This topic contains 484 replies, has 35 voices, and was last updated by 
madman1960 5 years, 7 months ago.
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Good afternoon, everyone
Community member @elessar2590 and I had a great stream Sunday (Monday morning for him) – recorded at http://www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/videos – where we play-tested my new 1982 IDF and PLO forces and first Lebanon board for Valor & Victory. He took the PLO (on defense) and I took the IDF.
This is squad based game – each piece on the map is either a single officer, squad, fire team (half squad), or support weapon.
Each hex is about 30 yards / meters across.
The game takes place during Israel’s “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon, June 1982.
Here’s some quick background and context. One of Israeli’s invasion routes into Lebanon in 1982 was along the southeast-to-northeast axis of the “Bekka Valley.” The primary objective of this drive was to protect the flank of the frontal drive along the Lebanese coast toward Beirut, and to cut off in the interior of Lebanon from intervention from Syria (there nevertheless were some pretty serious tank and mechanized engagements in the Bekka Valley between IDF Merkava-1s and Syrian T-72s). But as this drive pushed up the Bekka Valley, infantry and support detachments fan out along either flank to clear out PLO enclaves. The green circle shows roughly where this one will take place.
As always, try “open image in new tab” for best resolution.
Here’s the game map. Yellow “target” markers indicate objective hexes. The Israelis must take at least three of these five by the end of Turn 6. The Israelis will be entering from the west, PLO can set up pretty much wherever they want. The objective hexes show key road junctions and access off the east end of the table, as well as the largest (tallest) building on the map, marked as an objective hex because it offers commanding fields of view across much of the surrounding countryside. Put more simply, the Israelis are coming on from the west, and have to take at least the majority of the access off the east edge of the board (to facilitate larger company-battalion level advance further east toward the Syrian border).
The Israeli force. I’ve got a captain, a radio team, two lieutenants, two platoons (each with two full squads and two half squads) – carrying a mix of FM MAG general purpose machine guns (GPMGs), Negev light machine guns, M72 LAW rockets and RPG-7 rockets. Each platoon also has a two-man medic team attached. We’re also carrying grenades, have three fire missions of 81mm mortars available from battalion, and two air strikes. In all, 59 officers and men.
The PLO force. They have a commander and three lieutenants, with three platoons (each of which have two full squads and two half squads, plus a mix of PKM, RPD, and RPK machine guns and RPG-7 rockets). There’s also a four-man gunner team with a Soviet-made DShK 12.7mm heavy machine gun, and a supply of grenades. In all, 80 guerillas.
Things start off hairy right off the bat. In the south I’m as careful as a I can, coming on with a platoon in two sections, some of it able to use “assault move.” Basically, this is half-movement, but you get extra cover and are less likely to hit booby traps. Some this northern platoon can’t use assault movement, and in fact hits a booby trap hidden in that northern ruined building. In the south, my captain and one lieutenant rush into the orchard. Elessar’s opportunity fire with a forward RPG team misses, and I carry out the assault, eliminating the RPG team and taking a prisoner.
Things only get worse in the north. Elessar runs up with a squad and a half of PLO fedeyeen and scores SNAKE EYES on his 2d6 antipersonnel firepower (APFP) attack roll. Low rolls are better in this game, so this is a terrible result for my IDF infantry. Even as two more fireteams are trying to help the first fireteam that hit the booby trap, now THEY are hit as well by PLO fire. The roll is so good that Elessar’s PLO leader becomes “valorous” (note the attached medal), meaning he’s getting some insane bonuses for the rest of the game. By counterfire is largely ineffective, and another RPG team pins another of my IDF fireteams (unit in the south set at an angle). This northern section is in real trouble.
A close-up of the Lt. Amichai’s assault in the south. Again, PLO opportunity fire thankfully missed. I won the assault (quite easy, I had 17 men assaulting just 4, plus I had an officer and invested one of my grenade counters), but even a successful assault means I have to “pay” three casualty points (one for the PLO RPG team and two for the +2 woods cover bonus). I elected to pin three units, two of the 5-5-2 fireteams and my 10-5-4 full squad. The squad rallied, but the two fireteams did not. Essentially, when paying required casualty points, the game allows players to, as commanders, be cautious when they can afford it (pin more of your men, keeping casualties down) or ball-out when they have to me (accept casualties, but on fewer units, leaving other units in the stack ready for immediate action such as to repel anticipated counter-assaults). Meanwhile, a successful assault on insurgents yields me a POW counter, worth extra VP if I can evacuate him off the table.
