US special forces vs African Warlord BoB AAR

This might be a somewhat controversial AAR since it will include child soldiers. Naturally both me and Patrik are aware of this politically incorrect subject, but on the other hand there are miniatures and we are probably not alone in playing with those models. I also can't see it to be any worse than playing most other popular conflicts from various times in history.

I did in fact half jokingly, half in seriousness tell Patrik "I wonder how many people will unsubscribe to my blog after this" while I was taking pictures during the battle.

So, as the internet is full of whiny people who are easily hurt, offended and outraged - I will keep the descriptions of this particular battle brief and to the point without the usual graphic descriptions. I really don't have the time and energy to split hairs in the comment fields about what is and what is not to be considered taboo or should be forbidden in wargaming. 

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Now with the tedious but necessary explanation done I can talk about the game and army lists.

This was a "Period 3"/Modern warfare battle using the "Brink of Battle" rules. Thomas in our group has fueled the interest for Modern Warfare and made everyone order a lot of 20mm stuff since he has a bunch of modern terrain in that scale. Patrik have been very excited about the possibilities of Brink of Battle and has turned into a hardcore fan of the rule system and idea behind the rules. All of us have ordered two small forces, one western and one alternative middle eastern/African.

Patrik really wanted to try out his Navy Seals and the African warlord and his fighters so we used Patrik's models after having spent some time writing the character profiles.

The game was 1000pts which is the largest supported size in Brink of Battle. This allowed Patrik to field a 7 man Elite strike force and I was able to field no less than 18 insurgent warriors of low quality but great enthusiasm.

The goal in this battle was for the Navy Seal unit to find and eliminate the Warlord ("General Poo Poo" a caricature based on this guy ). The Warlord is located on the premises of the compbound guarded by a handfull of loyal warriors and more of his insurgent militiamen are nearby and will be arriving as reinforcements starting on turn 2.

The idea for the forces was to have one extremely elite strike force, well equipped and well trained - and a motley band of enthusiastic weekend warriors that may be dangerous in large numbers but easy prey for an elite soldier in regular 1 on 1 firefights.

I think the system allowed for this quite perfectly. The sniper team was able to make one-shot kills almost every turn when an enemy entered their LoS. The Seal strike force also handled themselves remarkably well (though avoided casualties by sheer luck on at least 2 occasions). The Warlord and his forces were spread out and isolated, and even when reinforcement started to arrive they were picked apart by the well coordinated assault of the Seals. The game ended with 17 killed insurgents, including the Warlord at the very end - and the surrender of the insurgent doctor.

We played the same forces in a second game where the Warlord and his militia started with every member on the board, and the Seal team was tasked with search & rescue of the doctor. This time around the insurgents weren't as brave and broke and fled after half the force had been wiped out. They did however make one remarkable lucky kill on a Navy Seal that was firing from behind an open door - a lucky shoot managed to pass both the cover, high training and Kevlar armor.


At the moment I'm looking forward to paint up my own US forces and regular Iraqi army/Baath party member VIP's. Once we have enough models/teams I'll make sure we play a multiplayer battle using "The Battlefield" rules as well. Just received round flat 20mm bases that I had been waiting for in the mail today.