One of the benefit of running this blog is I get to chat with like-minded gamers from around the world. One regular visitor is Shawn, who’s been kind enough to show us several draft versions of his own moderns rule set ‘Ambush Alley‘.
He’s shortly going to launch the game and has started the Ambush Alley blog as well as recently posting a ‘Quick Start’ PDF that gives you a completely playable sub-set of the full rules along with an interesting scenario to try them out with. The rules are designed for both 15mm and 28mm scale Moderns figures and vehicles.
I have to say it looks like a promising system that treats regular forces like the US Army very differently from irregular militia and ‘insurgents’. Regular forces naturally have the training and support from the rest of their command structure and battlefield technologies, while the irregulars have the numbers and charismatic leaders to drive them forward as well as friends in vocal parts of the local populace.
The full rules include all sorts of interesting things like UAVs and vehicles (from soft skinned Humvees to an M1 Abrams if you’re lucky) while the insurgents get the ability to cajole and recruit from the local populace while moving quickly through the dusty streets to surround the regular forces. The ‘Fog of War’ can also help or hinder either side during the game with the same sort of dramatic events unfolding that you periodically see on the evening news…
I’m looking forward to getting a few games under my belt to see how the system plays, it might be time to paint up those Flashpoint Moderns I nabbed a while back!