Today is my birthday, but I’m busy tonight so I had the 9th
Annual Wargaming birthday Bash last night. We played the Top Malo House
scenario out of the force on Force
on Force. In attendance were
Gary, Patrick and Other Tim again. Christian had said he was going to come but
then decided he was sick of playing with me and my stupid games… (or maybe his
family was sick…? anyway, it was something involving sickness!)
It’s been a while since I’ve played Force on Force and have
been trying to learn – and exclusively playing – Bolt Action, so I was a bit
messed up and totally forgot a few things… and was a bit confused about some of
the scenario stuff… and I didn’t quite finish up my Top Malo House buildings…
(and I cut my had while desperately trying to finish them up Sunday afternoon
after dance class!?). All that aside it turned out pretty okay…
Top Malo House, East Falkland,
31 May 1982
SITUATION
On May 30th, 1982, a Royal Marine Mountain and Arctic
Warfare Cadre OP reported the arrival of Argentine special forces in their
area. Concerned that the Argentines might set up their own OP on Mount Simon
from which they would be able to call in air strikes on the Marines advancing
towards Teal Inlet, they had to be removed. The Argentines holed up for the
night in an abandoned Sheppard house known as Top Malo House. ON the morning of
31 May 1982 a force of Royal Marine Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre troops
was inserted by helicopter to attack the Argentines position.
There is information about the action at Wikipedia:
SCENARIO
The scenario is straight out of
the Force
on Force main rules book (on
page 182). The British Marines have to dislodge the Argentines from and/or kill
or capture all of them. The Argentines have to hold the position or withdraw
their forces off the table and try to cause as many British Casualties as
possible.
FORCES
Elements of the Royal Marine
Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre
Assault Element
HQ Group
-Captain Boswell w/M16
-Signaler w/SLR
-Platoon Sergeant w/M16 and M79
RM Section
- Section Commander w/M16
Fire Team One
- Team Leader w/ SLR
- Grenadier w/ M16 and M79
- Rifleman w/M16
- Rifleman w/SLR
Fire Team Two
- Team Leader w/ SLR
- Gunner w/ L4A2 Bren
- Rifleman w/M16
- Rifleman w/SLR
Fire Support Group
RM Section
- Section Commander w/M16 and
M72 LAW
Fire Team One
- Team Leader w/ SLR and M72 LAW
- Grenadier w/ M16 and M79
- Gunner w/L7A2 GPMG
Fire Team Two
- Team Leader w/ SLR and M72 LAW
- Rifleman w/M16 and M72 LAW
- Sniper w/ L42A1
Elements of Argentine Commando
602
HQ Element
- Captain Verseci w/ FN-FAL
Commando 602 Assault Group
-Section Commander w/ FN-FAL
Fire Team One
- Team Leader w/ FN-FAL
- Grenadier w/ FN-FAL and Rifle
Grenaders
- 3x Riflemen w/ FN-FAL
Fire Team Two
- Team Leader w/ FN-FAL
- Grenadier w/ FN-FAL and Rifle
Grenaders
- 3x Riflemen w/ FN-FAL
Commando 602 Support Group
Fire Team One
- Team Leader w/ FN-FAL
- Grenadier w/ FN-FAL and Rifle
Grenaders
- Gunner w/ MAG58 GPMG
- Riflemen w/ FN-FAL
- Sniper w/ Weatherby .300
Magnum
THE GAME
Gary and Patrick took the
British and Other Tim took the Argentines.
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
Initial Deployment: in the
foreground is the RM Assault Element commanded by Patrick. Further back is the
fire Support Element commanded by Gary. All the Argentines are in the house.
Same thing different angle.
TURN ONE
The RM Fire Support Element
dashed up to the low ridge in front of them and the Assault Element held their
position.
In the End Phase the Argentines
spread out into the adjoining out buildings.
TURN TWO
Fire Team Two of the RM Support
Element fired on Argentines taking cover in the shed close, knockig them all
out of action before they could effectively return fire!
The other RM fire support team
fired on the Argentine commandos in the house – which drew fire the house and
the stable. They caused one casualty in the house and set Top Malo house on
fire...
...but the return fire from the Argentines took out all three British!
...but the return fire from the Argentines took out all three British!
A pretty devastating first turn
of action!
TURN THREE
The British retained the
initiative.
The Argentine casualty in Top
Malo House turned out to be lightly wounded. The status of the RM GPMG team and
the Commandos in the Shed remained unknown as they were all down and no one was
present to check on them.
The RM command team started
moving over towards the RM GPMG team to see why they were not firing anymore.
The other Fire Support Team sat
on overwatch while the Assault Elements rushed the stable.
The fire from the two teams
effectively put the Argentines within out of action before they could
effectively return fire.
Yowzah!
