Clash in Southern Khand 2012

This is another AAR of a moderns game that has been played recently. This time, rather than use CD 3, I decided to use CD 2 as I felt it that it might offer a better game. Vehicle and equipment statistics were taken from Combined Arms, so some of the stats were very different from some of the stats from more recent products.

The large empty table. Southern Khand will never have a major tourism industry.

The aim of the game was to revisit CD 2 to see if it handled modern games better than CD 3. With this in mind, a scenario was generated that would allow for the testing of different aspects of the rules. 

Khandish Peoples' Liberation Army 

Task Force Kalid
Troop Quality: Experienced
Morale: 12

Headquarters Company with:
         1x Command stand
         1x BTR-80
   2 Motor Rifle Companies, each with:
        1x Command Mot. Rifle stand
        2x Mot. Rifle stands
   Anti Tank company, with:
        2x AT-4 teams
        1x BTR-80
   Anti Aircraft Gun company, with:
        1x Command stand
        1x Gun crew stand
        1x ZU-23-2
       1x  GAZ-66 light truck
  Tank Company, with:
       1x Command T-72
       2x T-72s 


The KPLA has long been a major faction in various conflicts in Khand. The most recent fighting has seen the KPLA grow in both strength and in confidence. The very high morale factor is reflective of the fact that this particular unit has been very successful and is very dedicated to their cause.

Journalists exit the scene after obtaining some battle footage.

 Independent Media Group

A collection of soft vehicles festooned by cameras and journalists. While broadly sympathetic to the Western Alliance, they are motivated by the hunt for fresh news from the front. This is represented by having them move to within 6 inches of any firing and staying there for one turn, in order to capture said news from the front. Once they have captured two such incidents, they will head towards the nearest friendly controlled road exit to leave. They block line of fire for Western Alliance forces, but not for KPLA units.

Western Alliance Armour.

Western Alliance Forces

Combat Team Smith
Troop Quality: Veteran
Morale: 9

Headquarters Company with:
         1x Command stand
         1x M2 Bradley
   Motorised Infantry Company, with:
        1x Command stand
        4x Mot. Infantry stands
    Cavalry Squadron, with:
       1x Command stand
       3x M3 Bradleys
       1x M1A1
    Engineer Troop with:
       1xM1A1 with Mine plough and towed MICLIC
           

Early in 2012 a token expeditionary force was dispatched to Khand in order to safe guard the interests of the various governments that make up the Western Alliance, and to also attempt to prevent some of the worse excesses of the ongoing conflict in Khand.

KPLA AA Company deploys near an are of light scrub land.

One of the things I remembered very quickly about CD 2 (compared to CD 3) was the sheer amount of firing that can take place during a turn. In CD 3 an element can only fire once per turn, whereas in CD 2, and element can potentially fire up to three times. This gives defending forces a great deal of opportunity to shoot the hell out of an advancing force.

A bad day for Western Alliance armour.

As the Western Alliance forces were doing the advancing.... They attracted a great deal of fire, and the KPLA rolled some great dice.

The engineers are halted, while the Motorised infantry keep moving.

The scenario did given a great deal of advantage to the KPLA with their initial deployment. I had hoped that the better stats of the M1A1s would compensate for that, but looking back on it, probably not as much as I'd planned.

It was a very bad day for Western Alliance armour, but not an entirely good one for the KLPA either.

KLPA AT-4 teams lurk on the edge of the scrub.

However, the main point was to see if CD 2 would be a better basis for Moderns games than CD 3. After playing this game, and ruminating on it for some time, I keep coming back to thinking that an amalgam of the best bits of both would work best.

And an air attack takes out a troop of T-80s.

The major weak point of CD 2 for Moderns is the lack of decent stats for quite a few modern weapon systems. The biggest gap is with aircraft. I have started to stat out some aircraft using data from various CPQs, Combined Arms, Harpoon, and some other GDW games, which I am then comparing to the 'real world' information available on aircraft. This is something I will need to do regardless of what version of CD I use.

The scrub offers some cover to KPLA armour.

CD 3 has much simpler mechanisms for determining quite a number of things (spotting, range bands, etc) but in my opinion handles aircraft badly, and I've never fully liked the reduction of firing phases for a number of reasons. However, the simpler mechanisms do make the game quicker.

Close up of the "I can't believe it's not a GAZ 66" Soviet era toy diecast truck I've been using as the tow vehicle for the ZU-23-2. 

Clearly I still have a great deal of thinking to do as I continue to paint things and be slack about making blog postings!

KPLA recon reports in on the Western Alliance movements.