21:41 - Insertion

• The loose gathering of fighters that makes up Warband Alpha assembles and enters the operational area from the south-west along the river.
• Having travelled together for some time now, Warband Bravo emerges into the mountain passes in the south-east.
• Turn 3: As they maneuver through the foothills, an Soviet Helicopter company spots bravo and engages them. Layered anti-aircraft fire and some lucky rocket fire is enough to drive them off, and Bravo swiftly relocates to avoid pursuit.
• After a carefully negotiated deal with a local arms dealer, Warband Alpha has a full contingent of men, weapons, and vehicles.
• Turn 6: Warband Alpha initiates the military ambush critical strike on a nearby armoured company heading for the river's bridge. High stakes are in effect, and while the exchange is bloody on both sides, the warband remains intact while the Russian soldiers are dispersed. The survivors make for the hills while Soviet reinforcements stream in from the north.
• Taking advantage of the Soviet reaction to the ambush, Warband Bravo slips out of the mountains, headed for an urban center.
• Warband Bravo reaches peak operational effectiveness after requisitioning a fleet of gun-trucks from a sympathetic local leader.
• Turn 8: Warband Bravo initiates a critical strike attacking infrastructure, raiding and burning a central fuel depot. After completing the attack, the warband speeds away, leaving stragglers and injured behind to face the Soviet response.
• Warband Alpha manages to reach the south-eastern mountain passes and dissolves back into small bands of fighters escaping to their homes and safehouses.
• Turn 11: Along the edge of an empty gravel wash, through which they hope to reach the mountains and escape, the survivors of Warband Bravo come under attack from a Spetsnaz reaction force. They are badly mauled in the initial ambush, but subsequently able to slip away from their pursuers.
• Turn 13: With Soviet tanks still visible on the plains below, Warband Bravo abandons what remains of their heavy weapons and escapes back through their initial entry point.

Victory Points:

• 10pts - A Reaches 6 Combat Power
• 60pts - Critical Military Ambush
• 10pts - B Reaches 6 Combat Power
• 50pts - Critical Infrastructure Attack
• 50pts - All Forces Escape by Turn 15

Total: 180 point victory

I suspect this is a personal best score for me! The session before I lost Warband Bravo to wayward camels on Turn 3 and watched Warband Alpha get harried by helicopter companies until they expired out in the desert. So this was a welcome change of pace. I was somewhat hesitant to have Bravo extract through the same route they inserted from, and am considering whether that should be an additional rule for the escape portion. As a general rule it's a bad idea to leave an operation by the same route you came in...

The image at the top of the post is from the Afghan Media Resource Center, originally taken by Muhammad Hasan in November 1989 in the Paghman district of Afghanistan.