Friday Night Firefight

As any resident of the UK who has ventured outside recently has realised, it’s getting bloody cold out there! So on Friday, we abandoned the gaming shed and moved indoors for a skirmish.

Some of you will remember the foldaway urban skirmish board we knocked up from the back of a shelving unit last year – although storage had not been entirely kind to this, it was still looking in pretty good fettle, so that gave us a roughly 3’x3′ surface to scrap on.

For rules, we used the classic small scale skirmish ruleset “Firefight” from Alternative Armies – the current version can be acquired here: https://www.alternative-armies.com/products/firefight-2-0-28mm-ion-age-wargame-rules , but we were using the original from the early 90s. With one small tweak, that is – the original used tiles with squares, no 3D scenery, so we bodged some cover rules and decided that we would substitute 1″ distance for 1 square. We’d fancied doing “open plan” Firefight for a while, so time to put miniature to board and give it a try!

The original and classic!

We laid the table thick with sci fi/ industrial scatter scenery and put the DIY Ork Dread in the centre as a downed objective of sorts. Using the forces detailed in the first scenario in the Firefight rulebook, Jim took three Levy troopers and a Crusader NCO (FF equivalent of three Guardsmen with a Space Marine NCO-  budgetary restrictions meant these would be represented by our Deathwatch Space Marines) and I took the Shia Khan forces – two Infiltrators with Eggtimer rifles (represented by Orks), two Goblins with Eggtimers (Gretchin with red tipped autoguns) and two Goblins with Popcorn pistols (Gretchin with regular painted autoguns).

The forces manoeuvre cautiously toward each other

Judicious use of cover in the opening phases

Troops close to engage – who’s ambushing who?!?

Both sides open up!  Note the dice by each figure- this represents the accumulated “Dodge” points each figure has available, a neat little mechanic when you get used to it

Gutter fighting around the downed Dreadnought – a Levy trooper falls, as do a Goblin and an Infiltrator!

Crusader sergeant engages the Shia Khan at point blank range!

Up close and personal…

He drops the Infiltrator but a Goblin blindsides him with a point blank pistol shot!

Goblin with Eggtimer rifle and a good stack of accumulated Dodges secures the objectve

His two surviving team mates catch the remaining human trooper in a crossfire and bring him down – Shia Khan win!

After a slow couple of first turns with both sides manoeuvring through cover, the action exploded at point blank range and was absolutely lethal! Once you wrap your head around it the concept of the Action Dice and Dodges is really fun and innovative – armour doesn’t play a part (as far as we can tell), the Crusader has power armour but this doesn’t seem to have any bearing, but I guess the designers figured that nothing is going to stop a .50 calibre explosive bullet at a range of a few feet..

Firefight contains a campaign system and I think we’ll definitely be revisiting this, whether “open” or using the tiles provided.

Next on the list to try – Grimdark Future Firefight! Till then, stay thrifty out there and we’ll see you soon.