Following on from my review of N

What do you get

Format - the rules are a hardback book of 224 pages with more than 50 colour illustrations of troops and equipment taken from modern era Osprey books and more photos of real combat and also of models.

Contents:

Introduction of 15 pages

Basic rules pages of 118 pages covering;

Infantry combat

Mechanised Combat

Air Mobile operations

Close Air support

Artillery operations

There are also five appendices;

Example weapon systems

Unit and Vehicle attributes

Campaign System

Sample organisation and vehicles

Scenarios

plus pages of Fog of War (special event) cards and 5 pages of quick reference sheet

The quality of the production of the rulebook is very high. The FOF book is printed in full colour including all the text pages which are printed on a khaki drill background. I must admit that I do not like this - I prefer text pages to be white to improve readability. The QRS and Fog of War event cards are also printed in full colour.

There is an excellent contents page and index so you can easily find what you're looking for.

Proof reading could have been better e.g. the campaign section at the rear of the book is headed "CAMPAGIN SECTION" (note from Angus: Blame the Osprey editor!)

The rules themselves are different from other modern warfare skirmish sets in that they are not dominated by equipment charts with multiple weapons with their ranges, rates of fire and effect. What matters in these rules is the quality of the troops engaged. There are three key qualities for troops, rated by the type of dice they use;

Initiative - rated D6, D8, D10, D12

Troop quality - rated D6, D8, D10, D12

Morale - rated D6, D8, D10, D12

In addition troops can also be Confident or Low in Confidence - which effect how they react in certain circumstances.

All combat is based on rolling dice. In a basic firefight the attacker rolls a number of dice to hit based on his number of figures plus some extras for support weapons - the defender basically rolls either the lower of his number of figures or the number of dice the attacker is using plus extra dice for cover. All dice of 3 or less are discarded and the defender matches up the remaining dice and the attacker achieves a hit when he wins the matches or when he has excess hit dice. The dice used in the combat are the troop quality dice so low quality troops will roll D6s while veterans will roll D10s. A unit that suffers casualties must immediately test using their morale dice - so it is much easier for high quality troops with a morale of D10 or even D12 (SAS, SEALS etc) to pass the test.
Most weapons have unlimited range given the small scale of the action but they do have an optimum range which gives them an extra die per fire team. Optimum range in inches is the troop quality of the troops firing.

The other key part of the rules is the action - reaction concept. The player with initiative acts with each of their fireteams in turn and the opponent’s fire teams can react to these actions. Who goes first depends on dicing based on troop quality. The player with initiative can set some of his fire teams on Overwatch and this gives them a better chance to react to their opponents reactions. After all the initiative players fire teams have acted the fire teams of the non initiative player which have not acted so far in the turn can then move and/or fire.
Understanding the Action - Reaction - Reaction rules is core to playing the game. There are lots of examples but I think it could be clearer and better set out. Some other parts of the rules are unclear and could do with more examples, for instance the "round of fire" concept which overlaps in part with the Action - Reaction rules. As a result of this the first move of our first game involved a large amount of flicking back and forth through the rule book to find the correct rules.

Once we had grasped the basics of Action - Reaction it flowed quickly and easily, and the avoidance of endless sheets of weapon stats means that there is almost no table-checking.

Eight scenarios are contained in the rulebook

A Few Blocks of Hell (Iraq 2004)

Knife Fight at Mahmudiya (Iraq 2003)

On the outskirts of some German town (Third World War, Germany, 1988 - fictitious)

Contracting Trouble (Generic, but based on Iraq or Afghanistan)

Top Malo (Falklands 1982)

Of Birds and Bees (Vietnam 1966)

Welcome to Hell (Chechnya 1996)

Encounter on the Yehudia Road (Golan Heights 1973)

In addition the first scenario book has already been published - Road to Baghdad (Iraq 2003), with no fewer than 19 scenarios in it, while Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) is due out shortly. Other scenario books are planned, initially covering Vietnam, the Cold War gone Hot, Somalia 1993, African Bush Wars, and the Battle for Fallujah (Iraq 2004). Ambush Alley also post player's scenarios on their website, and may well add PDFs scenario books for other periods.

Online support/resources

The Ambush Alley Games website has support material for the rules here (off-site link)

This includes PDF downloads of the QRS and Fog of War Cards and an errata sheet which gives the missing house clearing table and the reinforcement schedule for the NVA in the Of the Birds and Bees scenario. It would be better if the QRS and Fog of war cards were also available in basic black and white. As printing a full colour 5 page QRS certainly runs down the ink in any inkjet printer.
　

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning I have some minor quibbles with the physical design of the rulebook, but the overall production quality is excellent.

It'll take time to et used to the combat system which involves both sides rolling dice, and more importantly to the "action – reaction" concept which is the key to the game system. However, after a game or two I think you'll find these rules are fairly quick to play, and produce an absorbing and extremely enjoyable game. The reliance on quality of troops rather than detailed weapon stats means that it is very flexible - I think these rules could be used effectively for any small scale skirmish action from 1916 onwards. They produce a tense, enjoyable game, with a minimum of table-checking to interrupt the flow of the game, and the whole "action-reaction" approach means that games take on something of the aspect of an engrossing tactical ballet, with both sides completely involved in the action, rather than sitting waiting for the other guy to make his move.

Modern Brushfire Wars page

Games using Force on Force: Journal 58 (Vietnam) Journal 59 (Borneo, Rhodesia & Iraq)