Wednesday 4 May 2016

Ambush in the Bekaa Valley - Arab Israeli 1982 - Play testing ideas

Spent half an our or so over lunch time musing about aspects of the initial scenario which is based on an ambush of the leading platoon of a battalion on the coastal road.

The game scenario needs to follow the standard AA/FOF asymmetric sequences as that gives me a simpler situation and troops already in contact.

I can start either with the PLO having already initiated the contact and the effects already applied to one or more vehicles or play this out from the moment contact begins.  If I go with the second option there are a lot of options for either player which may or may not completely change how the game plays...Imagine all the RPG shots hitting and catastrophic effects result...a very short game; the other way around means that the PLO miss with everything and the Israeli's dismount and clear the ambush site in very short order.  For me this is too much chaos to handle so I am going to go with the assumption that an initial round of fire has occurred from the PLO, an Israeli Vehicle has been disabled and a situation which includes casualty treatment, evactuation and clearing the Ambush site has to be handled.  This also means that the PLO force doesn't have to be very lucky with its dice rolls in the the first place.

With the idea that the IDF force is fixed in place this means that I might be able to play this on a 2' x 2' board.  Terrain pieces probably need to be stone walls, ditches, possibly a culvert section of road citrus trees, bushes and vines.  If I put the ambush site towards one site then the PLO can be given the job of holding up the IDF and then retreating while the IDF have to clear the site.  I can make a scenario situation up that off the short side of the board is a ravine which is impassable.  This would also allow me to keep the IDF vehicles from freely manouvering.


Something like this.

PLO can be in Ambush for the first turn and then act as elusive afterward which will offset the IDF numbers and quality a little bit.

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