Dirtside with Roads

Another game of Dirtside II in my near-future war setting, this time with an attempt to make things a little bit more balanced. I also have more woodland terrain now as well, which helps. I stuck plastic tree bases onto the ‘forest hex’ tiles that come as part of the Kallistra terrain. Five trees for ‘dense’ woods’, and three trees for ‘light’ woods.

I still need more, because I think European battlefields need to have the option of being quite heavily wooded. I was hoping to pick up some forest hexes from Kallistra at Salute, but they weren’t there.

I’ve also started using some road scenery, which was something that was really missing from last time. In Dirtside, roads often double the movement of units, so they become really important. The roads I have are cloth, so they have a tendency to move around. But they’re good for marking out road networks. Finding good 6mm modern roads has been hard. I was thinking of trying to make some myself, but the cloth ones may end up being good enough for government work.

For this game, I had a scenario planned out. The Russian forces had a number of artillery and anti-air defences in the region. NATO forces wanted air superiority over the region, so were sending in a small ground force to find and disable them.

Russians started by deploying markers representing a mix of hidden units and dummy markers.

NATO then flies in helicopters to drop off infantry units within 24″ of their side of the table. This is done before the game starts, so the helicopters get in a surprise move without fear of attack.

Then the game starts as normal, alternating between moving Russian and NATO units.

A couple of NATO infantry units were deployed right on top of a couple of the hidden units, so they were immediately displayed. This wasn’t something I’d accounted for when coming up with the scenario, but it didn’t completely break things. There was a Strela 10 short range air defence system, and a larger 2K12 Kub system in the second location.. The NATO infantry consisted of a couple of elements of assault troops, and they charged in against the Strela 10. The Russian soldiers guarding it fled without a fight.

At the Kub, the Russians opened fire on the NATO troops. They got a fully effective fire attack, but scored no kills. The NATO forces then charged in, forcing the Russians back. A further firefight with a second NATO unit killed the Russian infantry.

Meanwhile, Russian reinforcements entered in along the road in the form of a unit of four BMP-3s. They were shortly followed by a unit of T-72s on the parallel road on the other side.

The NATO forces finished the turn by bringing in a unit of Warriors which deployed their infantry including a mortar team, followed by a unit of Challenger 2s. The Challengers came up the road and encountered the BMP 3s. I allow the most modern tanks to move and fire without penalty, and they opened up on the BMP 3s killing two of them. Both got “Boom” results, so the infantry inside were immediately killed.

Turn two, and the Challengers opened up again on the remaining two BMP 3s. One was damaged – its systems and tracks destroyed, and the infantry bailed out. The second managed to avoid being hit. However, this was a green unit, so it panicked.

A unit of Russian infantry at the edge of the woods carrying GMS/L tried firing on the warriors, but missed. The NATO forces responded with a mortar barrage. Three mortar elements with a closed sheaf, firing for effect. The infantry unit almost managed to cling on, but was wiped out.

At this point the Russian artillery hidden in the woods activated itself, and the infantry guarding it started to move out to act as observers. Equipped only with anti-vehicle shells, the heavy artillery would have limited use against the infantry, but they would be effective against the tanks and APCs.

At this point though, we needed to call an end to things due to being out of time. There had been a lot of talking, which had taken away from game time (gamers being sociable – it happens sometimes), and some time spent having to check on rules. We’re still not entirely familiar with the rules, and they’re not the best organised.

Two anti-air missile systems had been taken out, along with most of the backup Russian infantry. So the victory was going to the NATO forces. However, the scenario had required a lot more planning and thinking by the NATO commando compared to the previous game. Next turn, the Russian artillery would probably open up. They were only equipped with anti-armour MAK rounds, so wouldn’t be that effective against the infantry, but could hurt the Challengers if some spotting could be done.

It’s a game and set of scenarios I want to continue with. At some point I need to add in drone warfare, but I’m wanting to keep things simple whilst we learn the rules.

I also need to figure out how to take notes in games like this (I realise my write up above is a bit sparse). It’s a lot trickier with the alternating activation type of game, than it is with I Go You Go, to write down what is happening in each activation. With IGYG, it’s possible to “sum up” a series of activations because they’re all by the same player, and (hopefully) following a single plan. With alternating activations, activations are jumping around all over the place, making it harder to keep track.