Turn 2 – on the Israeli command phase, I decide to cook off ALL my off-board support assets right away. I HAVE to save that northern platoon, if Elessar can assault the hex with all my casualties in there before I evac those casualties, they become IDF POWs worth double VP for the PLO player (already I pay 3 VP per casualty, if the PLO captures them they become 6 – to reflect torture, propaganda / ransom value, etc). Suffice it to say all mortars and air strikes are hitting NOW, and my southern attack, despite doing well and not taking a single casualty so far, must give up the planned assault to the east and instead turn north, to pin down Elessar’s forward PLO elements and cover the casualty evacuation of that northern platoon. As we see so often in Modern Warfare, the mission has immediately changed. One booby trap, that probably it up that platoon for pin-point insurgent fire from concealed positions, immediately throws the whole plan into chaos. It’s now about getting “your guys” off the battlefield and back to the aid station as fast as you can.
My airstrikes don’t do that much. They do paste that first RPG team, but the second one misses PLO leader Muzayin (valorous). My planned mortar strike completely drifts off target, and in fact falls short and damned near hits my own position (intended for hex C1, landed in C3). Meanwhile, Lt. Gandelev desperately pours fire down on Muzayin’s postion, later in the “Advance and Assault” phase I will belly crawl northeast one hex to get that medic into the hex with the casualties. This will get at least one casualty off the table, and I’ll have troops to defend the others.
To the south, you can see where my two reinforced sections have turned north to start pouring cover fire up at the PLO nests that have my norther platoon pinned. I was able to use assault movement here again (again, half movement, additional safety), but damn, it was a good thing I did. Captain Masalha’s section rolled an 11 on 2d6 … and 11-12 hits a booby trap if you’re using normal movement, on assault movement only a 12 hits a booby trap. So someone in this section literally had his boot on a trip wire, but because the section was moving cautiously at half speed, the man behind him was able to stop him JUST IN TIME before he set it off. Gently back off, clip the wire, and defuse the mine … all while the platoon to your left continues to pour down cover fire for your wounded comrades to the north, and PLO fedeyeen squads mount an assault from the right … Meanwhile, two more Israeli mortar strikes were assigned to hit that freaking DShK nest in that fortified building. One drifted off the target, but thankfully the second hits the target and takes out the HMG nest, also killing the PLO commander.
This is only halfway through Turn 2 folks. Stay tuned, I’ll put up the rest of this battle report later today (I hope).
Anvil Industry Female PMC:
Good evening everyone –
Okay, some updates and replies:
1) As @grimwolfuk says, we are hoping to have a live stream on Saturday for our Podcast, with Alex from Full Battle Rattle.
2) Ops Center Episode 03 is coming out on Friday – with a look at the Yom Kippur War.
3) Episode 04 is already started (finishing up Arab-Israeli Wars). Not sure what Episode 05 will be, but we’re leaning heavily toward Falklands 1982.
@rastamann – Thanks for the kind words on the Vietnam Valor & Victory (V3, for short) counters and map. Not sure what the “World at War” system is, but I draw up each map “custom” for my scenarios (at least for virtual gaming – I don’t print custom maps for each physical-play scenario). I have plenty for Arab-Israeli Wars, Panzer Leader, and could even do GDW Assault, these would be more 1980s symmetrical WWIII which each hex being exactly 250 meters. I agree, each hex could be a village, with several strung together into a small town. GDW assualt also had what they called “urban strips,” basically “light towns”
Symmetrical 1980s+ combat is scarce, at least compared to asymmetrical counter-insurgency combat and the like. Falklands may be one example. Iran-Iraq 1980-88 is a big historical example just not very interesting from a tactical sense. I guess you could call 1991 Gulf War “symmetrical” at least in the sense that it was two formal armies facing each other, but it’s definitely imbalanced. In order to get a really big “showdown” between forces that are even close to equal you usually have to go into hypothetical Team Yankee territory – definitely fun and interesting but not really in the historical purview of the Ops Center series.
Or course, we could always fire up some TCME (Tactical Combat Middle East – Tosach Co’s attempt to bring Panzer Leader into 1991 Gulf War) – or I have researched, calculated, and drawn up Russian vs. Ukrainian in Panzer Leader if you wanted to try hypothetical full-scale war between these countries.
@suetoniuspaullinus – awesome work on the Ares PMCs. If I ever really have a problem I need liquidated, I know who I can call (I hope I can afford them)! I see what you mean about the heroic scales and poses, but the paint job is amazing. Each one is distinct and I love the clean simplicity and epic realism of the bases.
