Skirmish Rules Testing: Part 7 - Albedo ACP164

Presentation

ACP164 is Buck Surdu's SF version of his WW2 Combat Patrol card-driven rules for the new Albedo wargame on Kickstarter. A quick-start version of the rules are currently available to backers as a PDF with a PDF card set. Didn't take long to print the cards out and stick onto card stock. The rules are pretty well laid out, and as it is the cards have most of what you need to know. I made rough equivalences between the ACP164 weapons and SA80/AK47 etc.

Set-Up

My standard set-up was used, with 10 encounter points to be randomly diced for pairs of insurgents as they cam into sight. As with almost all my games I converted the rules to Hex, one (4cm) hex = 1inch in the rules. Figures were my standard 15mm, not ACP164 28mm (not yet painted!)

How It Played

Cpl Hore and the team (EDF) got a fair way onto the main drag before coming under fire from insurgents (ILR) on the roofs of the two central buildings. Wade and Jones were caught in the drainage ditch, Hore and Kronfield raced to a building roof to give covering fire, whilst Wall's team provided the fire base. A few lobbed AGL rounds missed their mark, there was a lot of running out of ammo on both sides as rounds flew, and even as the ILR took casualties their morale held up. But in the end the body armour meant that most ILR hits were ineffective, but the EDF hits were deadly. 

A UGL round bursts harmlessly in the street, but one ILR already down

With the first obstacle cleared Hore pushed on, but he and Kronfield were on point then another ILR pair opened up from behind one of the houses on the south side. Luckily the RPG failed its reaction role, as did Nufail the ILR commander. Hore and Kronfield returned fire, taking out Nufail. Wall and co did a rapid right flank, came up behind Mahamadou and his RPG acting as a club was no help against their SA80s and cold steel.

Mahamadou taken in the flank

No sooner had the EDF regrouped when an ILR pair on the compound roof opened up, wounding Wade. Wall managed to take Olasyar and his PKM out, but Hore was beginning to feel the pressure and his team got an adverse morale check, with Wade and Jones becoming stunned whilst Hore and Kronfield decided that the only way to save their exposed comrades was to charge the enemy team by the compound gates!

Hore and Kronfield charge the compound!

Luckily Wall saw the problem and in a fast move managed to get his guys to the gate just before Hore, but incoming fire from Jandol wounded Wilson. 

Wall & co pile in!

McDowell and Gallagher went into the melee, but the ILR ML199 had a massive edge against the EDF L1-56 in melee, and both were forced back. Wall took a morale test and whilst McDowell and Gallagher stayed firm back at the ditch Wilson had had enough and fell back to the sheep pen. Meanwhile Wade and Jones had managed to pin Ali on the compound roof, but by the gate Jandol and Karwan now had Hore, Kronfield and Wall all right in front of them. Luckily BOTH of them rolled out of ammo. 

Returning fire the EDF took out Jandol. Karwal took a reaction test and got a CHARGE, and so Butch Cassidy style charged out of the gates into the withering fire of the three EDF soldiers and it was game over. The ILR had lost 9 , EDF had only 2 wounded. The game lasted about 8 turns.

Karwal's final charge!

Rules Impressions

As previously mentioned I had Buck's WW2 rules on my to-play list, so it was nice to be able to try them out in their Albedo/SF version - and I must say I really liked them. The use of the multi-purpose cards worked really well and meant that there was hardly any table look-up.

Sample prototype ACP164 cards. Almost everything is on them, some elements are dual purpose, and you may need 2 cards to resolve some issues - e.g. one to hit and one for damage, creating more randomness. They work well.

The double random activation worked well, with fire-teams not individuals activating. The random movement was also good.  I did seem to get a lot of out-of-ammo cards at the start, but that eased. ILR morale also almost always held up - so they had to be killed one by one (which probably reflects the "Japanese" morale they've been given to start with). Cover also looked like it was going to be problematic, with lots of cover saves, but again they eased off. EDF body armour kept their casualties low, but they certainly suffered worse morale wise.

There are probably fewer DMs then I'd ideally like (to/from different heights, aiming) , and in the current version no spotting rules or suppression (but pin has a similar, even bigger, effect). 

Overall

Overall I'd have to give them 8/10 - but I might need to edge the Danger Close rules up to 8.5 as with the sets as they are I'd marginally prefer the added detail in DC - but ACP164 gives a faster game and would certainly be better for "playability" - and once the final rules are out they may also be at 8.5 or even 9. They've certainly also given me some new ideas for my own set.

All in all a great game, with probably the best balance of hits and morale effects so far.