First Impressions on Skirmish Sangin
Hello,
So yesterday I was finally able to get my four Skirmish Sangin books in a nice little FedEx box. I have to say that they are awesome. First off is that they are big, not thick, but big with a nice sized font and pictures and designs galore that make the thing look beautiful. They all follow this pattern of amazing design and I can't wait to read them all.
So far I've read up to the spotting rules in the main rule book but a quick flip through of the other books pleases me as they not only have many real life pictures of various soldiers doing combat in environments around Afghanistan but they also have pictures of their professionally painted soldiers and professionally made boards. What I find funny is after all these awesome game pieces you still see the cheaply printed cardstock tokens being used in the screenshots.
Overall the books have made a great first impression and they seem more "durable" than most rule books I've gotten in the past. I will have to print off the Errata for Afrika and all the reference sheets and tokens but I don't think that will be too hard as I've found out it is super cheap to have these things printed off at an office supply store.
While flipping through Dispatches 1 I did notice rules about campaign play and advancement of characters which I find to be an awesome feature. I also love the rules for support and how they do make the difference between Taliban and ISAF gear and training.
Meanwhile Afrika (the fictionalized Africa) looks like a fun read but they did change the design a little bit by changing the color scheme of things. The orange on black is still nice but in a slightly dim environment it kinda blends together for me. Maybe thats my eyes but oh well. What intrigues me about Afrika is the rules for making PMC groups and all the various made up factions that are in there. I think I will buy the Molgadisu Rangers supplement (the black hawk down book) so that I can play scenarios for that and get more rules to go along with Afrika.
Rules wise the game doesn't seem that difficult as it does stick to using d10s for almost everything from damage to skill rolls. D6s are used for a couple things but mostly keeping track of stuff like when soldiers go on their turn. Wounds and other stats are all kept on a character sheet almost like GRUNT or, my dad's own creation, NAM. Since I'm familiar with it I really enjoy seeing this concept somewhere else in the gaming world. Those are my thoughts
I would love to get some actual miniatures for this game but for now I'm working on the terrain only and sticking to my little Paper guys. On the Hobby side I've bought another board (maybe I mentioned this already) and have painted and turfed it up to be a basic flat grass board. Tomorrow I'll clear coat it and probably buy another board on Friday. What I want is to make some terrain to represent:
Once I get some pictures I'll post them. One thing I've noticed for my rural battles is that I'll need a lot of scatter terrain if I want it to look like an actual forest so I'll have to build things like rocks, broken logs, various lengths of brush, and other small things like that.
Well I think that is all but I've been eyeing some force recon guys from eureka.
-"Jonah"
So yesterday I was finally able to get my four Skirmish Sangin books in a nice little FedEx box. I have to say that they are awesome. First off is that they are big, not thick, but big with a nice sized font and pictures and designs galore that make the thing look beautiful. They all follow this pattern of amazing design and I can't wait to read them all.
So far I've read up to the spotting rules in the main rule book but a quick flip through of the other books pleases me as they not only have many real life pictures of various soldiers doing combat in environments around Afghanistan but they also have pictures of their professionally painted soldiers and professionally made boards. What I find funny is after all these awesome game pieces you still see the cheaply printed cardstock tokens being used in the screenshots.
Overall the books have made a great first impression and they seem more "durable" than most rule books I've gotten in the past. I will have to print off the Errata for Afrika and all the reference sheets and tokens but I don't think that will be too hard as I've found out it is super cheap to have these things printed off at an office supply store.
While flipping through Dispatches 1 I did notice rules about campaign play and advancement of characters which I find to be an awesome feature. I also love the rules for support and how they do make the difference between Taliban and ISAF gear and training.
Meanwhile Afrika (the fictionalized Africa) looks like a fun read but they did change the design a little bit by changing the color scheme of things. The orange on black is still nice but in a slightly dim environment it kinda blends together for me. Maybe thats my eyes but oh well. What intrigues me about Afrika is the rules for making PMC groups and all the various made up factions that are in there. I think I will buy the Molgadisu Rangers supplement (the black hawk down book) so that I can play scenarios for that and get more rules to go along with Afrika.
Rules wise the game doesn't seem that difficult as it does stick to using d10s for almost everything from damage to skill rolls. D6s are used for a couple things but mostly keeping track of stuff like when soldiers go on their turn. Wounds and other stats are all kept on a character sheet almost like GRUNT or, my dad's own creation, NAM. Since I'm familiar with it I really enjoy seeing this concept somewhere else in the gaming world. Those are my thoughts
I would love to get some actual miniatures for this game but for now I'm working on the terrain only and sticking to my little Paper guys. On the Hobby side I've bought another board (maybe I mentioned this already) and have painted and turfed it up to be a basic flat grass board. Tomorrow I'll clear coat it and probably buy another board on Friday. What I want is to make some terrain to represent:
- Farms
- Rivers
- Creeks
- Hills
- Ditches
- Woods
- Ponds
- Swamps
Once I get some pictures I'll post them. One thing I've noticed for my rural battles is that I'll need a lot of scatter terrain if I want it to look like an actual forest so I'll have to build things like rocks, broken logs, various lengths of brush, and other small things like that.
Well I think that is all but I've been eyeing some force recon guys from eureka.
-"Jonah"
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