Force on Force - skirmish in Yemen

It's been a long time since I've played a game of Force on Force but I was persuaded to dig it out by my son who was back (briefly) from uni.  He cobbled together a very contemporary scenario set in present day Yemen.

A drone strike has been launched on a high value target and a force of US special forces (obviously not 'offically' there)  backed by some (not very good) Yemeni soldiers are sent in to recover the remains of the target or to capture him if he is still alive.  In the town, recovering from the effects of the drone attack are some good quality Al Qaeda troops backed by less effective local militia.

The US troops arrive first (they're terribly keen...)  with the Yemeni military turning up after a few turns.  The insurgents also get reinforcements which arrived randomly, also after a few turns.

The building in the centre may as well have a large X on it.

As you can imagine the troop quality for the US is very good, and they are also much better equipped than the insurgents.  The AQ troops are pretty good but the Yemenis and Militia are all pretty poor.

The game started with the US pretty much pinning down or wiping out any squads that got close, but they were also struggling to advance towards the target building.  All the Yemenis arrived on turn 3 and (following a dice roll) arrived on the Left side of the table.  In FoF the reinforcements arrive at "Hot Spots" around the table and luckily for me my reinforcements popped up in buildings surrounding the Yemenis.  The resulting firefight proved pretty bloody on both sides but I did lose most of one of my 2 AQ squads.


It was looking as though the path to the target had been opened up when the US troops got intercepted by my remaining AQ squad which had been patiently hanging back and waiting for a good opportunity.  Some lucky dice rolling led to all 4 of the special forces being hit.  In FoF troops remain 'down' until someone can go and do a 1st aid check but as there was no one close enough to get through, the US forces remained wounded/pinned and out of action and the Yemenis decided to withdraw under fire, leaving their allies behind

An excellent scenario...we decided afterwards that it probably needs a little tweaking to get the balance between the very effective (and armed to the teeth) special forces and the numbers of reinforcements on both sides.  In these asymmetric games it's a challenge not making the Special Forces too special but not having them succumb to too many insurgents.  In the event I was lucky to initially wound a US figure and then take out the remaining 3 in one round.

We're thinking of trying a similar style scenario using Skirmish Sangin for a comparison and when we eventually get round to it I'll post the results.

AQ troops look on as the drone strike hits...

US Special Forces engage the militia...

...which quickly results in most of the Militia being hit

Yemeni troops arrive rapidly to support the US troops

...but are ambushed by the local militia