@limburger – good ole’ Jesse Ventura with the absurd XM214 minigun. That’s a real weapon, but never carried by a person, always on a vehicle or helicopter. Friggin’ thing weighs 85 pounds with 1000 rounds of ammo – you’ll find internet references to a “man-portable” version but bear in mind this is for 2-3 men and fired from a tripod. Even so, we’re looking at 1,000 rounds fired at a ROF of 6,000 rpm MINIMUM. So that’s 10 seconds of ammo – not what we see in the movie. Also – “get to da choppa” always bothered me a little. No one in the military calls a helicopter a “chopper.” It’s a Bird or a Helo or Ship or Helicopter.
Oh well. 😀 There I go looking for realism in an Arnold vs. Alien movie. I deserve what I get, I suppose.
@elessar2590 – For Jesse’s roles in life, we can’t forget “Guardian of the Galaxy” in the movie Abraxas. Truly the height of cinema masterpieces. 🙁
Good afternoon, everyone
Okay, time to finish the game that @elessar2590 and I had a great stream Sunday (Monday morning for him) – recorded at http://www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/videos– where we play-tested my new 1982 IDF and PLO forces and first Lebanon board for Valor & Victory. He took the PLO (on defense) and I took the IDF.
This is squad based game – each piece on the map is either a single officer, squad, fire team (half squad), or support weapon.
Each hex is about 30 yards / meters across.
The game takes place during Israel’s “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon, June 1982.
The first two turns of the game are reported previously, here is the finish.
As always, try “open image in new tab” for best resolution.
So as we hinted before, Elessar was coming at my southern platoon with a very powerful assault. He’s really learning this game fast, consolidating his squads in his command phase, using assault move (for enhanced cover bonus against my opportunity fire) and using available terrain to provide the best covered approach. Still, that’s a pretty powerful reinforced squad in the hex, under personal command of my IDF company commander (Captain Masalha). I’m also able to use grenades at the point-blank opportunity fire, and again to repel to assault. PLO leader Zaid takes hideous losses in that date orchard, both against my opp fire and in the assault himself (he gets to throw in grenades as well, but only for the troops that survived the opp fire). The odds aren’t great, he has to roll a 5 or less on 2d6 … AND HE ROLLS A FOUR! The PLO assault succeeds! I think that’s pretty much the end of the game there, and here’s why. Remember that I only get 1 VP per casualty point, he gets 3. Actually he gets 6 if he “captures” them. Well, five more casualty markers were just created in that hex, and since he successfully assaulted, that means he gets the hex in which the casualty markers are placed … i.e., he just captured five IDF casualty markers, for 30 VP right there. HOWEVER, by the time Zaid pays for the required casualties he incurred himself, not only are all his men dead, but he’s pinned down himself. Since he’s pinned, he can’t “capture” the casualty markers. He can rally in the after action phase, I’m praying he doesn’t get the required 6 or less on 2d6. If he makes it, he’s no longer pinned, and those casualties are gone. Thank GOD he fails the roll. All said, however, he’s wiped out my company command team, a full squad, and even a medic team. Good job!
At the beginning of Turn 3, Lt. Armichai’s platoon immediately takes PLO cell leader Zaid prisoner, then pours down firepower on PLO leader Muzayin’s position in the north (the one who’s earned “valorous” on Turn 1). In the after action phase, Armichai and his men start furiously evacuating casualties (medics can evacuate one casualty marker per turn automatically, other units have to make a pretty tough roll, assisted by Armichai’s leadership bonus). Suffice it to say Armichai’s platoon isn’t going anywhere any time soon (busy processing prisoners, CASEVACing wounded, and pouring down cover fire for Lt. Gandelev’s platoon up north). Elessar2590 sees this and decides to go for another lucky assault on his Turn 3. I get opp fire, but I have no grenades left with which to repel the assault. Luckily for me, this assault is weaker, and Armichai’s platoon actually has more support weapons (point blank Negev and RPG fire). This time the assault is repelled, and I actually wind up with some more prisoners.
