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Downtown - The Miniatures Game

Page history last edited by Si Tyler 13 years, 6 months ago

Taking the base work we have already done in the conversion topics.  This is a walk through of how the game was played out at Newbury (and will run at other shows).

 

EXPLANATION/SCENE SETTING

We start off by explaining how raids are selected, planned and transferred to the actual gaming table using the downloadable planning sheets (we obviously cheat as we own the game and therefore can utilise VASSAL obeying the licensing rules of VASSAL and GMT LLC (All to Note).

 

First off, the players would take the Downtown scenario book and agree which scenario they are going to play.  In our case we are using D7 (which is also the one from the extended example of play).

 

The "team" decide who is the US Raid planner and who will plot the initial defences.  Once agreed.  The US player plots the "possible" targets for the Raid. 

 The attached PDF shows these 9 targets in Red (the scenario has 10 possible outcomes but allows a multiple strike on one target so only 9 actual locations are plotted).

 

Once this has been done the "other" player then defends these targets using the Located SAMs and AAA specified in the rule book in our case he has 10 SAMs to place (we wont bother about AAA as this is a demo game and it will be hard enough in the limited time available). 

The second PDF shows the located SAMs in Yellow.

 

Now the SAMs are plotted the "US Raid Planner" determines the actual target (using the scenario book and the forces involved).  This then allows you to transfer the map to the table top.  We would expect this to be done over the days before the actual game as it can be done without face to face discussion.

 

In our case for the demo game we have already chosen the forces to be the USN, and selected the Target as the Hai Doung Bridge complex.  The size and actual on table representation is entirely upto the players.  We chose to replicate the southeastern map section because of personnal preference.  Depending on scale of hexes you could of had the entire map on the playing surface.

 

The Playing surface we have built to represent the general area would look something along the lines of this picture. (As we changed this during the day this photo is representation only).

 

The last piece in this section is showing the models and explaining ranges and movement options as well as game markers.

 

THE ON TABLE GAME

Terrain set up and ready to go.  The next job is to give the players the job of plotting the raid flight path for the strike mission.  We gave the pair (or more depending on how you want to run this) five reversable hexes (Green/Blue) which were numbered 1 - 5 and then watched the fun as the discussions ensued over best route in and off the target.  This is what we expect the game to generate if people decided this was something they could pick up at home and carry on using the resources available.  We allowed the US to enter anywhere on the Southern Map edge over the sea and any land hex East of the Nam Dinh this follows the Downtown entry criteria but meant we could do away with the need to have Entry point 7 and 8 markers removing a bit more clutter.

 

Once the main raid package was plotted we then asked people to describe how the SEAD forces and CAP would be used to clear the route for the bombers and specifiy the arrival time of the flight groups.  This ranged from 3 turns to 8 turns and a bit of friendly banter ensued.  Most however followed the USAF tactics guide and went for 5 turns which for the Demo game was where we put in a break point to allow players to drop out at this point. 

 

Once they had the concept sorted out we then played out the SEAD and CAP entry and the first five turns.  If they had plenty of time we let them carried on or if there were sufficent interest for others to step in it gave us chance to run more through.   This shot is from about turn 10 which was good going late on Sunday.  The bombers are on the map but the SEAD and CAP are essentially spent after chasing over the Red River Valley.

 

The Dark blue hexes at the top are the entry and egress hexes of the Strike Mission.  They have reached WP 1 and WP2 (hasty pencil job!)  awaits

 

 

The Red Bandit South of Kien An is in a world of trouble as the 4 US CAP flights (2 dedicated CAP and 2 Armed Escort with expended ordnance) try to require what had been previously a pair of MiG-17s which had bounced them earlier. The Possible Blue Bandits South of Haiphong are chasing the Iron Hand flights to try and keep the SAM belt intact while awaiting the raid force.  The US CAP has been drawn off by earlier MiG activity leaving the bomber stream vulnerable to another Blue Bandit approaching from the South.  The US Raid commander made the decision to jettison the bomb load from one of the Armed Escort phantoms and deal with the new threat.  One more CAP, one less defence suppression aircraft when the bombers hit the target so decision making is vital.

 

Always good to see fighter jocks off chasing MiGs rather than protect the bombers when I play DRV. 

 

End result of this particular game as a total of 8 hit results agains the bridge.  The A-6s being particulary effective.  Post strike recon arrived over the target just as the session ended and the US aren't too sure if the target will have to be hit again tomorrow.  We didn't have any US shot down, one or two damaged so the CSAR hasn't been committed yet.

 

A success from our perspective, the players enjoyed themselves.  We need to tidy up the card driven defenders a little bit.  The solo dummy generation in this scenario causes too many MiGs to be in the air very early on so either the SEAD gets swamped or the DRV runs out of fighters to deal with the bombers.  More to follow at the next show (when I will remember to bring the "proper" waypoints and not have to rely on hastily written pencil numbers on a spare hexes.........

 

If anyone has any photos from Colours 2010 they could donate it would be very much appreciated.

 

Si

 

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