Platoon+ - Some of the thinking behind the game

Platoon +

 So a few people have asked questions on the new Platoon + game, so I thought I would share some of my thinking so far. I must of course emphasis that all of this is a work in progress.

The first thing is that Platoon+ is a working title and the final game may not be released under that name, but it gives us a point of reference moving forward.

Looking at the aims of the game it probably worth listing the core building blocks of the new game.

1. The game needs to allow Skirmish Sangin players to take their characters into playing a larger game, with some conversion.
   
2. The rule system will NOT just be Skirmish Sangin with a few new rules.
   
3. This is a modern rule set for modern warfare both symmetrical and asymmetrical; it is NOT based in Afghanistan and can be used to model any current or future conflict.
   
4. The game smallest unit can change depending on the size of the game player want to play. What do we mean by this, well if players want to play a platoon sized game the smallest unit will be a fire team, if they want to play multiple Platoons the smallest unit type would be a squad. It may be possible to play this game with the smallest unit being an individual.
   
5. Miniatures will be based singularly but the larger the game becomes the more abstract the game system will be come, as it needs to handle bigger numbers.
   
6. The game must be easy to play and learn and players with 2 platoons per side should be able to play a game in about 2.5 hours.

So those are some big building blocks on which everything will hinge. Below are some images of working platoon sheets. They are a work in progress but the idea is a single page should represent a platoon and everything the players need to will be on that page.

Above is a basic US army Platoon

Above a Taliban unit - note the difference in command dice

Above French Foreign legion Platoon, avery different make up.

Below is the first look at armoured platoons

 

All images are subject to Copyright to Radio Dishdash Publishing 

Currently we are experimenting with using 1d20 instead of 1d100. While I love 1d100 for granulation in Skirmish Sangin, as the number of troops gets bigger, it becomes increasingly necessary to loose that granulation without loosing the spirit of the game.

We are also looking at command dice, command dice gives the unit their Action Points (AP). The larger game is predominantly about command and control.

So thats just a few little things to show you some of our thinking.

Cheers

Colin

Platoon+ test games

Platoon+

So we continue with our Platoon+ testing. This time we added off table resources. The Taliban had a mortar and a sniper and the ISAF had a heavy weapons team which included 2 Javelins and a sniper.

The ISAF platoons consisted on 1 Platoon of US Army and 1 Platoon of French. This was mainly to help us test the differences in national Platoon types and the Taliban had 25 minis.

The board looked like this.



The Taliban held everything south of the river with ISAF coming from the north of the river. The Taliban were embedded in the village of Ghorak having in the scenario taken possession of the town the day before.

The battle unfolded with the ISAF advance. Its was a two prong approach designed to split the Taliban fire, this worked very well. The Taliban, dug in the building were initially a tough nut to crack with the French being pinned down on the left flank (bottom right of the pic below).



The Taliban used the banks of the stream as cover as they tried to bring fire on to the face arriving Americans.

The French hunkered down over the continual fire from the Taliban. The advanced initially brought to a stop. Here the first casualties went to the Taliban withering fire.

 The Taliban occupy the mosque and gain the high ground advantage (Sorry about the pic quality).

US army below make it to the first compound to find it empty.

The Americans charged the dug in Taliban along the river line and a fearful hand-to-hand battle begins. This would go on for most of the game with the Taliban taking casualties but refusing to yield. Ray (pictured) wanted to test the hand-to-hand rules and his Taliban held up well.

The French move up through the poppy field and come under off table mortar fire, twice they were hit and twice the dice (6d20) yield no casualties, but it did shake them up. The US employed both javelins but were such bad shots they missed their targets and inflicted only minor damage.

 Eventually the Taliban Morale breaks and the survivors bolt.

So just like before we have learned a few things and we have added more elements to the game I can honestly say I like where this is going. Both of my play testers liked it too. Once more of the rules are written up in a more cognitive form I will be looking for more play testers, so let us know if your interested.

The game took 2 hours and 15 minutes with high Taliban casualties but ISAF were pinned for a number of rounds, which stopped there advance dead for a while.

The larger playing area really worked too.