"Ambush Royale": Advanced Rules

Bond...using FORCE ON FORCE from Ambush Alley Games. Check out Ambush Royale in the panel to the right - our house adaptation for secret agent/spy and other pulp action cinema inspired games.

WOUNDS

Wound Charts = With Medic for Named Characters; No Medic for Minions shot by other Minions

Wound Chart Effects for Named Characters (vs. Named / Minions)

• Killed = 2 Wounds / Forced Back
• Serious Wound = 1 Wound / Pinned
• Light Wound = Pinned / Morale Check
• OK = OK / OK

# Wounds = Character loses that number of wounds and makes Morale Check per description below

 Forced Back = Must retreat one move away from enemy and objective, or to the nearest cover away from enemy and objective, whichever is closer.  Character is now pinned

 Pinned = per normal rules

 Morale Check = rolls # of character’s wounds left with the characters Morale level for Morale check per normal rules

Wound Chart Effects for Minions vs. Minions is per normal rules.  Wounds caused from Named Characters is either killed or knocked out the Minions, either way the figure is removed from the game.

GADGETS

Named Character will have the same number of gadgets as Luck dice

Gadgets can be “traded” for other gimmicks at a 1:1 exchange

GIMMICKS

Trademark weapon – 
Named character has a short range (optimine range only) trademark weapon that he/she is very good at (007’s Walter PPK or Oddjob’s hat).  Named character gets a +1d attack at optimine range when using his/her trademark weapon.  When using a trademark weapon, if an attack roll is ½ or more “1’s”, the trademark weapon is lost for the rest of the scenario (out of ammo, damaged, knocked out of the character’s hands, etc.)

Trademark attack – 
Named character has a special hand to hand weapon or attack that he/she is very good at (Jaw’s steel teeth or knife in the shoe tip).  The Named character gets a +2d attack to one enemy with 1” or less of the figure.

Gadgets can be added to a trademark weapon or attack, if it makes sense – Oddjob’s hat could also have a concealable gadget attached to it making the first search attempted by someone on him automatically fail to notice the razor edge on the brim of the hat.

 SKILLS

Main Named characters are assumed to know all of the skills needed for the scenario at his/hers Quality die type (007 can fly, swimming, disarm a bomb, shoot, drive, etc. at his Quality die) – Each player can only have one Main Named Character as part of their force

Supporting Named characters are all others and know the number of skills as their number of Luck dice at the Quality dice type level that is relevant to that characters background (The active female pilot that is tagging along with 007 has a Luck of 3, so the GM assigns her three skills to flying, navigation, and shooting).  Skills not listed for the supporting character is one die type less (The active female pilot is a d10 for flying, but a d8 for disarming the bomb)

Minions are assigned the # of skills ½ of the Quality dice or less that would be relevant to their role and do not know any other skills (A d6 uniformed policeman would have the skills of shooting, driving, and searching for example, where a customs agent would only have searching)

 SECURITY FORCES

INTERVENTION

 Being undercover super spy means that the local police and soldiers don’t know that you really are a good guy and will also try to stop you.  As such, security forces will always attempt to arrest or shoot the closest dangerous suspect.  If 007 is shooting at a mad bomber with hidden bomb, and 007 is 12” away from a policeman and the bomber is 3” away from the policeman, the policeman will attempt to stop 007 first as he is shooting and the bomber appears to be unarmed (unless the policeman passes his search skill roll to notice the bomb)

Joe Collins & Dropship Horizon 2011

   

"Ambush Royale": Bond AAR

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Narrow bridge. Sports car doing 90. An SUV pulls up hard in front and a saloon seals him in behind. Out of each  leaps two mafiya, one with an AK, one with a pistol. As these are mooks its D6 vs, well, D12. 

D12....Bond, James Bond. Oh dear. Dead mookskis all over the shop. Home for tea and medals.

Dum Di-di dum, dum, dum, dum.........

Nah, NAH, Na-nah, Na, Na, Naaaa....

 

So,we  toned 007 to 4xD10 and gave the mafiya initiative. They miss. And that’s giving them 2D per AK. 007 fires back with pistol and drops the two from the SUV. Aha, 007 has to turn to face the guys from the saloon car. That sounds like surrendering the initiative to me and blam! 007 rolls low. One wound! We're going incremental so, that’s 3D10. But guess what, he blats the guy with the AK. Other guy misses and its all over bar the double tap.

