Redoubt: Ranch Raid

I've recently revised my rules for Redoubt, the "Space Western" hard sci-fi setting I am currently developing. The revision was intended to add a bit more depth and record-keeping while still being playable and fast to resolve. Record-keeping for infantry is limited to ammunition. Vehicles receive a small record sheet slightly larger than a 3" x 5" index card showing ammunition, equipment, and a short hit location/status table. Total record-keeping burden is one minute per activation or less; my intent is for a squad-on-squad action to resolve in around an hour. This playtest took about an hour and a half to complete, even with constant referral to weapon statistics and the (8-page) rulebook, so this design goal appears attainable.

Blips are used for obfuscation, deception, and to encourage reconnaissance. Each blip is marked on its underside with a number corresponding to a unit - or no unit! Blips are automatically flipped to reveal their true identity if they move within 12" of an enemy unit or other blip, so attempting to identify a blip using your own blip is a gamble with the potential to expose your own unit while revealing nothing about the enemy.

The scope of the game is generally squad-on-squad, with the ability to scale up to platoon-level actions. Mortar and howitzer fire missions are available as offboard support in some scenarios, as is air support. Ducted-fan VTOLs, known as fanjets in the Redoubt universe, are on-board assets with extremely fast movement speeds. One activation is equal to roughly one minute, and the ground scale is 1:300, for a 3:1 figure:ground scale exaggeration when played with 15mm miniatures.

This was the first playtest of the new revision of the rules; my fiancee isn't a voracious wargamer but she is quite happy to play a game every week or two. The scenario required the Wreaker (bandit) player to take and hold a ranch intact, while the UCS player's main force started on the board edge. Force compositions were as follows:

Wreakers (5 blips)
Shoshone Department of State Special Actions Unit Entry Team

• Team Leader (TQ 3, Sub-Compact Weapon)
• 3x Operator (TQ 2, Assault Rifle)

Wreaker Fireteam

• Team Leader (TQ 2, Assault Rifle & Pistol)
• 3x Rifleman (TQ 1, Assault Rifle & Pistol)

Off-Board Support

• 1x Howitzer Fire Mission (HE)

UCS Army (3 blips)

Cavalry Scout Team

• Team Leader (TQ 2, Battle Rifle & Pistol)
• 2x Rifleman (TQ 1, Battle Rifle)
• Grenadier (TQ 1, Recoilless Rifle & SMG)

Civilian Ranch Defenders

• Sheriff's Deputy (TQ 0, Lever-Action Rifle, Pistol)
• Militiaman (TQ -1, Shotgun)

Support

• ARVX-1A Arapaho Gunship Fanjet

The board at the start of the game, Wreaker deployment zone left, UCS deployment zone right, ranch center bottom

Staff Sergeant Fred Weaver, a scout team leader in Badger Troop, 2/17 Cavalry, turned up the volume on his ITER radio's headset in an attempt to better hear the transmission over the oppressive geomagnetic interference.

"Mayday, mayday...spotted...Strozzi ranch...wreakers...assistance..." only about every other word was intelligible, but it got the point across. Weaver scrolled across the map on his satellite navigation tablet; the Strozzi ranch was about two klicks west, in the foothills of the Gila range that divided Catron and Mineral County. 

Weaver's team was on day three of a five-day dismounted presence patrol on the western edge of the Blackwood uranium field, which had been hit hard by Wreakers in recent weeks. "Wreaker" was the Shoshone expression for former garrison members and their descendants, who had gone rogue after the Break, a massive solar storm that had cut Shoshone off from interstellar travel and communications for the past twenty-eight years. As the solar storm died down enough to once again permit travel to the Shoshone system, the UCS Army was now in the process of landing elements of the 44th Infantry Division and 8th Armored Division (Rapid Reaction) to reestablish order on the planet.

"Shaw, Chavez, Miller," Weaver called to the three other members of his scout team. "Ranch two klicks west of us just spotted some Wreakers and is requesting aid. Looks like we're the closest UCS asset, I'm committing us." The sergeant shot a bearing with his compass and identified a low, rocky rise as a suitable landmark by which to navigate to the ranch.

"Strozzi ranch, Strozzi ranch, this is Badger Two-One Actual," he transmitted.

"Thank...Badger...go..."

"Strozzi, I've got a four-man team en route to your position. Hold tight, we'll be there in a half-hour."

Weaver's team spread into a wedge formation, instinctively reacting to the open grassland terrain with practiced precision, and started west.

The ranch - the sheriff's deputy is inside the house; both militiamen are holding the barn

Nineteen-year-old Deputy Elfego Baca, a member of the Catron County Sheriff's Office for the past six months, stared up at the ridgeline through cloudy binoculars. Sure enough, he saw movement. Neither he nor any members of the Strozzi family, who owned land up to the ridge and beyond, know of anyone who had cause or permission to be up there, which left only one conclusion: Wreakers. At that range, the odds of connecting with his old lever-action rifle were minimal at best, and Ethan and Liz Strozzi had only shotguns. Their father had gone into Chloride for diesel fuel that morning, taking with him the only rifle in the family.

The Wreaker fireteam reveals itself unintentionally

 Weaver crawled up the rise, taking care not to silhouette himself. He saw movement about one hundred yards out, possibly an elk...

Somebody cried out in pain well ahead of his team's position, accompanied by a flash of movement. That's no elk. Looks like he stepped in a gopher hole and wrenched his leg.

