On a sunny Saturday morning the militia of Mdrongo received word that a section and a half of SNAP insurgent, much further north than their normal range would suggest, were about to infiltrate a village and take control of it, thus extending the insurgent group’s reach into the northeast of Imaginafrica. In response, a platoon of Mdrongan troops, supported by an elephant-mounted, were deployed to see them off. The insurgents were supported by a Soviet advisor (which was unusual for this group seeing as their doctrine was Maoist, as was their regular backer, but there’s likely a simple explanation out there somewhere).
The rules used in this game were first edition No End in Sight (NEiS) from Nordic Weasel games. The counters I made myself, and the miniatures are a mix of Airfix and scratch-build bits for the Mdrongans, with the SNAP figures coming from RH Models and the Soviet adviser being from Elheim.
The table was set up for a typical game of NEiS, with long lines of sight limited in most instances. This was one of the last games we played where we deployed from the table edge, though more on that in future posts.
Initial movement saw the SNAP section move directly towards cover behind two small features, then up to the stone wall by the field, then towards the hut to the right of the enclosure. Their MMG team moved to their left, around the field and through the huts on the other side of the village with the advisor.
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The Mdrongan infantry made slow but steady progress, breaking the platoon into its three sections and each following an axis directly along the area of ops. They made sure to take advantage of concealment and opted to cover areas by fire rather than cover too much open ground without support from the other sections. The elephant plodded steadily up the centre towards the village. A Tarzanian Broadcasting Corporation TV truck appeared out of no-where, but was ignored by all the combatants.
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The fight proper started with the HMG mounted on the elephant pinning squads of the SNAP section behind the stone wall. While great cover, it slowed down their movement into the village. The MMG team attempted to move to the left of the village and tried to cross the road to take cover in the gully and cover the left flank, but the first insurgent across was pinned and hit by reaction fire.
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The Mdrongan infanty advance was steady and inexorable, while the SNAP troops became bogged down under the withering fire from the elephant. Without smoke grenades, the insurgents were easy targets for Mdrongan troops, but they weren’t quite ready to leave their wounded Comrade to his fate.
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The MMG and the advisor engaged in a shooting match with the elephant’s crew, and when they sent another soldier over to help the wounded man, he too was hit and wounded, while the original wounded man was hit again and met his end. This bit of relief allowed the SNAP section to regain their courage and move into the village, but the time that’d been bought by the elephant had allowed the other two Mdrongan sections to move up to cover just short of the huts.
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The SNAP MMG team decided discretion was the better part of valour. Well, the advisor did at any rate. He led the remains of the gun team in an advance to the safety of the rear. They were seen by the SNAP section commander who, without any radios, assumed the advisor was taking the MMG in a crafty move to further outflank the Mdrongans. The SNAP section continued to push into the village proper. By this stage, the full platoon of Mdrongo soldiers and their supporting elephant were closing in on the village. The local soldiers started to pour fire into the invaders’ positions, rebels were pinned, and things became way too hot for the insurgents. Despite the heroic reading of inspiring propaganda from the Litter Book of Chairman Meow, the section failed some pressure tests and in the end democracy was exercised by the rebels, fading away into the bush. At last, another village in Mdrongo had been saved from the nefarious plans of Chairman Meow!?!.
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The NEiS rules worked well, and those being the First Edition we agreed on some house rules that later turned out to have already been added into the Second Edition. The effect of untreated wounded troops, a lack of grenades and, in particular, smoke grenades, was quite telling on the game and led to less movement and more casualties than would have been the case had those items been available in the game. The ready use of reaction fire makes the game dangerous to tactically-unsound moves across covered fire lanes. Unless a smaller side is very lucky, then a weight of combat power seemed to be decisive. That said, we only had a couple of sections/squads forced to make Pressure Tests to remain in place, so this needs more examination in future games. We agreed that we’d have to try an alternate method of starting off the deployment so we were into the game faster. Chain of Command seemed like a straightforward choice, so we decided to research that before the next game.
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