OK so 007 is boxed in the bridge and the Polizi are a mere block away. Break the pencil fuse, burn the car, dive over the bridge to where the lads from the SBS have a handy cigar boat waiting……vavroooooooooooom.

Moneypenny. Dinner for two. L'Ecargot

 
Shaken but not stirred

Mark

3 Mafiosi, 1 Bond and a Wedding

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Bond is not to be taken too seriously and is a prime example of the Principals of Evil (Stormtrooper) Marksmanship! At least Bond himself bleeds these days.

Joe's house rules for playing 'Bond' using Force on Force have been posted in the sidebar to the right. Hope you enjoy them.

RONIN is one of our favourite movies in the Dropship household. De Niro is a tour de force, the dialogue is razor sharp, ambush scene brutal and car chases, just flat out amazing. Just what is needed if we're to aspire to a  'realistic' Force on Force based 'shootout' game.


The sort of professional work depicted in RONIN will always be required - in many ways the 'crew' brought together in the movie reflects the nature os some of the more dirtside based parties of disparate characters in my classic Traveller campaigns.

I've not been able to get to my figures today as planned. Due in part to my father-in-law needing a hand with a community project in the local woods, then Heather was dug-in, in full tears and tiaras mode watching THE wedding. She loves a good frock or two on the red carpet - weddings, Oscars, you name it. So I put any political misgivings aside for the day and enjoyed being part of something bigger and more enduring than all the crap going on in the country right now.

Master Chef had more luck. Tony at East Riding Miniatures had done a fast turn around on a Platoon 20 order enabling him to bash up 3 Russian Mafia – 2 guys in suits, 1 with M16 and greenstuff flak jacket and another with SMG (cut down M16) and pullover with nasty gold necklace over it – in both cases the suit jacket was painted as a leather jacket. On my advice, the guy in a bomber and jeans with pistol in 2H grip was painted in a very nasty red tracksuit, trimmed in white with green trainers (Adidas stripe of course). With Mrs Master Chef equally entrenched in the wedding spectacle, Maff even managed to paint a "ruddy bow tie" on the Platoon 20 'Bond' figure. Well done mate!

Cheers

Mark

 

Today I am mostly...... Converting Bond in 15mm

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As I type, a 15mm Quantum of Solace 'Bond' proxie is on the workbench, utilising the figures available fom The Scene's  Authorities range.

I carefully cut round the head of SA001 and popped it onto the body of SA002 to give that gritty Bond 'in the alley' and looking for trouble vibe, replicating the imagery of the movie posters.

His first sidekick is going to be the gun-toting ZH003 pony-tailed beauty who has a Denise Richards' Christmas Jones thing going on (at least in my head).

I'm going to have to throw another order to Matt at The Scene as SA003 and SA005, again with the appropriate headswop, makes a good Bond 'in the Casino'. Looking at SA005, with a trenchcoat, would be a Harry Palmer (or Vic Reeves) stand in or with a headswop and painted with a white dinner jacket - Sean Connery.

The great thing about doing the headswops is that if you are just as careful removing the head on the host body, repositioning it on the donor figure can give the original miniature a whole new aspect.

I really enjoy doing these headswops and that's what it's about. So I'm afraid you'll have to bear with me whilst I run with this fun side project.

FYI, I checked the GZG separate heads against The Authorities range and found that they match perfectly. Making an even greater range of individual agents/contacts and scumbags possible. I'm thinking now that I should order a few more 'suits' from The Scene in order to turn them into Deckard/CyberPunk/Blue Hands guys.

Hopefully some photos tomorrow, IF, I feel that I've mastered painting Brioni charcoal grey suits in 15mm. If not, you can see the WIP shots anyway.

Cheers

Mark

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The Name's..... Bond

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Today I'm mostly working on Bond in 15mm after a small disaster with some terrain I was making yesterday. I just need a diversion before I turn my hand to an elevated section of shattered post-apocalypse highway this evening.

