Retribution

HEADLINES

90 Hours ago in the resort city of Narsil'sk several explosive devices were detonated. The death toll stands at 278 killed and 834 currently wounded.

A little over 40 hours ago Dominian Intelligence services raided a safe house for the Black Dragon Cult, having missed the mastermind behind the bombing by less then an hour.

12 hours ago the vehicles carrying the bomber and his body guards were spotted. The vehicles were abandoned in a heavily forested area and the cultists struck out for the border on foot. A team from the 3rd Cohort, 3rd Century, 1st Legion. (Nicknamed: The Saints,  the premier Counter-insurgency unit of the DDF) started pursuit of the BDC forces.

Contact was temporarily lost with The Saints, so the commander of The Scarlet Guard (1st Cohort, 1st Cohort, 1st Century, 1st Legion. The personal guard of the royal family) inserted a squad by air between the last reported position of the BDC forces and the border to set up an ambush. The bomber must be caught or annihilated were their orders. It was not until initial contact with the BDC forces that The Scarlet Guard discovered that the 8 to 10 men they were chasing turned into over 30. The call had gone out and several local cells of the BDC had joined on the HVT to get him across the border.

Several minutes into the skirmish The Saints arrived on the scene, having been delayed by IED's that had been left behind.

The Game (1st go around)
Rule set was Fubar 

The table from the border.

BDC forces entered at the far end and had to get the HVT across the river to win.

The BDC forces enter on this edge being chased by The Saints

The Cultists forces approximately 36 figs This was a 12 man regular squad and two 12 man locale militia squads.

The Dominian Forces. A squad from The Scarlet Guard, these are the men that guard the Royal family. A Squad from The Saint's, these are the country's premier light infantry/ counter-insurgency troops, and in the middle are 4 snipers from Whisper Squadron, masters of recon and intel gathering.

The game started with The Scarlet Guard set up in ambush positions somewhere near the cross roads. 

The first casualty: A cultist taken out by a Whisper Squadron sniper. Amazingly the rest of that unit passed a activation test and were not suppressed by the sniper shot.

Regular troops of the BDC advance at the bottom of the picture while near the top local cultists are spotted as they continue to advance.

The green disk is a hidden unit marker. this unit hasn't been spotted yet as it is being masked by the unit to its front. 

One of the regular troops is taken out by sniper fire as it advances.

Uh Oh! Trouble! The tracking squad from "The Saint's" (In their trade mark bottle green berets) enters the board right behind a squad of cultists. A close range fire fight ensued.

The Saint's do to superior training get the upper hand in the short little firefight that left 4 out of the 5 cultists laying in pools of blood.

A hidden squad of cultists that had reacted to the fire fight emerge from the wood line south of The Saint's and open fire killing one of them and suppressing the rest.

Another view of the butchery

The Saint's return fire and their training pays off. The entire cultist squad was mowed down before they could run back into cover.

Mean while the regular troops are being picked apart by hidden sniper fire. Another regular is gunned down as he dashes across the road.

Some cultists try their hand at crossing the road as well, in the face of sniper fire. Unfortunately for them an LMG of the Scarlet Guard (The ambushing squad) had displaced to cover the road and mowed them down as they dashed from cover with enfilading fire. 

Two squads of cultists trigger the ambush north of the road. It didn't go well.

Scarlet Guard troops in their distinctive scarlet berets scan their front for more cultists after mowing down nearly two squads from ambush. 

Scarlet Guard LMG team that had previous mowed down the cultist crossing the road begins to engage the regular troops pushing up to their left front.

A heroic act by a lone cultist RPG gunner, having fallen back sprays fire from his SMG at a Saint but only suppresses him.

The rest of the squad of Saints are in the woods and it does not bode well for the heroic cultist with the RPG.

The regular troops of the cultists turn to the north but wisely stay in the wood line as they search for targets to their north across the road.

Scarlet guard troops smelling victory advance from their ambush positions to flank the regular cultists troops.

The squad of Saints advance through the woods towards the south searching for the remaining cult forces.

Hit from two sides the cultists succumb to withering fire from the Dominian forces and the bomber mastermind is taken out by a 40mm grenade burst from the Saints grenadier.  

The Second go around

The cultist leader my older son Alex decides to concentrate all his forces on one side of the board.

We had lowered the ratings on the Dominian forces and raised them on the cult side.

His first squad is spotted and is brought under sniper fire. Using the fear rule even though the sniper did not kill one, the entire squad failed their check and were suppressed for a turn.

My son making use of a loophole in the rules ran every turn. It almost worked.

Here his advanced element makes contact with the scarlet guard.

A close up

It got ugly real quick

The Scarlet Guard is overwhelmed but give a good account of themselves. Behind the small clump of trees at the top is the HVT. By now you are wondering where the Saints are. They had been place to the south and were high tailing it north. The HVT is still running this is like turn 6.

A view from the north looking south at the carnage.

The HVT and escorts still sprinting south. We had determined at this point that they have sprinted straight out for nearly a mile and a half.

It didn't matter though since I know my son. I stationed my second sniper armed with a .50 sniper rifle to cover the river. While the escorts of the HVT turned to engage the Saints coming up fast the HVT made a dash for the river and safety. He didn't make it.

In the end we had a great time, enjoyed the rules and tweaked the ability to run every turn down to you can run 2 turns then you have to walk for a turn or run 3 turns then stop for a turn. 

Casualties

1st Game 

Dominian forces suffered 2 KIA 

Cultists forces were completely wiped out

Ratings

Saint's - Professional

Scarlet Guard - Elite

Whisper Squadron - Elite

Local Cultists - Militia

Regulars - Regulars

2nd Game 

Dominian Forces - 14 KIA

Cultists Forces - 34 KIA (out of 36)

Saint's - Regular

Scarlet Guard - Regular

Whisper Squadron - Professional

Cultists - Regular

The only objective in the games was to get the HVT across the river to safety, casualties did not matter for the cultists.