FiveCore: Company Command : Overview and Thoughts

On Monday night, I had the opportunity to finally try out Nordic Weasel's FiveCore: Company Command (CC here on out). These rules are designed for a company + support on the table per side, where one base = one squad/section. If you just want my final opinion, jump to the bottom, but if you want to know a bit about the rules, read on.

For the set up, I used the hill scenario from these small Crossfire scenarios, leaving out anything that wasn't an infantry unit or heavy weapon. The scenarios are intended for a 2'x2' table, which suits CC's own stated design goals of 2'x2' to 3'x3'. However, since my base size is 3" square, and the suggested base size for CC is 1.5", I opted to double the size of the playing area, and all ranges (everything is in range for shooting, so this is mostly for movement and some reactions).

Here is the initial setup.

Two armies lay opposite and ready.

Don't worry about the US squads being out in the open - they are the attacker and have the initiative to start and are within one move of cover. This is important because if you are targeting a unit in the open, you have an increased chance to destroy them.

In CC, if a unit is within contact of the edge of a terrain piece or obstacle, they have to declare if they are in contact or if they are hiding. In contact means they can see and be seen. The mortar and adjacent squad are in contact - because mortar can't move and fire in the same turn, I wanted them to be able to fire as soon as possible.

The defender (Germans) start hidden in this scenario. I took this to mean "hiding" in CC terms (I used small green dice to indicate this) - they can't be seen, but they can't shoot either. Unhiding can draw reaction fire, but that seems right. Once they unhide, they will be in contact- so, again, even in cover, they will be visible to the enemy.

Conveniently, I don't have a single hill big enough for this scenario, but by using two pushed together, I have a natural crest line that troops can use as cover. FYI, hills are not discussed specifically in the rules with respect to crest lines and all that, I've pulled that concept from somewhere else.

I opted to position a squad near each heavy weapon - CC restricts heavy weapons from being targeted if a squad is nearby (4" as written, 8" in my case). This might be gamey but I like it and to me it makes sense that each side would want to protect their weapon. Plus it forces me to keep squads in reserve.

German MG and mortar benefit from the presence of a rifle squad.

CC offers three modes of play - each mode restricts what you can do as a commander in different ways. I opted to start with the basic mode which requires a side to declare whether they are in Combat or Deployment stance. The stances determine how many units can move or fire, and what, if any rules, govern the movement of the troops.

Most of the game was spent in combat stance for both sides, which meant only 1/2 a side's units could move and fire. The rest had to sit, but they could still reaction fire (well, mortars can't).

Shooting is done with a mixture of "shock" dice (morale effects) and "kill" dice (what it sounds like) and different weapons and situations can alter which/how many are rolled. Only 1s and 6s are of any concern and results range from falling back 3" (6" in my case) to complete removal of a unit. Light mortars, interestingly enough, only fire shock dice unless the target is in the open - this makes them useful for forcing the enemy to keep their heads down while your troops advance. Similarly, reaction fire is with shock dice only, unless the target is within 4" - so its main purpose is to get the enemy to rethink any advance.

The final assault!

I opted to play for 6 turns and the GIs failed to take the hill - despite some valiant efforts to do so, and effective use of the mortar for keeping the enemy from using their MG.

It's always hard to be fully immersed the first time I play a set of rules since I'm usually checking them quite often, but I did enjoy the decision making regarding which troops to activate and which to let sit. Sometimes this lead to troops being pinned down, unable to rally (because a failed rally roll uses up the activation, you have to think carefully about what's important to your overall goal) which added some tension.

Even with my constant rules checking, the entire game and setup took less than an hour (admittedly my playing area is pretty simple. More complex tables would obviously add more time). These forces are small by CC standards (or Crossfire's for that matter, which is the intent),  but even with full companies per side, the rules are designed to play in 60 to 90 minutes.

There were just a few spots in the rules where things did not seem particularly clear to me. As this was my first game with them, it's quite possible it's a me thing and repeated plays will work those issues out. The 10 games, 10 times challenge I did a few years ago on my old blog taught me the value of not judging a rule set too quickly. That said, I already like these rules quite a bit.

They can easily handle all of the force options as presented - minefields, smoke, artillery, engineering squads, etc. So, after another game or two, I'll start adding those bits in.