AAR - UK Britains Joy

[THH149]

Played this scenario for the NATO pack H2H format with me attacking as the Brits. The premise is that the Brits need to rescue 6 hostages that may or may not be spread across two  compounds (one in the desert and another in a small village) in 30 minutes. The Brits have 8 Jackals and some utes to bring up engineers  and friends including 2 Tornados, while the Uncons have 2 Kornets, assorted RPG29s and squads with MGs and RPG7s as well as snipers and mines on the roads. The 6 Hostages appear as Blue reinforcements in the two hostage locations in the last five minutes, and if the Uncons eliminate them then they recieve 1000 VPs.  The Brits need to control the hostage locations and preserve two buildings in each hostage compound, and prevent hostage deaths to ensure Uncons dont get more VPs.

• This scenario is pretty good actually, the Brits are fragile but have some great firepower (inc planes) and the Uncons can pull some pretty sweet ambushes to knock down the Jackals.
• In my H2H playing, I was the Brits and pulled some Dirty Dozen moves to drive straight into the compounds (while doing some drive by shooting of the kornet teams) coming straight up the middle road between the two compounds as well as a long detour up the escarpment. I suffered terribly in losing 5 Jackals (3 on the main road and 2 in the Village compound itself) but recovered to bring infantry up eventually overcome resistance in the Village compound and rescue two hostages (the Uncons killed one). In the desert compound, in the last 5 minutes, I  rushed my three remaining jackals forward and take it by storm figuring the Uncons had put most everything into the village defence. It was not to be and another jackal was lost and crew dead/wounded in the others, so saving any hostages there. I didn't use the planes at all as the action was just moving to fast. The hostages in the desert compound weren't shot for some reason, so the score just handed the Uncons just 127 VP for the single hostage death.
• The game end was a draw (400 vs 427 VP) but my oponent and I figured it was very replayable as there were many options for both sides, and a short time limit to keep the action moving crisply.
• There seems to be a quirk around the hostagse though. The briefing says 1000 VP are awarded for all hostage deaths so one dead should be worth 167 (FRU) but the score awarded 127. The other quirk was hy opponent didnt see on screen the hostages appear in the desert compound and he had enough troops unchallenged to be able to eliminate them easily. So we figured the Uncons should've earned VP for eliminating those as well (but how much its not clear - 150 each for 900 in total (vs the 1000 in the briefing) or 127 each or 167 each, or some other amount? maybe the VP ramp up if more are killed?). Anyway, we gave the Uncons a major victory with the extra VP for killing 4 hostages: a rare Uncon win.
• Why did the Brits lose....to many Dirty Dozen moves leading to the initial repulse (time wasted too) and not using the planes...but most of the engineers survived to take the village. 
• The Brits had engineers but I couldn't get them to use their 'blast' order in game.  So that's my homework, learning how to blast walls so as to enter from unexpected directions of walled hostage prisons.

Have you played this? What did you think? 

THH

 

[Combatintman]

21 hours ago, THH149 said:

Played this scenario for the NATO pack H2H format with me attacking as the Brits. The premise is that the Brits need to rescue 6 hostages that may or may not be spread across two  compounds (one in the desert and another in a small village) in 30 minutes. The Brits have 8 Jackals and some utes to bring up engineers  and friends including 2 Tornados, while the Uncons have 2 Kornets, assorted RPG29s and squads with MGs and RPG7s as well as snipers and mines on the roads. The 6 Hostages appear as Blue reinforcements in the two hostage locations in the last five minutes, and if the Uncons eliminate them then they recieve 1000 VPs.  The Brits need to control the hostage locations and preserve two buildings in each hostage compound, and prevent hostage deaths to ensure Uncons dont get more VPs.

• This scenario is pretty good actually, the Brits are fragile but have some great firepower (inc planes) and the Uncons can pull some pretty sweet ambushes to knock down the Jackals.
• In my H2H playing, I was the Brits and pulled some Dirty Dozen moves to drive straight into the compounds (while doing some drive by shooting of the kornet teams) coming straight up the middle road between the two compounds as well as a long detour up the escarpment. I suffered terribly in losing 5 Jackals (3 on the main road and 2 in the Village compound itself) but recovered to bring infantry up eventually overcome resistance in the Village compound and rescue two hostages (the Uncons killed one). In the desert compound, in the last 5 minutes, I  rushed my three remaining jackals forward and take it by storm figuring the Uncons had put most everything into the village defence. It was not to be and another jackal was lost and crew dead/wounded in the others, so saving any hostages there. I didn't use the planes at all as the action was just moving to fast. The hostages in the desert compound weren't shot for some reason, so the score just handed the Uncons just 127 VP for the single hostage death.
• The game end was a draw (400 vs 427 VP) but my oponent and I figured it was very replayable as there were many options for both sides, and a short time limit to keep the action moving crisply.
• There seems to be a quirk around the hostagse though. The briefing says 1000 VP are awarded for all hostage deaths so one dead should be worth 167 (FRU) but the score awarded 127. The other quirk was hy opponent didnt see on screen the hostages appear in the desert compound and he had enough troops unchallenged to be able to eliminate them easily. So we figured the Uncons should've earned VP for eliminating those as well (but how much its not clear - 150 each for 900 in total (vs the 1000 in the briefing) or 127 each or 167 each, or some other amount? maybe the VP ramp up if more are killed?). Anyway, we gave the Uncons a major victory with the extra VP for killing 4 hostages: a rare Uncon win.
• Why did the Brits lose....to many Dirty Dozen moves leading to the initial repulse (time wasted too) and not using the planes...but most of the engineers survived to take the village. 
• The Brits had engineers but I couldn't get them to use their 'blast' order in game.  So that's my homework, learning how to blast walls so as to enter from unexpected directions of walled hostage prisons.

