The British Section entered the area with Fire Team Alfa leading the way, the point man spotted a potential IED on the path so troopers fanned out to avoid it.
The Taliban entered the compound on the left.
The second round of activations saw both Alfa and Bravo fire teams move push up, they spotted another couple of potential IED and again decided to push 'flow' around them.
IEDs are handled in the rules in two ways, one by pulling a 'Joys of War' card and having a random figure hit which is rare and by having markers on the table - 2 real and 4 dummy in this scenario, these are spotted and then can be ignored by not going within a base width or 'dealt with' which is a task but takes time, there was little time to spare in this scenario and the dummy markers slowed the Brits down a lotThe Taliban had already pulled a JOW card giving them a better 'Quality' for the round and managed to flow on from the top of the table and infest the compound a bit more, no one getting enough actions to actually get into a firing position though. Meanwhile what was going to become a real bugbear for the Brits was starting - unable to keep up (maybe fatigue from already being in 'combat' and the pull back speed was taking its toll) the reporter 'Grant' was being cajouled by the section leader but was falling behind forcing Alfa FT to a slower pace (he is worth a few Victory Points to either side!).
The Taliban then opened up, the fighter on the roof managed to suppress (shaken result) the Minimi gunner covering the roof.
The Brits continued to push up - Bravo FT decided to push through the compound corner building hoping to get into the compound as they could see Taliban scrambling on the roof ... this meant risking the dodgy looking potential IED - luckily it was a dummy marker and with the lock shot out the point man rushed in (in the picture he is on top of the building!). Grant was being told to rush over behind the builing. Other section members moved up and started engaging the Taliban on the rocks. The Light Support weapon gunner put the compound gate area into a 'overwatch area'.
However intense Taliban fire from the rooftop drove the gunner back into cover and releasing the overwatch - fortunately a turn finishing activation roll meant that the Taliban could not burst out the compound - which would have been disaster ... seeing the central area getting clogged up the Section leader led members of Alfa and Grant around the building to attack the Taliban on the flank
Which met with the first RPG fire of the action - luckily being off target ... but Grant was hiding from the blast!
A few bad activation rolls by the Taliban gave the Brits some hope for a rush up and off the table ... they rushed up behind the VW pick up ... which is where things went pair shaped in the extreme ... they avoided the IED marker just incase and managed to suppress the Taliban off to the flank ... however the Taliban on the roof in the compound was unfortunately their best fighter AND had the 'chucker' ability. He managed to land one in the pick up (it was an extremely good roll) which downed the 3 Brits and making one 'shaken' but fortunately no out of actions. BUT the IED marker wasn't a dummy and the blast managed to set it off ... this out of actioned the character on the pick up and put the other 2 shaken ... 'MAN DOWN' - the Brit player was not used to hearing those words!
The situation was getting desperate ... the characters being forced to drop the overwatch on the compound gate
Luckily the minimi gunner and the squad leader (who was practically dragging Grant by this time) managed to maul the Taliban fighters on the flank; helped by a JOW card which gave HMG fire from the off board Fire Support Team
A Taliban fighter moved across after an unsuccessful RPG attempt and gunned down the shaken figures - the Brits now had an unprecedented 4 Out of Action characters!
He was then picked off by the minimi gunner which forced a morale check on the Taliban forcing a number to 'melt away'
But not before a badly thrown grenade bounced back and nearly took out another 2 Brits ! This was another close 'friendly fire' incident the other happening when a section member was ran across an overwatch area! The situation was only saved by the fact the figure made his Quality roll to avoid shooting ... however that takes the overwatch 'off'.
The minimi gunner was close assaulted but an off board sniper forced another morale check seeing the Taliban back off - Shaun decided it was time to pull them all off table as he thought he could do little else (they had taken a lot of casualties) and was banking on rolling well in the VP rolls
It was a close run thing .... the Victory Points in Hearts are worked out in a different way than in the core book to reflect the theatre the war is taking place in. Basically the player collects VPs for causing casualties (weighted in favour of the coalition) scenario points and 'specials' (like the Grant subplot in this scenario). The player then secretly decides to 'bank' VPs which score 3 points each and then 'gamble' the rest - the total is the number of banked points X3 plus the number of points rolled as d6. In this way if the scenario has gone well you are better just banking the points x3 ... if it hasn't gone well it might be worth a gamble. This gets very tense with results like this games where the Brits got some scenario points (they managed to exit as the Taliban melted away) but the Taliban got a lot of points for the Out of Action casualties they caused.
As it worked out it was a good call by Shaun as I banked 10 out of 18 points rolling 8d6 to add to the 30 for 59 points and he gambled all his 13 points rolling 13 dice and in a twist of fate also scoring 59 - there was no difference and therefore neither side scored any campaign 'Heart and Minds' points ...
In the campaign mechanism an area is completely under control (by either force) when the H&M point differential reaches 40 - it looked as it it is going to be a long haul !
It was a tense game and we both thought the results were fair considering!
