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Hey Peeps

I was having a conversation with a friend, we'd just finished playing Splinter Cell, and we were discussing whether or not something like Splinter Cell would ever make it as a table top game, with miniatures etc....

What do you guys think? I mean, although you have your combat element in Splinter Cell, the name of the game is to get around the various missions without having to cause too much of a issue!! Would this translate into a playable real time miniatures game?

My initial thoughts were, that it could be done, you'd need some seriously good rules to cover movement, noise, concealment etc, but the only area where I get stuck is how to make the game compelling for two players?

Obviously, on the one hand you'd have your infiltration teams, but what about the poor schmuck on watch? Could this be a playable role?

Let me know your thoughts! Although Splinter Cell, was the basis for our conversation, I'm talking about making Splinter Cell into a table top game, maybe it could be NINJA ATTACKS, or TEAM 007.....the main thing is, its not all about killing, its all about the mission.

I think most people play wargames for the actual fighting, but if done well, I can't see why it shouldn't be good. Although good luck trying to make rules for the more tedious aspects, eg light and noise etc.

My only problem is that it would be like what Candy Land is to other board games: a bunch of moving the pieces around and not really doing much of anything. At least to me, anyway.

I play table top games war games for the interaction, not to avoid my opponent.

Honestly, your idea might work better as sort of a mix of table-top miniatures game and RPG with a game master playing the baddies and the players as the spec-ops guys.

That being said, wargames with extremely lopsided matchups can be fun. Some years ago I ran a convention game that was a simulation of the 1933 shoot-out that Bonnie and Clyde had with the police in Joplin MO. In this case the police raided the house they were hiding out in thinking they were taking down some local bootleggers rather than an extremely dangerous and well armed group. The police all had pistols and were faced with automatic shotguns and Browning Automatic Rifles. As you might imagine, historically it was a failry one sided afair that left two cops dead and the gang escaped. But as a wargame it actually went off quite well and everyone who played in it had a great time.
Oh yes...and of my four sessions of the game, the police actually managed to win one time!

TR

Necromunda has a pretty good raid scenario. It used to get quite tense.

There was also a fairly recent White Dwarf 'Battle Report' between Orks and Imperial Guard with the Guard stealthing into position with similar sentry rules and alarm systems.
Anyone remember which issue???

It could be a good place to start tweaking and adding more indepth rules.

EDIT: It was UK issue 355 Dave and Jerm's, 'Old War Stories'

The best way to run stealth scenarios is with a three table setup. Side A and B have tables where they can see only their own troops. An umpire runs a master table where all the troops are shown. The umpire transfers the movements on the A and B tables to his master table or map and places enemy models on the player tables when they are revealed.

For obvious reasons it needs a big setup. It would make a good club project.

Historical naval and campaign games are often run like this, because the search and recon phase is a crucial part of the battle. This kind of scenario can be run on maps until fighting begins.

Another way to do it is with the players on one side and all enemy forces run by an umpire, RPG style.

It was this just past July or August issue... (wow, I'm a slow or inattentive poster...)

And 4th ed had rules for running missions like that toward the back of the book.

IIRC Defending player was given so many 'sentry units' that moved in a specific manner until they detected the Attackers models.

Then after certain conditions were met, they could access their other 'sleeping' units.

All good fun.

Edted once because I'm a big dummy.