Maff (Master Chef) may be right about leaving the figures from THE SCENE as is. May be. I just feel a bareheaded Bond figure makes a strong contrast to the 'heavies' in dark glasses. But whilst the movie interpretation of Bond doesn't wear dark glasses, there is a big hint in both Craig films that “Bond” is a cover name, that “Bonds” don’t last long and get replaced. So your or my interpretation of Bond may wear Retrosuperfuture or Dior Homme.

The Craig Bond while suave is probably SAS or similar. 'M' talks about “testosterone fuelled special forces mentality”. So theres no harm in going mad and dropping bond in Chechnya, Korea, Sierra Leone or Helmand even. It takes Bond out of the Casino and very definitely into the alley.

Bond may be a fun concept, but I have a sneaking affinity for the more grounded and down at heel British anti-hero agent epitomised by Harry Palmer ("I know everything about you, Colonel Stok... from the size of your refrigerator to the cubic capacity of your mistress") and Charlie Muffin, not so much "3rd man on the balcony" as "3rd man at the buffet." Those dark glasses on The Scene's figures could easily be painted as Michael Caine's trademark thick rimmed 'clear' lenses.

Still with us? All this blurb is my way of putting off painting. Well our good mate Joe Collins has come up with his own house rules for playing Bond using Force on Force. Joe's given us permission to publish and as they are not only good but also typed up, which has a quality all of it's own, whereas the dubious ramblings by Maff and myself are still scribblings in my notebook, I'll post them on Dropship this Friday.

Cheers

Mark

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Bond in 15mm

Watched QUANTUM of SOLACE this afternoon. Purely for game research purposes of course.

The car chase at the beginning is brutal and out does RONIN, which nevertheless remains one of my favourite movies. Early on Quantum feels like a Bourne but loses it from the opera scene onwards from which point it starts to fade into more typical Bond fare. However, Bond sidekick Olga Kurylenko is stunning and makes up for the poor end run to the final credits.

So, I was musing about Bond in 1/35th scale earlier - Russian Mafia and Balkan Para Militarie as adversaries. So what if we want to recreate Bond in 15mm? Go to The Scene. Using The Authorities range of minis, take the head from SA001 (kneeling figure on left) and put on the body of SA002 (figure on right).

The Scene: 15mm Authorities Range

That should give you Bond, as per the Quantum of Solace promo poster. We'll pretend it's an MP5. Alternatively, if like me you would like your Bond firing his pistol in both hands from a standing position - a slightly more time onsuming torso swop would need to take place.

Want a female Bond sidekick - look no further than The Scene's female Survivalists/Zombie Hunters; ZH001 and ZH003.

Cheers

Mark

Force on Force: Shaken Not Stirred

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- Do you expect me to roll a 6 Goldfumbler? -

- No! I expect you to pass your TQ Die Mr Bond -

Maff (the Master Chef) is currently sunning himself on a  luxury yacht of wargaming creativity in his new modern imagi-nation hot spot on the Adriatic.  A playground for Russian Mafia, Alcovian criminal masterminds and Dodjy militia warlords.

Force on Force has a new mission. Should it choose to accept it. FoF doesn't have to be purely about guncrawls in the alleys of Baghdad, the poppy fields of Helmund or the villages of Chechnya. When the chips are down, there's plenty of scope for a sharp dressed Englishman in a dinner jacket with a babe and a high TQ Die at his side.

Seriously, a couple of morning commutes on the train and I've sussed playing secret agent pulp games with  Force on Force. Borku Riviera on the Adriatic, Yeah, I know there's other rules out there dedicated to this type of game, but I'm not going to buy them, and let's give FoF it's due - that's where we got on the inspiration bus in the first place.

This is where the Asset and Fog of War Cards come into their own. The Asset Cards in particular, as they can be guns, gear, gadgets and Bond Babes. Now, don't get too hung up on the tech side of the gadgets. You can assume your Double 0, has the right gadget to hand each time and gets one 'shot' before discarding.

The Hotspots and Reinforcement tables? Think about a Bond movie.....a diverse array of enemies appearing out of nowhere! It's crying out to be played.

Plus, it makes one hell of a drinking game - just add a half dozen 'Martini' Asset Cards to the stack. Every time you draw a Martini card, you have to drink one - shaken, and not stirred, of course.

Cheers!

Mark