Milton Hundred Wargames Club

Operation Squad may have a slightly curious name but do not let this fool you. It is a true skirmish level game that focuses upon, as the name suggests, small squads. You would think this obvious but many skirmish games seem intent upon getting as many non-skirmish elements into the games as possible, tanks (plural), aircraft, hordes of troops; I think that they miss the point of skirmishes and for many people they have missed the point of Operation Squad.

In this game each player has a simple squad of figures, armed and organised as per their historical counterparts. The scale of the game is aimed at the point of contact between two small forces and works for scenarios as simple as taking a check point or rescuing someone from a wrecked vehicle. I can see many people playing out Holywood style games, and why not? wargames are meant to be fun and the mechanics provide plenty of latitude for such games.

The one aspect of the rules that will take most getting used to is the turn system. It is, perhaps, best describe as an intereactive 'I go you go' system but that would oversimplify it. Player A activates a figure by giving it an order, such as move, move and fire, hide, etc. but must nominate a target or position the moving figure will reach. Player B then has the option of reacting to that order. So, if Player A orders his figure to fire at the enemy figure behind a wall, the enemy figure could react by attempting to hide, duck down behind the wall, before the shot was fired. Each player would then dice to see which figures action happened first, a simple two d6 roll plus the figures skill level. The highest gets to carry out their action first. If player A wins, his figure fires at the enemy figure behind the wall, who gets some protection from the wall but is still vulnerable. If this figure survives the shot or it misses, then it carries out its order and hides behaind the wall. If player B had won the priority roll the figure behind the wall would have ducked just in time but, the firing figure must still shoot even though the target has gone. Remember, this is a detailed skirmish game, the shot may have happened just miliseconds too late. The reason for the shot still taking place is simple, if a player rolls three of the same number on the shooting dice it has run out of ammunition and needs to reload, which takes an action order to do. A shooter rolls at least thee dice and so this happens often enough to be interesting; frustrating too!

This is the basics of the turn sequence, once player A has carried out an activation, Player B does the same untill all figures have been activated and given an order. A reaction, such as player B's figure ducking behind the wall, is also an activation order and so that figure cannot be given another order this turn sequence. Can you begin to see how a player can apply pressure and reduce the enemy's options with agresive tactics? However, this is only basics. The Action-Reaction sequence can involve up to three figures per side, causing flurries of furious action. I have found that adding pairs of small dice between shooters and targets helps ease any confusion and keep players focused on which figure is doing what. The addition of the priorty dice rolls adds just the right amount of tactical confusion and creats some very interesting situations!

This game was reviewed in one of the big wargame magazines earlier this year (2011) but lamented the fact they could not use the tanks and other military equipment so beloved of other ules. This led to a rather bland review that certainly didn't offer much in the way of inspiration, an unfortunate advert for waht are a much missunderstood set of rules. That said, I do not think that the cover price of £18.00 helps give that the set is a rather thin forty four page A4 booklet. Nor are the rules that well written, although I suspect that there has been some issues with the translation into English from their native Italian. The game itself is well worth playing and makes up for any percieved shortcoming, as long as you remember what they are meant for.

In all, these are a great set of WW2 rules that have untapped potential. I think that they could work well for other periods with a few minor tweeks to take into account older or newer technologies. I also think that clubs could run some amazing multiplayer games, giving each player a squad from a platoon and playing linked games. One player's squad might have to take a check point whilst others raid a supply dump and secure an escape route; all part of a single engagement but played out on different tables.

The club is in the process of painting and basing several Russian squads for members to use. The rule book provide twelve squads, three each of British, American, German and Russian. There are also more on a website dedicated to the rules that also has a useful rules forum.

http://operationsquad.forumfree.it/?f=9710357

At the time of writting this a vehicle supplement has been published. This wil be properly reviewed later but it does provide a few extra rules and weapon types and brings vehicles into the mix. However, these do not over-run the basic game and are very much a part of the original game; no hordes of armour or anything daft like that! The vehicles very much augment the game and add another dimention without losing the essence of the original game or its ethos.