Cleudo Hostage Rescue

 We were low on numbers so John put on Cleudo Hostage Rescue, which can accommodate few or many players as required.

A very timely game as I've just been reading this (about the Iranian Embassy Siege). Although I was obviously aware of it at the time, I never realised that the terrorists were Iranian Arab Nationalists protesting against the Persian Ayatollah! Very quaintly, none of them had suicide vests either. How times have changed. 

Anyway, back to the present. The elite special forces team today we me, Tim G, Ian and Terry, as Tim had two dogs, he got to be the K9 handler and medic, while Ian was section leader. Terry and I had two soldiers apiece.

As usual, the terrorists have shot Mr Black (T4 at the bottom) and are holding various people hostage. Mrs White and Miss Scarlet have escaped from the Kitchen and Conservatory respectively, so we can be sure they are empty, and the local security forces seem to think the baddies are in the Billiard Room and the Library.

Ian splits us into two teams, we need to check all the rooms anyway, so me and Terry go in via the kitchen and Ian and Tim go in through the conservatory.

Terry checks out the ballroom. Clear! Ian checks out the billiard room by lobbing in a stun grenade. That is rather unfortunate as the only occupant is a rather surprised Mrs Peacock, who is duly stunned.

My guys check out the supposedly empty dining room and find Reverend Green and two terrorists inside.

I didn't have enough actions left to chuck in a stun grenade, but I did have one guy on overwatch and he shoots one of the terrorists. Sadly the other one decides to detonate his suicide vest which puts three hits on everyone in the room and a hit on my guy outside the door. BOOM!

While all this is going on, Tim checks out the library. Clear!

Despite making a right mess of that, we get away lightly. Ian escorts Mrs Peacock through the window to safety. My guys head into the dining room and find both terrorists are now dead, but Reverend Peacock has sustained a light wound. Their flak jackets saved my guys from any harm from the explosion. 

Meanwhile Terry checks out the lounge. Clear!

My guys help Reverend Green out of the building and the rest of the section find the baddies in the study. Two terrorists and Colonel Mustard. There are enough people clustered around that someone has a stun grenade to throw in (the non specialists have one grenade each, so the section has five in total).

The grenade stuns everyone in the room, and the rest of the section pile in and shoot one of the terrorists, capture the other one and liberate Colonel Mustard unharmed. So despite us getting a bit overextended early on, we managed a successful operation - all terrorists neutralised, no casualties and all hostages liberated albeit one with a light wound.

The following day it was just me and Tim, so Tim got to be the dog handler again and I was team leader. We had four blokes each.

As before, we each cleared one side of the building. As before, I found the dining room stuffed with hostages and terrorists. This time we managed to lob in a stun grenade, with satisfying results.

Tim did much the same in the library, where Colonel Mustard was being held. This was all going well.

Until it wasn't. Sadly our gunfire was fairly ineffective and we only succeeded in wounding the terrorists in the dining room. As it was now packed with our own troops, we couldn't really throw in a stun grenade either. Fortunately one of them decided to surrender, but the other one started shooting the hostages. Tim had similar problems, and one of the terrorists in the lounge also detonated his suicide vest. Ouch.

When the smoke cleared we had three terrorists killed and one wounded and captured, but one of our guys had sustained life threatening injuries and another had serious wounds. Even worse, Colonel Mustard and Mrs Peacock were dead and the Reverend Green was (once again) lightly wounded. What a disaster! It just shows how dicey these sorts of operations are. As Major Gullen in 'The Siege' commented "Five second either way, and it could have been a catastrophe".

What a great game, and endlessly repayable.