SAS, Commandoes and the Like

Stealth, secrecy and surprise - ideal for the wannabe Milk Tray man….

It never ceases to amaze me how an idea can potter along a given path and then BAM! Something comes in out of the blue and moves it along in a different direction. So it has in this case!

A while ago I was posting about Commandoes, prompted in part by the rather large quantity of unpainted types in Eric’s WW2 collection. It acted as a spur for some further research into typical Commando type activities - raids, assassinations, kidnapping, demolition, intelligence gathering etc - and so I picked up a couple of books and looked long and hard at, of all things, NW Europe post D-Day and potentially using Rapid Fire Reloaded. I have always rather liked the idea of Commando operations - a surfeit of comics and war films was probably responsible for this - but had never really looked into it in any great detail.

I very quickly realised that using Commandoes in, for want of a better expression, a battle setting kind of missed the point. For sure they were used in such a fashion - the special service brigades saw much in the way of distinguished service - but I really wanted to look at the raiding and undercover mission aspect of their service. This would mean a skirmish level approach which suits me for a number of reasons, the main one being that relatively few figures would be needed and I could spend time developing the scenarios.

The front of the boxes….

….and the back - note the figure selection.

Back in 2022 Grey for Games, working with Wargames Atlantic, published 02 Hundred Hours: Night Raids in World War Two. This is designed as a skirmish level game were you plan raids and try to carry out the mission on the tabletop. Stealth is the key as invariably the raiders are outnumbered so none of that  charging in with all guns blazing malarkey! I looked long and hard at it at the time but never progressed the idea, mainly due to the initial outlay required at the time. 

Mr Fox had acquired some fencing and a useful ‘sleeping sentry’ (always good for silencing in a suitably dramatic way) and some extra dice.

This woeful state of affairs has been rectified though, courtesy of my old friend Mr Fox who had invested in all the initial releases with a view to running it as a club night game. For one reason or another this did not happen and so his collection has found its way to me. 

All told across the three sets (the base game and a pair of expansions) there are nearly 70 figures which will more than satisfy my needs - the only thing I may add would be some partisans - as there is a good selection of characters and rank and file types. 

This is all cloak and dagger stuff, none of your armoured divisions roaring into battle with massed artillery and waves of supporting aircraft - we are in man to man territory here. 

As to when I shall be able to get this to the table lord alone knows, but the key thing is that it is safely tucked into the ongoing project list. Its turn will come.