Ranger: Simulation of Modern Patrolling Operations - Game Play

Game Play

Ranger was compared to Special Forces by Fire & Movement Magazine:

Ranger is billed as the game of modern patrolling. You would expect it to capture these operations well. Actually it does. The emphasis is getting to the target and getting home again. Most of the actions are handled with an abstract combat system.

Ranger is not a traditional board game. It is a solitaire game that is played on a laminated map. There is no hexgrid, or counters. Play starts by selecting a mission. Then you have to plan and organize the mission. Factors under the player's control are the size of patrol (squad or platoon), the weapons carried, the composition of the squad, the infiltration and exfiltration routes, what areas of the planned mission will be rehearsed, and so on. Just about everything is under the player's control except the mission, the method of insertion, and availability of certain support...

Once the mission is planned and rehearsed, it...is resolved using a paragraph system. Since the situations are more generic and abstract, the system leads to more variability with replays. Many paragraphs can only be played once, and then you know the contents of the paragraphs and any replay is not very interesting...

The actions at the target are abstracted so it is difficult to investigate various tactics for actually accomplishing a mission. This action is resolved by a die roll. So if you are trying to destroy some target, it is simply a die roll, modified by your preparations. In this regard, Ranger is not very exciting. It is also why the game works best as a solitaire system. If you want the excitement of stalking through a building looking for the hostages, then you need another game.

Ranger was similar to Ambush! in that it was paragraph driven; however the latter game included counters and did have the "excitement of stalking through a building looking for the hostages" (in fact, quite literally, since one of the missions in Move Out, an Ambush! add-on module, was to track down and rescue half the player's squad, who started the mission captured.) Ranger had a much more serious approach to the subject, and Rooker felt the game could even be considered a training aid for actual military patrolling due to its realism.