FINALLY my luck takes a hard, hard turn for the better when, on Palestinian Turn 3, Elessar rolls BOX CARS for Muzayin’s fire roll against Gandelev’s embattled position. This is the worst roll in the game, not only does Muzayin and his men decidedly miss, but an Israeli sniper appears out of nowhere and makes an immediate sniper attack. I can place him anywhere within 6 hexes and LOS of the “offending” units that rolled the box cars, and I put this ninja-sniper RIGHT BEHIND Muzayin, and then roll a 6 on my sniper attack (best possible roll). That’s four casualty points in addition to everything he’s suffered already in a crossfire between Armichai and Gandelev. Boom, that PLO position is wasted, and all in Elsessar’s FIRE PHASE. Now comes his movement phase, and he elects to try and flush the sniper. After their activation, snipers only get opportunity fire attacks in enemy movement phase, so one fireteam (4-6-2) is gunned down as “bait,” a full squad (8-6-4) then rushes in (my sniper only gets one opp fire attack a turn) and my sniper is automatically eliminated. But damn, that more or less shattered the whole PLO northern wing and took a nice gash out of the center as well!
In fact, by the beginning of Turn 4, there’s really no one left on the PLO side. One full squad occupies those northern trees. The question now is, can I manage my assets and remaining time well enough, in the face of that last squad’s opportunity fire, to CASEVAC all my wounded and get all my prisoners back to battalion HQ for interrogation – all while taking at least three objective hexes? It’s a tall order, but on Turn 4 I get to work. A big part is for Gandelev to leave one fire team on the northwestern objective hex, then hustle south with the rest of his platoon (plus his medic team) to where I’ve taken such a pounding in that date orchard.
Turn 5 – while Gandelev arrives from the northwest, Armichai leads two elements east and northeast to grab two more objective hexes. I take fire from the last PLO squad, but with no leaders to direct their fire, plus the fire hindrance of that stone wall, plus their own sandbags as cover, Armichai and his men are not hit. Another fireteam heads to the building where the DShK was hit by earlier Israeli mortar fire, while Gandelev’s men and medics CASEVAV more wounded and prisoners.
Ending state on Turn 6. BARELY I’ve managed to grab a third objective hex (DShK hex in the large building – lower right). All prisoners and wounded evac’ed in the nick of time. So I’ve succeeded in the mission, but again, barely … and did I take too many losses for this mission to be considered a loss?
Almost. In all I took eight casualty counters, which were all safely evacuated, x3 = 24 points. In all, 27 men have been hit to one degree or another, we’re assuming 7 KIA and 20 WIA to one degree or another. Meanwhile, I’ve taken out 17 PLO fireteams and all four leaders (including 2 fire teams and 2 leaders captured). For “kills” I get 1 VP (17 in all), for “captures” I get 3 VP (12 in all) for a total score of 29. So by just five points, I technically “win” this game.
So this was a great game, thanks again to Elessar2590 and to everyone who watched us on Twitch. Technically I won with the IDF, but really this is because a ridiculous turn of fortune on Turn 3 saved my ass. Literally we had double 6s by Elessar, the worst roll for him, followed by two more 6s for me on sniper attacks, best possible rolls for me. That’s actually 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 = 1,296:1 odds in my favor on Turn 3 … and even with this, I barely belly-crawled out of that one with a “win.”
Hey, we all cry when the dice gods punish us, and they punish me plenty. They punished me pretty hard on Turn 1 and 2 (I still can’t believe that southern PLO assault). But when the dice gods favor us, we need to offer reciprocal gratitude.
The real win for me here was the successful playtest of Valor & Victory 1982. This means Falklands, Gulf War 1991, Somalia 1993 … all are potentially within reach.
Of course I’m not done with Lebanon yet. I want to draw up some counters in “The Arab Israeli Wars” (Israeli Merkava 1s, M109 Paladins, Syrian T-72s, Israeli AH-1 Cobras), etc. And I have the beginnings of technical / BMPs / Israeli M113 “Zelda” APCs in Valor & Victory.
So stay tuned! More to come!
@oriskany I’m really liking the report!
The World at War system is the one that I was talking about (World at War 85: Storming the Gap) – they [locknload publishing] are planning 8-9 games for this edition – the previous one had some 5 or 6, but some modules couldn’t be played without the others. This current edition has been announced as each module being stand-alone.
I am curious, which software do you use to design the maps?
I need to brush up on the Panzer Leader system before trying it out – haven’t played it in some 15 years 🙂
In the meantime, reinforcements have arrived for my 6mm cold war dudes 🙂 🙂
Thanks, @rastamann – I’ve seen the Storming the Gap kickstarter, we talked about it in our last Podcast – I just didn’t know it was part of a broader “World at War” system.
I use PS14.0 and Illustrator (Adobe CSS Suite 5.5) to build all my maps and counters.
