In this week’s game, a platoon of British infantry land as part of a mission to capture a Taliban compound, their task being to secure the HLZ and to move to need the other platoons at the Taliban compound. On the table are five Hotspots: -

Hot spot 1 is in the field to the north of the HLZ, Hotspot’2 is behind the wall on the other side of the ditch to the north of the HLZ. Hotspot 3 is in the woods to the south of the HLZ.  Hotspot 4 is at the far end of the drainage ditch in front of the compound that the British are aiming for. The final Hotspot 5 is in the house on the edge of the table to the east of the LZ. These hot spots each have a unit of Taliban and on each move from turn two, an additional random number of Taliban units will arrive at a random location (on a 6 the Afghan player can choose the location for the reinforcements). The British can close down a  Hotspots’if they are occupying it in the Afghan activation phase.

In the first turn, the British 1st Section deploys on the south and west of the HLZ with the GPMG team and most of the HW section. The Alpha team and the HQ squad rush to take Hotspot 3. The Afghans successfully declare an ambush but only manage to hit one Brit, the Brits return fire and hit two Afghans. This fire fight continues for six turns with the Afghans being reinforced by a medium MG team before the Brits finally take the Hotspot after suffering one killed and one seriously wounded.

The Bravo team and the GPMG team move to the west towards Hotspot 5, with the GPMG taking position in the field and using over watch to cover Bravo team as they advance first to the drainage ditch and then to the building containing the Hotspot. The team gets cut down with two serious wounds, pinning the team. Then fire from a MG team reinforcing from Hotspot 4 forces the remaining team members to retire into the field. The team takes a turn to recover. In the following turn, the GPMG pins the occupants of the house, allowing the remaining two team members to move to their comrades only to be cut down in the following turn as they try to move their comrades to the cover of the ditch. During this contest another group of Taliban arrives to support their friends 

The second section deploys to the north of the HLZ. Alpha team and the platoon medic rush forward to the ditch and are ambushed by the Taliban deployed there The team takes three hits but survives their morale test and pins the Afghans behind the wall in the ensuing firelight, after the medic helps all three casualties to fully recover. The Afghans choose to use the ‘rat-run’ option to redeploy from Hotspot 2, which the Brits occupy and shut down the following turn. In the next turn, the Taliban redeploy on table at Hotspot 4 in the target compound.  When the Alpha team make their move on the compound they are unsupported and come under heavy fire from two Taliban teams in the compound and another Taliban unit deploying at Hotspot 5. The team finally have to withdraw behind the building after suffering two KIA with two lightly wounded men carrying their seriously wounded comrade. 

The Beta team then rushes Hotspot1 and, after a short fire fight with the Taliban deployed there, suffer one KIA in the process as they take and deny the Hotspot to the enemy. However, for some reason, instead of supporting the other team in their squad they retire back to the LZ, taking their dead comrade with them.  Seeing that the Beta team from section one are in trouble they rush over to support them only to be cut down with all of them being hit and wounded or killed. At this point the end of game was called, the British having suffered a serious defeat.

Force on Force are a highly detailed set of rules (225 pages) and have some excellent systems, but do take some getting used to and are in need of an effective play sheet and several games to get the hang of it. However, it does give a very interesting game and with the scenario book for Afghanistan giving flavour as it addresses all the aspects of the area and the problems of asymmetric combat.