Andreivian Victory?

Well, from a personal perspective the SOTCW game at Gauntlet was great fun. My Andreivian Turks had a very successful couple of days.

Day 1 we successfully blocked the American advance down the valley, the Mujaheddin died to the last man blocking the US advance through the choke point of the first village. meanwhile the rest of my forces laid a minefield (which turned out to be ineffective given the mine plough on the US Abrams) and bided their time

Day 2 the US rapidly used its superior weaponry to massacre the local citizens who mustered to the defence of their homeland. Notably all my men died for the cause. In doing so, the US lost their lead Bradley blocking the bridge. Also the devil's incarnation a PyOps Humvee was turned into a Pyre by my militia.

Reinforcement then arrived, a squad of local farmers, as the dice revealed all deadly shots. They did have problems attaching a command wire to a previously positioned IED and died as they sprinted back to cover in a hail of bullets from proclaimed Spanish peacekeepers.

Meanwhile Armenian separatists tried to distract us from our vital mission. They were slaughtered in a hail of fire and retired into Tuzhar. Their other squad tried to flank us through the woods in the rain, but Allah blessed the dice yet again and the unbelievers fell like corn being harvested.

Allah continued to smile on us when the thrice-cursed Abrams drove up the road towards Tuzhar and our simple but effective explosive device ripped the machine to pieces.

More details can be found on the SOTCW forum (the biased organ of western decadence) and Counterpane's Andreivian blog

The pictures:

The US push through the village and start clearing the freshly laid minefield on the other side of the bridge with the Abrams mine plough. It is followed by a Bradly (not visible) three M113 (empty of troops) and another limping Bradley. The big house is still smoking from the number of 120mm rounds pumped into it.


The scene about two moves later when my BMP shot up the Bradley from the rear blocking the bridge and my militia took out the PyOps vehicle. Retribution was swift with the Abrams drilling a neat hole right through the BMP

A10 completing its bombing run on the second village, the US were taking no chances now, the massacre of innocent civilians was justified on the grounds that more of my forces could be hiding there, but really it was because they were worried about friendly fire if they attacked my visible forces
The A10 passing over Tuzhar, it all looks quiet as the government, turkish and armenian factions had fought themselves to a standstill and were awaiting reinforcements

The death of the Abrams, two Spanish M113s in the village, followed by the limping Bradley, meanwhile the empty US M113's try to bypass the problem down the river.

The rules were Arc of Fire, a set I don't possess, but we quickly got used to them after the first couple of moves and then the game flowed reasonably well, with just the occasional reference to the rules rather than our individual unit playsheets.

A great couple of days.
Will