If you’re serious about peeking back into Panzer Leader – might I suggest The Arab-Israeli Wars. Most people who play PanzerBlitz or Panzer Leader these days are actually playing The Arab-Israeli Wars system and rules engine with PanzerBlitz / Leader units, maps, and scenarios. As much as I love PB / PL – the system is tragically flawed. With TAIW, they finally ironed out the worst of the bugs.
And man, looks like you’ve got quite a bit of American and German reinforcements in that pack. Forgive me, but are some of the blisters missing some components? Or does GHQ just always use the same package, regardless of what’s in the product? I’m looking at M109s SPHs, Abrams, M163 Vulcans, German Leopards, Infantry carriers converted to carry some kind of rockets?
Sounds like your Soviet units are gonna have their work cut out for them. 😀
@oriskany, indeed, World at War is the system for Cold War 1985 and Nations at War the corresponding system for World War II. Both have the rules and starter kits online freely available from their website.
I will try and get the Arab Israeli wars rules and check it out over the coming weeks and see how it goes 🙂
As for the reinforcements, yes, I believe GHQ uses the same packaging for every 6mm product. This pack was the rounding off of my Germans (the rest of it is already painted), involving some more luchs and infantry carriers (fuchs for the recce units and marders for the panzergrenadiers) plus arty (M106 for the panzer morsers, M109’s and LARS) and SP ATGM (jaguars), and a full American allied force – M1’s, Vulcans, M109’s for the US arty and M113 plus M901 ITV’s. But I also have in there a bunch of BMP-1 and 2’s (5 and 15, repectively) and some more T72’s to round out my soviets. Now I’ll try and get these painted up over the next 4-6 weeks! Now I need to buy the infantry to go into all the carriers 🙂
Well, your counters are very, very nice, but I truly love the work you did with the maps. I have a subscription to adobe’s creative cloud – did you use readily available brush sets for the maps or did you build it all from scratch? Stellar job in either case! 🙂
In the meantime, more reinforcements in my stocking up for Brexit 🙂
I will check out the Cold War 1985 rules. I’m driving toward updating PanzerLeader/ Arab Israeli Wars for 1982 Lebanon – but different people who have already done PL / AIW for Moderns have very different ideas on how to handle big, big problems that start cropping up in the 1960s – laminate armor, composite armor, reactive armor, all kinds of different AP shells that have HUGE impacts on armor penetration capabilities at different ranges, etc. This results in vehicles and units having wildly different values depending on who’s interpretation / conversion system you use.
So another, outside perspective, unbiased system might be just what I need to make some decisions in my project.
If you can’t find the AIW rules, I can send a .pdf version if you PM me your address.
I hope you post progress pics of painting / assembling your new GHQ forces!
As far as how I build the maps, that’s a mixed bag, “every trick in the book” kind of thing. If you have a versio of the software you probably know about layers. Well, I have a series of layers. A base layer for basic color. Then I just go to Google images and download some textures, like pebbly rocks, etc. I rough-erase the edges of these patches and stitch them together, making a mask I set to a high degree of transparency. The roads are a brush of my own, really just the standard with with different outer glow and inner flow Layer Styles set to maximum NOISE level for a “pebbly” look. The buildings are very carefully clipped out of screen captures from Google Earth satellite view, sadly taken from (I’m not kidding here) old Detroit car factories and the like. Yes, when I need ruins for Stalingrad or Gaza, I go to Detroit. 🙁
The trees are open-source .png files, but you only get one tree. So I copy several of them together, changing the sizes and orientations so the repetition is not obvious, and save several configurations as tree layers, then copy / place THOSE as needed.
Really it’s about building up a big library of assets. This way when I need a new map, I can open the asset template file, rearrange as I want, merge layers, and save as a new .jpg file for use.
I’ll post some WIP PS14 images later.
I like those warships! I want to see those painted up soon! 😀
Thanks, @limburger – regarding POWs and CASEVAC: yes, I try to put more of a modern feel in my modern wargames. “Modern War” has nothing to do with technology or toys, but doctrines of limited warfare in the age of nuclear weapons and global, instant media. That means small wars, with a huge priority on low casualties (at least for “Free World” forces), and a big emphasis on perception. That means prisoners. People are fighting over ideas, perceptions, and information, not “x” miles of battlefront or beachheads or so on. Between CASEVAC, POWs, and avoiding hitting civilians (sometimes used as human shields by the irregular forces player) for the Free World, these games become as much about keeping people ALIVE as they are about killing the enemy.
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