The UCS scout team opens fire on the exposed Wreakers!

"Contact, front!" Chavez yelled, looking through his M338A1 battle rifle's magnified optic. The private squeezed the trigger once. Weaver shouldered his own M338A1 and began to fire as Chavez' rifle boomed. A moment later, automatic fire cracked overhead, and muzzle flashes winked rapidly from near a small rock outcrop.

The scout team is heavily suppressed by accurate Wreaker fire, while the team's grenadier lobs a 40mm HV recoilless rifle round directly into the hostile fireteam!

"Miller! Get that launcher up here, now!" Weaver yelled.
Joe Miller ran up beside Weaver, hefting an M48 70mm light recoilless rifle. The trooper dropped to the prone position and sighted in on the enemy fireteam.

"Clear backblast!" Miller called out.

"Clear!" Weaver, Chavez, and Shaw shouted in near-unison.

Miller pulled the launcher's trigger; it fired with a deafening bang and painful concussion. The other three members of the team continued to fire for several seconds.

"Cease fire, cease fire!" Weaver ordered. The return fire had ceased, leaving only a smoking crater and scattered body parts where the M48's high-velocity dual-purpose round had impacted.

The SDS entry team closes within 100 yards of the ranch and a brisk firefight commences that leaves one member of each side wounded.

 "The governor's sent his personal goon squad!" Ethan Strozzi yelled from his position in the hay barn. "Git 'em!" The fifteen-year-old racked the charging handle of his Browning semiautomatic shotgun, chambering a round, and fired off a barrage of slugs in the direction of the Shoshone Department of State fireteam.

Baca had heard rumors of the SDS using its tactical teams to intimidate isolated ranchers into compliance, but hadn't seen it for himself. Until today. The deputy wondered quite what Ernest Strozzi had done to merit this kind of attention as he took aim at the second black-clad man from the right. He squeezed the trigger; the man dropped a second later. Ethan and his sister kept up the fusillade of shotgun fire while the SDS team continued firing and advancing. At least one member of the team could be seen going down, but continuing to fire, while Ethan was himself hit by accurate rifle fire.

The SDS fireteam assaults the ranch; the ensuing CQB action leaves all participants dead, wounded, or stunned.

"They're getting close!" Liz shouted. She fired several rounds before ducking back behind a broken-down tractor parked near the southwestern door of the barn.
One of the SDS men fired a long burst from his rifle, driving the three defenders of the ranch to dive for cover. Out of the corner of his eye, Baca could see men, wearing the distinctive black fatigues, and ochre load-bearing equipment of the Special Actions Unit, sprinting towards the ranch buildings.

Baca fired several rounds, emptying his rifle's magazine. The deputy thumbed a half-dozen rounds into the loading gate from loops on his gunbelt, and ran across the ground floor of the house to fire from another window.

The window shattered just as Baca rose to fire. A storm of rifle rounds peppered the dining room, one striking Baca in his right thigh. He cried out in pain and surprise as arterial blood began spurting from his leg. Elfego fired two rounds out the window, hearing another cry of pain, before collapsing to the floor and clutching at the tourniquet on his gunbelt.

Across the yard, Liz Strozzi loaded several rounds of buckshot and fired at the remaining members of the SDS team. One faceplanted after taking a dozen pellets to the neck and chest, while the others ducked for cover. She shrieked as a chunk of corrugated steel shrapnel from the barn siding sliced her left forearm open.  Her brother circled the barn to flank them while firing, striking both team members, who quickly raised their hands in a gesture of surrender. Ethan nodded, allowing the SDS men to disarm before loading two slugs and considering his next move as the wound to his chest made it harder and harder to breathe.

Debrief
In short, the UCS handily defeated the wreakers. We assessed casualties for storyline purposes after the game wrapped up; the sheriff's deputy was seriously wounded, as was one of the militiamen. The other militiaman received a minor wound. One member of the SDS fireteam was killed, the team leader was lightly wounded, and the other two were sufficiently stunned as to be combat-ineffective until their capture.

That  recoilless rifle made short work of the Wreaker fireteam. Six rounds are allotted to the gunner; I will bump this down to four and consider implementing some special munitions to give it a broader role.

The Wreakers were unable to make use of their off-board artillery support due to needing to take the farm intact. Had their fireteam not blundered into the UCS scouts, they may have had the opportunity to utilize it, and would have likely driven the UCS troopers to ground, softening them up for an assault if not wiping them out entirely.

I was quite pleased with the CQB engagement that ultimately decided the game, even though my side lost! CQB in Redoubt takes place in a single activation, and continues until all members of one side have become casualties. It is extremely bloody, by design - small-arms fire doesn't tend to be very effective at range. Most casualties in real-world conflict occur in CQB and via explosive ordnance; I wished to model this relationship in the Redoubt system. Fire is resolved simultaneously in CQB, as with most other short-range firefights in the system. I intend to include an ambush system, whereby blips can engage enemies without initially receiving return fire.

My fiancee would like to see flashbangs, ballistic breaching, and other tools for assaulting structures incorporated into Redoubt. I tend to agree with her.

The Wreakers are Rebel Minis' Armed Gunmen, the SDS entry team are CDF from GZG, the UCS scouts are PAU troops from GZG, and the civilian defenders of the ranch are GZG Armed Civilians.