The Lock 'n Load Tactical series of wargames is a personal favorite of mine. For me they offer an enjoyable amount of depth mixed with just the right amount of complexity. They cover a wide range of subject matter too, from WW2 to the modern day. I acquired A Day of Heroes a few months ago but hadn't had the chance to get it on the table yet, so that's what I'm doing this post.
A Day of Heroes covers the Battle of Mogadishu, which occurred in early October 1993 during the Somali Civil War. On October 3rd US forces inserted and captured a couple of high ranking members of Mohamed Farrah Aidid's militia, but things quickly deteriorated after two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down.
The Scenario I'm playing begins shortly after Super 61 went down. I'll be playing the US forces and the AI will be playing the Somali forces (with some occasional guidance from me when necessary). My objective for the scenario is to control the crash site by the scenario's end while minimizing casualties. The Somali objective is essentially to maximize my casualties, capture my support weapons, or force me to disperse mobs. Mobs are a special mechanic for this module and represent mobs of unarmed civilians, with the possibility of becoming armed/hostile. Another unique feature of this module is the fact that the maps are divided up by squares instead of hexes. This is the only module where that is the case.
I may not cover every little detail about rules or moves, but I'll try to give a decent overview.
This is how my set-up ended up:
A mob would spawn on the roadblock in the upper center of the picture during the rally phase. I had initiative in the beginning. After pondering the significant numerical disadvantage my forces were faced with, and the desire to reinforce the crash site, I decided I would try to swing around South. First I moved my Hero unit in G12, Hudson, to I14. He was both out of range and line of site of the enemy for this move so no worries about opportunity fire.
The AI card for the Somali impulse first had me attempt to spot and fire with a unit that was 2 hexes (in this case squares) away from a player unit. I randomly determined which unit of the 3 that were eligible to attempt this and it ended up being the single MMC in H8. The spotting attempt failed as they rolled a 4; 2 or less is needed to succeed against a unit in blocking terrain without any modifiers. The Somali MMC was marked Ops Complete, but spotting does not constitute an impulse so I continued down the AI orders card.
I get an order to activate a unit closest to PU that just acted, in this case that is a mob. The Somali side has to roll on a table before activating a mob, and this table largely determines how it acts. In my case, a new 0-2-4 MMC was created at the mobs location and had to move with the mob for the impulse. Both moved closer to my hero that previously acted, stopping in the intersection adjacent to it.
I decide to move my largest stack: a 2-5-4, a hero, and Lt. Smith south out of line of site and range of many Somali units. Part of me is second guessing this as I'm putting distance between my troops and the crash site, but I guess I'll just have to hope it can hold out while I try to circle around to it.
As there were still units two squares away, the Somali AI's order card had it executing priority orders. In this case it wanted to move closer to my unit in F9. This is an instance where I questioned whether I should overrule the AI or let it play out. With the solo module, you're supposed to overrule the AI if it is going to do something incredibly dumb, but I wasn't sure if that was the case here. I could see a player perhaps wanting to melee my lone combat unit there (very risky but could pay off if they make it through and pass their morale checks), or goading me into firing with it so it would become unspotted. I decided to let it play out. I rolled to randomly determine whether a single unit would move to draw fire, or if the stack in H9 would move together in an attempt to melee my unit. Despite me weighting the roll in favor of the former option, the roll fell on the latter, and so the AEO units move together into the building next to my unit. I decide to opportunity fire and use one of my grenade launcher rounds in the process. I had a +6 modifier because of my FP, the close range, and the fact that they were moving. I rolled a 6, giving me 12 in total while the AI rolled a 2, giving them 3 in total. With a difference of 9, the result ended up being devastating as both Somali units were wiped out leaving only their RPG behind.
I like to enjoy my gaming in relaxing bits and time has been a bit scarce at the moment, so for the time being these two impulses are what I have to recap so far. As I said before I'm a fan of this system, however that doesn't mean I don't make rule mistakes. So, if anyone notices I missed something or did something wrong let me know.
Personally I don't think my side has good odds with this scenario. I don't have many units at my disposal and if the Somali forces overrun the crash site I'm basically sunk. However, that means it provides a decent challenge for solitaire play.
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