On the Grid Again

 Friday the dam burst and I played a flurry of games on a grid - spurred in no small part by my acquisition of a foldable card table.

It measures 38 in. square, which with my current grid cloth is still just 6x6 of 6 inch squares. But that's fine for One Hour Wargames scenarios with small forces.

I set out Scenario 14: Static Defence  - a favorite of mine  - and I tried some rules I had written up over the course of the preceding week. 

In this iteration, weapon companies were split up into attachments to rifle companies.

Soviet ATR companies can engage armor up to 1 space away. Other infantry have to close assault it.

I played two games like this. They were Ok but they weren't quite what I had hoped and had some flaws I found bothersome.  I combined them with some ideas from The Portable Wargame and tried again.

That was better but still not quite right. So I gave The Portable Wargame a chance as written - but using three hits per unit.

Soviets held off the attack on the town - which was the German target. They instead captured the hill rather accidentally.

That still wasn't quite right, for me. So, I scribbled some ideas down and slept on it.

Saturday morning, I set up a new scenario (Scenario 20: Fighting Retreat) because I needed a change from the last one.

Dramatic sunlight.

Classic Toy Solider MG team holding off the Soviet advance.

Very close to what the end of the last game looked like. The Soviet advance collapsed due to losses. I set exhaustion at 50% of strength points due to the small totals for each force.

The end result was exactly the kind of game I had wanted to play. I played twice even, just to be sure.

In the end it was an amalgamation of my own preferences, Hold the  Line, Bob Cordery's Memoir of Modern Battle and The Portable Wargame, and a little Morschauser (4's and 6's to hit and 2/4/6 for MGs).