Recruits Spring 2012 - Pt 2 (Ambush Alley Batrep)

The  first session of Spring Recruits 2012 was on Friday March 30th.   I spent a couple of minutes wandering around, then settled in at Ambush Alley's table.  Shawn and Peggy had brought a great setup, and Shawn was running a simple game; the Marines would be attacking the Insurgents and Jihadis in Fallujah.  We were only using the infantry rules, as this was a convention game.

Shawn explained the situation and pointed out features on the table.  The Marines would be coming from the bottom of the picture, and had to reach the cross street at the top. One of the highlights on the table were some proto-types of AA's new/upcoming 20mm buildings.  They are a sight to see; loaded with detail and looking like the real thing.

The Marines (played by Conventioneers) had an infantry platoon, without any support.  Their task, as stated earlier, was to advance up the table, and make it to the Phase Line at the other end.

The only problem was that the way was blocked by some very fanatical and heavy armed bad guys.  They were a mix of insurgents and foreign Jihadis (played by Shawn)

The Marines sent two squads up the main street, using fire and maneuver to cover the advance;one squad on over watch as the other moved.  The Third Squad would hook right and move up the alley.  Their goal to enter a high rise apartment building in order to fire down on attacking insurgents, so the other two squads could cross the major intersection in the middle of the map.

 The first movement took place 1st Squad had an insurgent team stumble in to their path.  The over watch squad lit them up.

As one squad moved into a building to over watch, the other squad split it's fire teams to both sides of the street.  The fire team on the left took up position behind a pickup.

This fire team became the focal point of insurgent attacks on the next turn.  There was some fierce fire back and forth...

In the end, all four marines went down; wounded or killed.

The next several turns were spent trying to get to the fire team to render aid and recover the wounded, and/or dead..  Several more Marines were wounded and a couple were killed in the process.  One of the highlights was a Predator missile attack, thanks to an FOW card that was drawn.  It landed squarely on a building that held 5-7 Jihadis, who were causing much havoc.  It didn't kill them all; it did take them out of action, allow the Marines to make it to the downed fire team.

While this was going on, the third squad had quietly maneuvered up the alley on the right and was poised to get into position, covering the main intersection.  The bright point of all the maneuvering by all three squads was that they had effectively negated the insurgent's "Out Of Contact" movement, so no bad guys were going to pop up behind them.  With Third Squad in position, the Marines would be able to rain fire down on all the insurgents, as well.  Third squad took up position in the tall building...

The Marines knew it would be like kicking a hornets nest; they didn't realize how bad it was going to be though.  The foreign Jihadis at the far right of the above photo drew an improved position FOW card, the insurgents in the street caddy corner to the Marines had drawn a Fanatical FOW card the turn before, and the insurgents in the courtyard, just popped up out of no where.  The result for the fire team (run by me) were not favorable.

The other fire team (run by my son) managed to render aid the next turn, and my fire team only lost one KIA.  he managed to light some bud guys up; not really making a dent in their forces, though.  At this point, the session was drawing to a close, so we wrapped the game up.  The Marines didn't make it to their objective, with Shawn explaining that in the real battle, after day 1, the Marines would have just dropped  a JDAM on the bad guy clusters we went up against.

All in all, it was enjoyable; as it always is when playing one of AA's convention games.  They always have a good looking table and excellent minis.  Add that to the fact that the AA rules, all of them, as extremely fun to play, and its a sure fire winner, every time.