Our first game of Black Ops!

Having painted up some modern US troops for the painting challenge both Ash and I thought it was high time we put a modern rule-set to the test and so we go together a couple of nights to try out Osprey’s Black Ops by Guy Bowers. This also gave us a chance to dress up the table with the terrain we’ve been beavering away at over the last 6 months however that’s for another post.

So what’s the score with Black Ops. Well its skirmish level, usually with a handful of troops (4-12 ish) with each model being managed independently. It follows the model of most skirmish systems out there with the usual dice to hit, dice to kill mechanic.

Ash looks worried!

The interesting part is the activation mechanic, this is card driven with the troops under your command being grouped into Jacks (troops), Queens (specialists such as medics), Kings (Heavies) and Aces’s (leaders). Both you and your opponent have two cards for each of the different types in the deck (once player reds, the other blacks) as well as a Joker which allows your Leader an additional activation when it is drawn.

As a card is drawn all the models in that category get to activate, either moving and firing, running, in reserve, hiding etc and in this respect the actions are in line with other systems. The thing that is neat is that you can put a model into reserve, thereby banking their activation until later in the turn.  Then when it suits you can activate them as a group when your leader activates (as long as he’s close enough) thereby allowing you to stack your troops outside a building, ready to assault the enemy inside altogether.

My Fire team stack before assaulting the compound

Shooting works how you would expect in a skirmish game and in this respect Black Ops is pretty straight forward. However troops do have a facing unlike most skirmish level games, thus giving you the opportunity to outmanoeuvre your opponent. At first this felt a little weird however when you reorient your thinking from a game turn representing several minutes to more like 10 seconds it starts to make sense. For example the missions generally last 6 turns however when each model gets two activations each turn it means that a lot can happen in those turns but the mechanics make it feel like things are happening fast.

Oh and I said that models get 2 activations a turn, well there’s still the joke in the activation deck, this can be used to give your leader 3 activations or he can pass it on to another model within 6”. Very useful for when you’ve just been outmanoeuvred!

Ash and I’s first game was a blistering firefight in an Afghan village with British infantry attempting to recapture a military vehicle that had been “appropriated” by the local militia who were unwilling to give it up (it had an awesome sound system).

Well positioned Afghan Militia

So simply to try out the system I assaulted the compound and ran one of my fire teams through the main square with the other trying to get to high ground to provide covering fire. It didn’t work, my fire team was severely wounded by the AK fire coming from the old cinema rooftop that Ash had cleverly positioned some of his militia on.

Things to note:

• If you put troops in reserve on their first activation and don’t use it, you lose it
• When you get close to troops with Assault Rifles things go bad very, very quickly
• This game would easily replicate 007 trying to steal the plans from a nefarious villain in his top secret lab!

Next post will have more pics!