7TV Sweeney Style

I tried out 7TV at the club this week. Henry has had the game for some time and seems to have acquired an awful lot of cards and figures for 1970s TV shows (The Sweeney, Blakes 7, Doctor Who etc) but hasn't got to play it very often. As most of his Sci-fi figures are still to be painted (like many wargamers I know) we went with The Sweeney. I had the cops and Colin had the armed robbers, with Henry umpiring/explaining.

At first glance it didn't look good for the boys in blue, I had two detectives (star and co-star) with pistols, the rest just had truncheons but the bandits had 2 guys with pistols, 3 with swan-off shotguns and 1 with a sub-machine gun!

Here is the table layout, obviously the action is taking place in a very unsalubrious inner city area, ripe for redevelopment.

We both packed our car with extras and drove into the middle of the table. Unfortunately Colin then hit me with a gadget (I was never sure exactly what) which meant that I couldn't activate the coppers in the car for the next turn. So while they sat in the vehicle arguing over which radio channel they should have on, the robbers piled out of their car and grabbed the two central objectives.

 Left to their own devices the detectives, followed by the last PC, rushed forward and drew their firearms. When my star saw a man wearing a mask and brandishing a sawn-off running towards him he challenged the man, then put him down with two rounds when he failed to comply. It actually think it went something like BANG! BANG! "Armed Police! Put down your weapon, you slag!"

 My sergeant finally got his team moving and leapt out of the car taking cover behind the wall, but despite this one of the PCs was gunned down by a shotgun. Somewhat annoyed by this the rest of the coppers jumped the wall and set to with their truncheons.

This was a good move because the uniformed police have a "You're nicked" ability. If a figure is incapacitated in some way, for example just having been hit on the head by a lump of polished wood, a copper can use and action to arrest the villain, providing a police vehicle is within 6". I got lucky dice in combat and in no time the back of the police car was stuffed with bruised and handcuffed bad guys.

The last robber with a shotgun got into a gunfight with the two detectives and hit the ground, brown bread!

This took the robbers to less than half their starting cast, so needed to test, rolled low and their cast was axed! The star and co-star were the only two remaining and they had spent all their time ransacking the house on the left, looking for the objective.
However, when we added up the Victory Point scores it was a much closer game that it appeared, the Sweeney won by  6VPs to 5.

We played a second game, this time with Henry taking the bad guys. This time I took the fight to the robbers by driving forward, then swinging the car in front of the villain's motor, blocking their way. Everyone piled out and a shootout/punch up developed around the cars, allowing my detectives to run up and grab two objectives (I was learning!).

This time I lost 3 PCs before I taken out the bandits. Then, just as the two stars were swapping punches in best cop show traditions, one of the robbers changed sides (obviously an undercover officer).

 He promptly gunned down the bandit co-star, who had been previously wounded in an exchange for fire with my co-star. Again this forced a test and with only the star left in play the robbers were axed. This time it was an overwhelming victory for the forces of law and order, 14VPs to zero!

Other games on that night.

An ACW Sharpe Practice game.

A Congo game.

A second Sharpe Practice game, this time somewhere hot!

And a 40K game.