered in generic terms. Used FiveCore's Sandbox supplement to set up a presence patrol scenario, with patrol points to be visited and encounter points which may, or may not, contain enemy.How It Played
Note: Doing these run-throughs is taking up a lot of time, and spare evenings have been hard to come by lately. I've also found that within the first couple of turns I have a feel as to whether I'm going to get on with the rules or not, so I'm no longer going to play every rules set to the end of the scenario - also saves me boring you with repetitive description. These descriptions will probably also be more high level.
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| Insurgents just visible on the two roof tops - and man down in the ditch! |
The patrol set of and almost immediately came in sight of the first encounter point. That was a dud but as FireTeam 2 turned the corner onto the main drag the next one spawned a group of 4 insurgents who I put on suitable building tops. They took out the point man who was moving down the ditch and the others took cover and started returning fire. Several UGL rounds were lobbed onto the roof tops but kept missing. Eventually the weight of SA80 and Minimi firepower took the insurgents out and a flanking attack by Cpl Hore and his #2 wasn't needed.
Rules Impressions
Whilst all the options were nice in the end they were totally overwhelming - perhaps I should have just stuck to the core book. It was nice to compare though their standard move/normal/fire turn type (neat idea, especially the move turn where everyone can move but can't be shot!) with their action-points based system. Whilst the idea of rolling Kill and Shock dice was nice, the constant changing of your dice mix was a real pain. The 1 and 6 for results instead of even just 5 and 6 also seemed to increase the mental gymnastics. 6S for suppression from an MG was nice though. Killing was very hard (6s on Kill only), and there are very minimal DMs (probably just as well) for cover - you're either hiding (so out of sight) or not.The patrol mode worked quite well, and the encounter spawning, and I could see myself using the Sandbox book as a campaigning ruleset regardless of the main rules.
I have only played the core rulebook. They are not a simple set and I found the mechanics interesting - the concept of being hidden or not was quite good, even if I just could not move to it - I prefer modifiers for cover. I must admit, I do prefer the original ruleset that was specifically for WW2 (Five Men in Normandy) that has much less options than the core 5Core Skirmish. I found the games went on too long for me and combat did result in mostly shock results. The game does consist a little of setting yourself up to take opportunities of a 1 or 6 on the command roll, another thing I admired as a mechanic but not for me.
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