Blackhawk down in Afghanistan - Quick demo AAR

After spending some time working on terrain and painting up a few hundred points of Insurgents and Marine Force Recon, the time had finally come to try out Flying Lead and its expansion Hearts & Minds. Unfortunately, an unpunctual horse farrier (yeah, I had to ask too) meant my gaming partner for the evening was not going to be able to make it.

 

I wanted to try the system out and perhaps walk through and find some of the gotchyas before we met up some time next week. Below is a brief AAR of a couple impulses:

 

Scenario:

I had recently picked up a 1/60 scale model of a Blackhawk helicopter, so I placed it in the center of the (roughly) 42"x42" table and figured I'd play this akin to the Top Secret scenario from Bolt Action, but in this case, the Marines were fighting their way to protect the downed pilots and the Insurgents would be looking to grab a hostage or two.

 

Setup:

The four Force Recon Marines would start on one table edge.

The Regional Leader and Tier 1 RPG gunner started in one building. The Local Leader and a Tier 2 Fighter started in the other building. And the three remaining insurgents started off-board. I would randomly determine which of two table edges they would come in on - if they passed their Quality check first.

 

Lists:

 

Photo Report:



 

Tier 1 Insurgent fires an RPG-7 at hillside and whiffs

 

After seeing an RPG whiz by, UGL Operator fires a 40 Mike-Mike at the building hitting it spot on.

 

PKM Gunner was just out of Short range, but was still Shaken. Tier 1 RPG gunner was not so fortunate...

 

Tier 1 RPG gunner was knocked down and Out of Action. PKM Gunner was later shot and also knocked Out of Action (represented here by two Bolt Action 'DOWN' dice)

 

Three Marine specialists overlooking the crash site. LMG gunner fires on the local Taliban leader in the building and takes him down (KIA).

 

Summary:

The action moves along nicely. Not too many modifiers to remember.

I do need some more trial time though. It's hard to tell after just a couple impulses, but it seems as though the special forces are just too easy to get 3 actions every time. The four of them are all Q3. But, with H&M adding personal comms to all of them, they all get their Leader's +1 to Q when they are within 2x Long range of him. This meant they were successful on anything but a '1'. But who knows, it could have been a whole different outcome if that RPG would have at least hit the dirt.