Dust off - a Black Ops game

It has been a while since I played Osprey Black Ops. While I have been penciling some ideas down for a new edition, I thought it would be a good idea to dust off the rules and refresh myself with them. 

Believe it or not, Black Ops started life as a Ninja stealth game called Tenchu, featured in WS&S 67.  Each Ninja had a mission to complete, ideally without raising the alarm or leaving a pile of bodies in their wake.

Joining me in this game was my friend Rowan (who is a little camera shy, so won't be in any of these pictures). Instead, Pushy the cat decided to show his face and settle on the table mid game.

The mission we rolled was fairly simple, sneak into the village and dispose of or capture an informant, then leave. Rowan chose fanatics and I chose regular army (using some Modern Chinese figures I'd picked up at a bring and buy).

Rowan started off with an advantage in numbers. Half of my troops were in barracks (but Rowan didn't know where, cards were used to mark each unit). 

At first, things went Rowan's way as he snuck in. Unfortunately, he decided to place his sniper in a poor position and was soon spotted by the defenders. The sniper proved a useful distration, as he attracted the defenders enabling Rowan's hero to discover the location of the informant.

All hell broke loose as his troops stormed the building, wounding my commander and killing the informant in the crossfire. Having achieved his objective, his fanatics started to withdraw but unfortunetle ran straight into one of my returning patrols (I was very lucky) and the raiders were gunned down before they had chance to leave the table. 

I'd forgotten how much fun this game can be - it was nail biting to the end. I tend to end up playing whatever's next for the WS&S' playtests that I tend to neglect my own gaming. I will be returning to Black Ops properly in the near future. My sincere thanks to Rowan for being such an excellent opponent.

1 comment

Hi Guy, we chatted about a potential relaunch of this at Salute last year…I wonder if you have seen a copy of 02Hundred hours yet, as there could be overlap to some extent there which you might exploit. I can’t remember if you have already reviewed it but if not and you have a copy I’d be happy to review it for you…😁

Mervyn Douglas

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