Have you played this? What did you think? 

THH

 

Funnily enough I have  ..... as it was me who updated the original Shock Force version of the mission to CMSF-2 ... although not quite sure where you get the NATO H2H piece from - it is a standalone scenario in the British Forces module called UK Britain's Joy 2 as far as I'm aware.

Your VP sums are exactly right - there are six hostages meaning that theoretically you ought to get 166-167 points for each one knocked over.  They are a single unit 'Destroy' objective for Red and there is no mechanism within the editor to incrementally allocate extra points for each one killed - each should therefore = 166-167 VPs.  I can't therefore explain why only 127 points were allocated for the single claimed dead hostage - unless of course they weren't fully dead at game end and the points were allocated for 'nearly dead'.

Looks like your opponent got 427 points for knocking over (to whatever degree) the hostage and hanging on to the desert compound.  I guess that you got 200 for the village compound and the remaining 200 for not flattening the preserve objectives.

As to your opponent not seeing the hostages appear - can't answer that one in full because I don't know what troops were around but the hostages don't appear until towards the end of the mission and although they are called hostages - they are in fact 'Spies' as far as the AI treats them.  That means that if they don't do anything suspicious it can take a while for troops to see them (this is part of the Combat Mission abstraction of civilians and the ability of Uncons, of which spies are a part, to hide among the civilian populace).

Anyway - glad you enjoyed it and of course ... if you'd used your air and sappers, you'd have cleaned up and there wouldn't be any doubts about 'who won' 

As to what I think about the scenario - I thought it was awesome 

And finally - the conceptual credit for this scenario goes to Mark Ezra who made the original CMSF version - all I did for CMSF 2 was add a couple of triggered bits to the Red AI plan and a couple of other AI bits and pieces, made the village look a little more realistic, and change the scenario narrative to something slightly more warlike.  Thanks to his sound design, it was pretty easy to tidy up - I think it took a couple of days.

[THH149]

My bad re the NATO reference, I was indeed from the UK Forces pack.

I've since played this against the AI both as Red and Blue, the AI Blue Air  Force happened to drop its loads on the desert compound buildings, destroying them outright, and the Blue airforce also tried to flatten the buidlings in the Village compound but missed.  The hostages still appeared at the five minute before end of game mark in the destroyed building, but as the AI had also obliterated my Red forces in the same buildings, I couldnt kill those hostages. In the VP allocation though, Blue force took control of the Desert compound for Blue Force (there were no other Blue in the compound at the time!). So if you're playing against Blue AI, be aware its planes can destroy the compound to save the hostages. Otherwise the Blue AI was easily defeated.

At the same time In the Village compound, the hostages appeared but they were gunned down mercilessly as I'd packed their building with Uncons.

The hostage uniforms were a nice touch!

THH

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

As to your opponent not seeing the hostages appear - can't answer that one in full because I don't know what troops were around but the hostages don't appear until towards the end of the mission and although they are called hostages - they are in fact 'Spies' as far as the AI treats them.  That means that if they don't do anything suspicious it can take a while for troops to see them (this is part of the Combat Mission abstraction of civilians and the ability of Uncons, of which spies are a part, to hide among the civilian populace).

Is it worth checking the population density setting.....If it's too high Spies can be a bugger to spot.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

1 minute ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Is it woth checking the population density setting?

It is none and it tested fine bearing in mind that the moment you bump that level up you then run into the danger of screwing the whole scenario because the Red force which is comprised of Uncons becomes more difficult to spot so you double down on the issue.  There is sufficient time for the Uncons to see the 'hostages' in the time available and remember that once they get seen they should pretty much all get zapped in a single burst of AK fire.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Do Spies still get 'Rout Killed' (floating red exclamation mark) when a hostile unit moves very close (I noticed they get shot at these days, which they didn't seem to in the distant past)?

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, THH149 said:

So if you're playing against Blue AI, be aware its planes can destroy the compound to save the hostages. Otherwise the Blue AI was easily defeated.

The hostage uniforms were a nice touch!

THH

 

It doesn't matter who kills the hostages - Red should get the VPs for every one killed whether by AK-47 fire or a 1,000lb bomb dropped by a GR4.

I had nothing to do with the artwork so can't take credit there.

[Combatintman]

1 minute ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Do Spies still get the 'Rout Killed' when a hostile unit moves very close (I noticed they get shot at these days, which they didn't seem to in the distant past)?

I can't recall if I'm fully patched but they certainly did the last time I tested something.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Fully patched here too, been playing with spies quite a bit recently, but usually specifically trying to avoid getting them too close!

I'm messing with something interesting at the moment, I think you may approve. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[THH149]

On 12/3/2020 at 11:28 AM, Combatintman said:

It doesn't matter who kills the hostages - Red should get the VPs for every one killed

Sorry I should've made it clearer that the building got destroyed before the Hostages arrived, and the Hostages remained unharmed. And as they lived, Blue got their VP and controlled the compound (all Red being dead from the Tornadoes).