In SAS: Rogue Regiment, 1-4 players take on the role of Special Air Service operators in the days and weeks following the D-Day landings. Their job is to wreak havoc among the Germans through acts of sabotage, assassination, and other forms of mayhem. They’ll use stealth to infiltrate enemy positions, take out sentries, and avoid enemy patrols to accomplish their missions before they’re discovered. But if they’re spotted, the alarm will be raised, and they’ll find themselves seriously outnumbered as they try to fight their way back to Allied lines.
Game Play
Each mission consists of two sections: the Stealth section and the Battle section. The Stealth section sequence of play is used each turn until the alarm sounds (more on this later). From this point on, the Battle section sequence is used. The two sequences are similar, the main difference being how the Germans operate now that the SAS Team’s presence has been discovered.
During the Stealth section, each SAS Team member uses 4 action points to conduct operations such as movement, climbing, and attacking. If any of the Germans are alerted by spotting or hearing an SAS operator, they will advance toward them to get into an optimal attack position. On the other hand, if none of the Germans have been alerted, their patrols will move along prescribed paths and stationary sentries will change facing. Exactly which patrols and sentries are activated depends on the draw of an event card.
Some event cards will indicate to advance the Stealth Tracker token one space. Likewise, making a loud noise (e.g., firing a weapon) can advance the token. The mission scenario specifies the starting space of the token, and it can be set to easy (longest), normal, or hard (shortest) duration. Once the token reaches the final space, the alarm sounds and the Battle section commences. All German patrols now move toward the nearest SAS operator and attack if able. Additional Germans can be “spawned” by the event card drawn.
Players need to maintain secrecy during the Stealth section of the game. In other words, they need to be patient and not blindly run in with guns blazing. Instead, they’ll need to use cover and avoid entering the field of view of German soldiers. Doing so will allow them to creep up behind the Germans and dispatch them with their knives rather than shooting them which could alert nearby guards
Of course, you just can’t leave a corpse lying about in the open to be discovered. Rather, you can spend an action point to pick up the body and move it into some bushes or other cover where it won’t be noticed. Play typically continues like this until an operator is seen or heard. However, this doesn’t immediately sound the alarm. It only alerts those Germans who saw or heard the SAS operator, plus any others within earshot (4 spaces). Those Germans will then move toward, and if in range, fire on the SAS team member.
While patience is required, the SAS players can’t take their time indefinitely. That’s because about a quarter of the event cards in each Event deck will advance the Stealth tracker one space. Take too long to accomplish your objective, and you’ll find the alarm raised regardless of how careful you’ve been. It’s this tension between patience and accomplishing the mission that makes this game shine.
Once the alarm sounds, the SAS team will have to fight for their lives. But they’re not exactly outclassed. Each team member has special capabilities and weapons that make up for their lack of numbers. The team leader, Jock, is armed with a knife, .45 caliber pistol, and grenades. In addition, he has a grappling hook for scaling tall structures and a rabbit’s foot he can use to change the result of a die roll. Anders also has a pistol and knife, as well as scuba gear and a spear gun for use under water. Ginger is the team’s sniper. In addition to his pistol and knife, he has a sniper rifle and med kit. Finally, there’s Paddy, the team’s explosives expert. Along with his pistol, he has a submachine gun, bomb, camo net, and a trap. Depending on the scenario, they may also have their dependable Willy’s Jeep equipped with two twin-Vickers machine guns.
Of course, depending on the scenario, the Germans could have vehicles too – half-tracks, motorcycles, trucks, and Kübelwagons (the German version of a jeep), and specialized weapons (e.g., a mortar team). If the alarm sounds before the SAS Team accomplishes their objective, they will have to decide whether to press on or abandon their mission. This all adds to the tension and excitement of the game.
Components
Although this review is based on a prototype, the components and artwork were as good as any wargame I’ve played. The board is made up of 11×11-inch double-sided tiles depicting various types of terrain, buildings, roads, and other structures. The playing pieces (individual soldiers, vehicles, etc.) are cardboard counters, not miniatures. But that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. The rulebook is copiously illustrated and contains numerous examples. It is accompanied by a Mission Book that illustrates the setup and goal of each mission. The number of active SAS operators varies depending on the mission scenario chosen. Players can also design their own scenarios, so re-playability is off the charts.
Who is SAS for?
Fans of both wargames and RPGs will find something to like about this game. For the wargamers, especially those who like tactical level games, much of SAS will be familiar. There are rules governing movement, line of sight (LOS), combat, etc. Combat is resolved using die rolls and includes die roll modifiers like most other wargames. The big difference here is that rather than playing with platoons or squads, you’re playing with individual soldiers.
For RPG fans, this most closely resembles a dungeon crawl game, but without the dungeon. As noted before, the game uses cardboard counters instead of miniatures, but I’m sure if you’re enterprising enough—and going by some of the photos posted on BoardGameGeek—you could find some minis to replace the counters. The SAS Team members are not customizable, nor do they level up, like in many RPGs. That said, each player board is 2-sided and is slightly different with respect to the weapons and equipment.
Another constituency who might enjoy this game are those new to board games, either wargaming or RPGs. The rules are straightforward and intuitive because they simulate real life. There’s no computing of odds ratios or determining the supply status of units, and there’s a minimum of dice chucking. It’s very much like playing with toy soldiers when you were a kid, assuming you did that kind of thing as a child. Many scenarios take less than an hour to play and setting up a new scenario takes only minutes.
Summary
I found SAS: Rogue Regiment easy to play yet extraordinarily fun. I’m not normally a fan of tactical wargames because the rules can get quite “crunchy” to accurately simulate LOS, weapons’ effects against various targets, etc. Likewise, I find all the dice rolling in most RPGs quite tedious. Yet somehow the designer has found a way to streamline the mechanics and minimize the rules overhead so you can concentrate on the fun stuff.
If this sounds interesting, the game is currently available on Kickstarter and is still taking late pledges. Besides the base game, there is the “They Who Dare” expansion, and a Black Ops special edition with a bunch of bonus material and goodies.
SAS: Rogue Regiment details
- Designer: Robert Butler
- Artists: James Churchill, Robert Butler
- Publishers: Word Forge Games
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 1 - 4
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 30 - 180 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Action Points, Action/Event, Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling, Grid Movement, Solo / Solitaire Game
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.73484 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.5.
- More articles about SAS: Rogue Regiment.
Disclosure: Meeple Mountain was provided a pre-production copy of the game. It is this copy of the game that this review is based upon. As such, this review is not necessarily representative of the final product. All photographs, components, and rules described herein are subject to change.
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