The remaining Argentines
scarpered out the back of Top Malo House taking fire from the Fire Support team
on overwatch – causing another casualty – Other Tim assigned the wound to the
chap that was already wounded. He’d planned to abandon him in the house but
only took him along on my insistence that abandoning casualties was generally a
bad idea and that he wouldn’t slow them down on the first turn or two of
running as the first they would be leaving the house – which can only be done
as a Tactical Move - and crossing
the creek bed – which they would have to next turn – I had designated as
bad-going and could also only be done as a tactical move. As it turned out
Other Tim did have a use for the casualty – taking another bullet…
TURN FOUR
The British retained the
initiative.
The Argentine casualty turned
out to be seriously wounded now…
Top Malo House burns…
Beginning of Turn four.
The two RM Assault Elements advanced to the stable
The two RM Assault Elements advanced to the stable
One RM Assault fire team entered the building taking control of the
Argentine wounded within and firing upon the retreating top Malo House causing
two more casualties. The Argentines falied morale and their return fire was
ineffective.
The other fire team of the Assault Element ran
round the back of the stable hoping to flank the Argentines the following turn.
The remaining RM Fire Support
Element (in the distance there) would make a rapid move in the direction of the
shed full of Argentine commandoes they’d previously shot up.
The RM HQ element arrived at the
position of their wounded comrades on the low rise where they’d been shot down.
TURN FIVE
The British retained the
initiative.
Checking the Fire Suport Team
the HQ element found two to be Seriously Wounded (2 victory Points for the
Argentines!) and the other was
only Lightly Wounded. The Argentines casualties in the group fleeing out the
back of Top Malo House, one was Seriously Wounded and and the other Lightly
Wounded. The RM assault Element checked on the Argentines in the stable and
found one to be Killed in Action, one Seriously Wounded, and the remaining
three were Lightly Wounded.
Beginning of Turn Five
The RM assault team in the Stable fired on the REtreating ARgentines again, causing two more casualties.
The RM assault team in the Stable fired on the REtreating ARgentines again, causing two more casualties.
The RM Fire Support Team rounded
the corner of the shed and spotting the Argentines in the open lit them up
causing two more casualties – only Captain Verseci remained standing at this
point…
The flanking RM assault element
can rounded the corner and spotted Verseci trying to flee…
…and they shot him down too…
The British took this game
scoring 8 victory points (5 for killing or capturing all Argentines by Turn Six
and 3 for clearing all argentines from the buildings before Turn Six). The Argentines weren’t shut
out, however; they scored two for the two serious injuries they caused the
British.
Among the Argentines there were
four killed in action, seven seriously wounded, and seven lightly wounded.
I really like force on force. There were a few things I
wasn’t totally clear about in the scenario and a few things I forgot.
The big thing I forgot was Fog of War! (Can’t believe I
forget that…)
The things I was confused about was whether we were to keep
track of LAW rockets? Was each person armed with them carry just one or a few
of them. We treated them as ATGMs and did a TQ test to see if they could fire
one each turn the wanted to fire – of course being TQ d10 meant they pretty much always did –
which gave them some pretty overwhelming firepower.
Also I was confused about the building destruction rules as
it seems to be changed fromt eh standard rules which only allows weapons with
an unmodified 4D to attempt such things… and it got kind of awkward when a fire
team was firing two (or three) – plus a guy firing a rifle as the two (or
three) building destruction tests and the small arms fire all had to be worked
out separately… or perhaps they were supposed to only allowed to fire ONCE at a
target each turn i.e. one rocket OR small arms…? I completely ignored the M79
grenade launchers (as they were supposed to be allowed to make building
destruction tests as well – according to the scenario).
I suppose, had I been prepared a little further in advance I
could have asked about this stuff on the forum… ah well…
The scenario is super tough for the Argentines - they are
totally outclassed and outnumbered by the British (or at least British firing
volleys of LAW rockets) . There is no way they can "win" in the
traditional sense of defeating the British - they have to play to the victory
points and try to execute a fighting retreat - give up the position to the
British (which does give some VP to the Brits), but then deny the British
points by exiting troops off the table (and potentially gain some if they get
half off!) and then maybe try and pick up a few points by causing British
casualties…?
I had thought I might run this at ToonCon in the fall, but
now I’m not so sure if I'd run it for a convention (maybe a demo at a store…).
Playing the argentines could potentially be a bit of a drag as things can go
very (VERY!) bad for them very quickly! If I were to play the Argentines I
could really only have to players - one playing each of the British Elements.
If I had a british player playing each of the fire teams (4-5 players
potentially) and one team was wiped out in a lucky round of shooting (as
happened here), they’d pretty much be out of the game… With a player playing
both teams of the two elements (as we did) there’s always that second team to
contine playing if one gets wiped out…
I think the scenario wasn’t too far off the historical
outcome. The Argentines were beaten with most of them wounded and a few killed.
The British suffered a couple of casualties…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Well now that that’s over… what to do next… I’m kind of
jazzed to get going on some more modern stuff to play more Force on Force (and
I just got my hot little hands on Classified
- my little Birthday Present to myself! …among other things…).
