I setup a rescue scenario for Asymmetric Warfare. It was my first time playing the ruleset (it’s relatively new, to boot). A quick explanation at the front: Spectre Operations V2 ran into some form of problems with its rules writer. The company that owned the game’s name, etc kept the name, but the writer kept the rules system. Asymmetric Warfare is, in effect, Spectre Operations V3… not to be confused with the new game that just came out which is called Spectre Operations V3.

Yeah, it’s weird. Further, it’s an awful name. Asymmetric Warfare is about asymmetric warfare. This gets weird fast when you’re trying to compare rulesets. My impressions on the ruleset are positive. It uses alternating phased activation (I move my whole force, you move yours, then I do all of my combat, then you do yours). This works out well to allow for coordinated actions while still giving your opponent time to react.

I also like the Rule of 8 system. Every tier of operator has a stat line and to pass a check you just roll the relevant stat + D6. For example, to take over a technical (truck with a gun) during this game, you had to make contact with it and then roll an Agility check. My Trained operators had an agility score of 3–I rolled a 6 (9 total) and passed. Easy enough and works to subtly differentiate the tiers throughout the game without being intrusive. Great idea.

Anyway, I got to play! I setup a scenario with two ground forces, no off board support, and various vehicles that could be captured and used on the board. The goal was for my opponent to rescue a High Value Target and call for a helicopter to pick him up. Here’s the scenario as I wrote it:

The HVT was in the large multi-story building toward the top of the image, and he managed to secure and call for a helicopter more or less right next to it after we spent the first few turns jockeying for position.

I’ll spare you the full play-by-play. He managed to position his forces to have solid overwatch on most of the board, then ran a unit in to deploy smoke around the landing site, which ended up costing me the game–just barely.

While he did successfully lock down one flank with a unit on overwatch, I managed to run a unit up the other flank to devastating effect. They rounded the corner and took out the entirety of the security team around the HVT.

Unfortunately for me, we couldn’t quite get to the HVT in time and he coated the area with smoke, which stopped me from being able to shoot down the helicopter altogether (which was represented by the unpainted MRAP in the images below). Too little, too late on my part.

It was a tense match and we both had a good time. We managed to start, learn the game and play out this match in just under two and a half hours. Really not bad for such a fully featured match up.

Then there was my favorite moment of the whole battle–the one that really makes me think I’ll like this ruleset. See, I was totally locked down on one flank, but I decided to be an idiot and go for it anyway. I had my men run up and jumpstart a technical.

They pulled it off, and tried to race to the helicopter landing site, only to end up shot up in an Overwatch response. Here’s what happened:

1. My men tried to drive through a clearing, knowing it was a pretty bad idea.
2. My opponent fired off a shot with a carbine that had a line on them–he won the rolloff and we rolled on the vehicle damage table, getting a “Driver Shot” result.
3. The driver was, in fact, dead. My opponent passed the lethality check and one shot him. The car proceeded to go out of control.
4. We rolled the scatter dice and the car careened into a nearby low wall, stopping. We then rolled again on the vehicle collision chart followed by the damage table.
5. End result was the vehicle losing 9″ of movement, basically stranding it as a stationary HMG, and multiple men ended up dead or wounded in the process.

Don’t get me wrong–it didn’t end well for me, but I loved the process and result! This was an excellent example of process based adjudication and how it can really tell stories through your tabletop experience. This was perhaps one of the most complicated sequences of events you could have play out in the game, involving multiple tables and even tables interacting with each other. It took us under a minute to solve in our first go round and really added something fun to the match. I loved it!

I have a bunch of Blacksite Studios terrain coming this week and I hope to get another match soon on the resultant board. Next time, we’ll add in some proper off board assets for variety, and perhaps mess with the sneaking/night time rules. We covered most of the game’s rules in the match, playing with all core rules and even trying out vehicles. I really am pleased so far and greatly look forward to my next game!