Tips & Strategy

How to learn Ambush!, what to do in your first mission, and where the rulebook and the forum differ.

How to teach it

There is nobody to teach: you learn it alone, and the rulebook is long. The order that works is the rulebook’s own (p. 3): read sections 1–15 once, play Mission 1 with the pre-generated squad, then read the rules again with the questions you noted. Skip the campaign rules until Mission 1 is done (p. 27). Most of the rules you need during play are on the Chart Reference Screen; keep the Teach the Game page and the Flow Chart play aid at hand for the sequences.

Your first game

1. Stay prone when you are not acting. Prone soldiers get the best terrain modifiers against fire and cannot be seen through windows; the price is that they cannot fire, throw or assault (Fire Combat Modifiers Chart; forum thread 3563817).
2. Move in Operations as much as you can. Hexes already checked in the current Condition carry Event markers and need no new Paragraph Check (rulebook p. 10), so retrace known ground when carrying wounded men out.
3. Keep the commanders close. A commander within two hexes keeps soldiers in command and can hand them a turn; it is the main lever you have over the Action Round Track (p. 12).
4. Treat it as a survival game. Each dead or abandoned man costs 2 VP and, in a campaign, his experience; experienced players advise getting incapacitated men to the briefing’s safe hexes only once the mission is settled (thread 3647295).
5. Spend Combat Points on Weapon Skill and Perception first. Initiative is slow to raise (a die roll, max 5) and most useful on commanders; a forum regular’s advice is to lift the low-IN men to 2 for the extra Movement Point and otherwise buy WS and PC (thread 3705945).

Videos versus the rulebook

The playthrough series on the Videos page works the Action Round Track right to left, row by row; the rulebook only fixes the rows, and US soldiers on a row act in any order (p. 12, thread 3108602). The Clear Jammed Weapon Chart has a “still jammed” result that the rulebook text (p. 10) does not mention; play the chart.

Sources

YouTube: Let’s Play Ambush Boardgame Part 1, by Jim Lederer. BGG: community answers are linked by thread in the FAQ; the publisher’s Ambush! files include the rulebook with errata and the Flow Chart play aid. Designers: Eric Lee Smith and John H. Butterfield (rulebook p. 39).