Trumpeter Salute 2025 - Close Quarter Battle AAR (VIP extraction BARRIO)

 In the continuing theme of close quarter battle, I decided to post some long overdue photos. Trumpeter Salute happens in April in Burnaby (part of Greater Vancouver, BC, Canada). This was the first time I played CQB, and was encouraged by my friends to play it if I had a chance as Darren (the writer) puts on a good game. 

 

This will be fairly description light as it's been 16months since I played the game. Darrens tables are good for eye candy photographs though. The buildings are 3dprinted from corvus (I think) and were (possibly) a gift of some sort to Darren. The graffiti  does SO MUCH for the terrain and I loves it. I sent my brother some photos as we was really into graffiti art when he was younger. 

More after the jump.... 

 

Trumpeter Salute 2026 - Close Quarter Battle AAR (Narco Terrorist Port Raid

April 2026 Trumpeter Salute occuring in Burnaby BC at the Bonsor Community Centre. I had the fortune to get into another game hosted by Darren (of strategies hobby store & the author of Close Quarter Battle). Darren runs the games with his own published ruleset probably as a mix of funnsies, as well as advertising for the game and it's associated minis. 

 

 

insertion via clipping the wire

 

He runs a good game. He know the rules and has devised some challenging, convention friendly, scenarios. They usually is a time crunch, in terms of terms/action economy, and it's very easy to get bogged down and over extend. The agents are much (MUCH) better than their opposition, but the opposition is plentiful. It's really the threat of the timer which is the biggest constraint, unlimited turns would really only see very unlucky agents getting taken down. 

 

This particular mission had the agents infiltrating a local port that is under the influence of a drug cartel. There is a cartel boss on site, but the local army base is on call to assist. The agents have a certain number of turns to achieve objectives AND LEAVE THE TABLE before the army arrives. Should the Jefe manage to make a phone call the number of turns available decreases quite a bit. 

 

 

 

Objectives included: search the sea cans and find 1/. drug money (and blow it up) 2/. drugs (and blow it up) 3/. refugees getting trafficked (and get them off map) 4/. Russian weapons (take an example weapon and blow up the rest). Also, assassinate the Jefe OR abduct the Jefe for interogation back at base. It's basically impossible to acheive everything. 

 

 

 

Insertion is via a boat or the road. Chainlink fences must be cut through. Sea cans must be picked (or cut if you use your equipment slot to have bold cutters). The area is lit, though the generator can be blown meaning show sight ranges (and you can use an equipment slot for night vision goggle making you a lethal hunter in the dark). Vehicles can be hot wired. Lots of interaction is possible with the scenery.  Also, each agent is run by a different convention player, so it's easy to have imperfect communication and planning. I love friction in games, so this is wonderful to me. 

 

Prior to the alarm being raised the GM's and players would dice off for each cartel members, high roll would control where they talked.  

 

 The alarm would be raised if the cartel members saw the agents at the beginning of their turn. So the agents had a whole turn to react and try and cap anyone who saw them. Explosions would raise the alarm (and did). 

 

 

 

 

Bodies also needed to be dragged out of site of cartel members which was pretty dicey at the beginning. We went for the generator early, which was good and bad. Line of sight went down, alarm went up (explosion), engagement range went down (safer), the jefe started walking towards the phone with intent (more dangerous). 

The jefe and his bodygaurd (more competent and dangerous) were on the boat. They walked towards the construction office (sea can with stairs on the left). 

 

Meanwhile the agents were searching sea cans, struggling with picking locks, and queuing up more explosions. We almost got blown up more than once. The explosives have a timer which is slightly counter intuitive (I didn't use them but it's a set one turn and it counts down at a weird time, so it's easy for you to short yourself the time needed to get clear).  

The guards at the front gate I think were a touch more competent, and EVENTUALLY, there was a firefight across the open area. 

 

 Count down timer seen on another sea can. It was awesome as the agent just got far enough away, but the cartel members swarming like vermin towards another agent mostly were blown up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Refugees were found. My agent managed to hot wire the truck and back it up close enough to load them up. As the jefe approached the office all the agent were running for the slowly departing truck. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We ended up doing a driveby shooting of the Jefe, one of the agents in the front cab was wounded during the firefight, but we were racing out under the wire. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  There was a moment of collective breath holding as we hit the barriers. It was entirely possible to whiff the damage roll and mess up the truck enough it wouldn't move anymore (or worse). It would take catastrophic unluck to roll that bad......and thankfully it didn't happen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Victory picture! 5 of 6 objectives achieved (no kidnapped jefe). Wounded agents but no deaths. Lots of fun. 4 stars, would recommend. 

 

 

 

 

 

Close Quarter Battle AAR Intro Mission: Assassinate

While Brian was visiting in May, I broke out my copy of Close Quarter Battle, The war on drugs. The publisher is Strategies Games Labs (based out of Strategies Hobbies in Vancouver BC), and written by Darren, who tends to run the game at Trumpeter Salute. 2025 I played it (at a recommendation from my friends) and really enjoyed it, and bought a starter set. This year I've actually made some good progress painting stuff up, so was able to host a game. My friends argue that the game should be called something different, like '80s action hero' as that is more the vibe, and I kinda agree. Regardless of the name, it's a fun system, and is well received at the convention. 

 

The system runs around 3 levels of training (green, trained, operative) which guides targets for skill checks, but also the number of actions you get a turn (1, 2, 3). Also, the number of hits you take as suppression before you actually get injured (1,2,3). Operatives are REALLY good. Green troops (raw recruits, gang bangers, etc) are barely speed bumps. The essential tension in the missions is rarely about whether the operatives are going to win, but whether they can do it IN TIME. Tight mission time lines and ambitious optional objectives often is what makes the game really compelling (in my few play throughs). 

The intro mission has 2 operatives attempting to assassination a local drug dealer notable/lieutenant. There are a bunch of green troops, so it's actually a really challenging mission for the dealers side....unless they can drag out the game. The second time we played through one of the operatives moved a bit too aggressively to get the shot on a hunkered down target (hiding on the roof) and was killed by defensive fire. With only one operative on the table the target made a run for it [straight away from the remaining operative], with appropriate futile/suicidal cover from his mooks. Sure enough, the timer was run down and the dealer managed to eke out a win. 

 

 

I've got pictures of the two games I played at the convention (2025, 2026) and the tables look great. I'll try and dig them out and post them up. 

 Having gaming visitors was fun, as it force me to pull out what I had from the Dave cave in order to host a game and have terrain on the table. I was able to hand terrain off to the other nerds while I was digging in boxes, so the tables ended up set up in a way I wouldn't have chosen myself. Win win.