Fast Play WWII 3x3 Based on the Portable Wargame

For the past few days, 3x3 Portable Wargame variants have become bit of a hot topic. I am pretty taken with the idea of a 15 minute wargame that I can set up on a corner of the kitchen table during my lunch breaks or in the evening after my son goes to bed. Very often, on weekdays/nights I have the itch to get the toys out, but I don't have time or inclination to setup a longer playing game.

While I think with a different set of rules a 3x3 grid would be good for a game with squad bases (something like a toy soldiered Advance Squad Leader Starter Kit, which I've been messing with), I think with using The Portable Wargame  as the base, and this limited board, it helps to think of these as company or higher level units so that the range limitations make more sense. 

In my case I see them as companies. My Eastern Front collection has been built up guided by the 1943 TO&E for both sides. And so, that's what I'm using to determine which units make up a battalion and therefore which kinds of companies to represent below.

Each grid space is then about 500m - 600m across. Close combat is then maybe just a bit longer than effective small arms range.

I'm using Bob Cordery's Colonial Fast Play 3x3 rules with some modifications/clarifications. You'll need both The Portable Wargame and his post in order to make sense of these.

Turn Sequence:

1. Mortars, Panzergrenadier support companies or heavy companies, ATG may fire if not in close combat. Tanks may fire if not in close combat.
   
2. Movement - reserves may move onto the table as well
   
3. Panzergrenadier support companies that have not fired and are not in close combat,  or heavy companies/ATG  that have not fired or moved and are not in close combat, and Tanks that haven't  fired and are not in close combat may fire.
   
4. Close Combat 

Set Up: 

I think the existing terrain systems as posited by Mark Cordone and Bob Cordery work fine for ancient or sparse areas, but I feel like a little more terrain (two to three pieces) makes more sense. After all, if we think of the 3x3 area as a section of  larger table where the battle has been joined, at least on my tables, there is more than one piece of terrain in the area. So, I'm just doing what I think looks good.

I allow up to 3 units in reserve, but require a 5 or 6 for them to enter the table. If a unit is forced back into the reserves, then they must roll again to reenter.

Unit Types:

Infantry : Move 1, Shoot 1 (Aka close combat)

Mortars: Move 1, Shoot 2, cannot initiate close combat, ie move adjacent to an enemy unless accompanying an Infantry unit, and then only as support. Fights normally in Close Combat if attacked. These are INDIRECT FIRE and can fire at targets in LOS or at a target in range that a friendly unit can trace LOS to. Cannot move and shoot in the same turn. (I am thinking maybe these should add +2 in support as well as these are the big guys, not the 50mm  ones organic to the infantry company)

MG: Move 1, Shoot 1, Fights normally in Close Combat if attacked. Adds +2 to attacker's die roll when acting in support in close combat.

MG/Mortar: Move 1, Shoot 2. The German Panzergrenadier battalion has a combined support company in 1943 on paper consisting of two MG platoons and one Mortar platoon. . Adds +2 to attacker's die roll when acting in support in close combat. Cannot shoot as mortar and then move later in the same turn

ATR: Move 1, Shoot, 1.  Tanks are treated normally (i.e. not  as in cover) Technically this is a platoon for the Soviets, 1 per battalion in 1943. I think you could make the case that they start with 1 Strength Point and not 2.

Panzergrenadier Heavy Company:   Move 1, Shoot 4.  Combined IG/ATG/Pioneer: Cannot move and shoot in the same turn, cannot initiate close combat, ie move adjacent to an enemy unless accompanying an Infantry unit. These are being used in a DIRECT FIRE role and cannot fire over intervening units or obstacles. 

ATG: Move 1, Shoot 2. Again, for Soviets, the ATG unit is a platoon , so 1 strength point is not beyond question. Cannot move and shoot in the same turn, cannot initiate close combat, ie move adjacent to an enemy unless accompanying an Infantry unit.

Tanks: I hesitate to include them but you never know. Move 2, Shoot 2. Only Infantry, ATG, Panzergrenadier heavy companies, and ATR units may destroy tanks. Always count tanks as in-cover when attacked by Infantry.

Close Combat Clarifications

5+ hits, 4 or less has no effect. It's written differently on Bob Cordery's post linked above.

All units can support each other (combined arms and all that)

If more than one adjacent square has an enemy, attacker chooses which target square is involved in the current combat and must turn to face that square (yes this puts the other enemy on their flank most likely)

After a flank attack, the defender may immediately turn and face the enemy.

If the attacker forces the enemy back or the enemy is destroyed and the space is empty, the attacking unit, but NOT support, may advance to take the emptied space.

A unit that is in support of a friendly unit during close combat does not take damage as a result of combat but must fall back with the friendly unit if the former is forced to do so. If the friendly unit is destroyed, the support unit remains in place and combat may continue into the next player turn.

Units may fall back 1 move away from close combat at no penalty. This must be back towards a friendly baseline or into reserve.

Game Length:

I think the max length should be 6 turns (double the number of turns it takes to move across the table). However, I have been having fun with 3 turns + roll 1d6. 1= game over, 2-5 = 1 more turn,  6= 2 more turns

I have found the games I've played like this rather enjoyable. There is precious little opportunity for maneuver but there are still options and decisions to make. 

In my case the setup takes 18" square and then some for the reserve, but those with smaller figures can use smaller sized grids of course.

It's easy to imagine bringing a handful of units, the grid and a bit of terrain on a vacation (remember those?) to play on a hotel room table.

More in the Queue

My current painting progress is nil, but my plan is to intentionally build a backlog of prepped and primed figures so when I start painting, I can just ride the wave.

Among the figures I'm adding to the queue are three chibi Space Nuns acquired on eBay.

They are 54mm resin prints. My first such figures.

The one on the left lost her little hair thingy (like the one on the right has) to my general clumsiness. I may make a new one for her if I can find some of this mysterious "thick plastic card" that I read mention of so often, or I may file down the remnant nub. I figure they'll probably end up on a planet with lizard folk and dinosaurs at some point.

Below is a simple head swap with an Armies in Plastic officer figure. None of the officers with the stahlhelm sets come with a helmet themselves and that just won't do.

 

The swap was simple enough - if not a perfect fit it's close enough. I don't do customizations very often so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I hope to get some primer on these (after a little more clean up) in the next few days. I should have enough figures on hand to get started painting. As I have noted before, working on three figures at a time  makes painting a lot more palatable for me. 

 (Pun intended. I'll show myself out :D )

Take the High Ground!

 Late Saturday night, I came up with an idea for simple set of rules that I wanted to try out. Having long wanted to put one of Stuart Asquith's scenarios from Guide to Solo Wargaming on the table, I flipped through that volume and chose Take the Highground (Hence the title of this post).

It was "snowy" Sunday (a rarity in Atlanta but there was no accumulation - thankfully. People down here do not understand how to drive in snow of any amount) and seemed like the perfect day for tea and a wargame. I dutifully laid out the table for the first figure game of 2022 and set about trying my rules. 

Meh.

While not a terrible game, it seemed edge cases and questions arose on nearly every turn. This greatly slowed the pace and enjoyment of what was supposed to be a faster playing game.

On the plus side, the idea seems solid to me (more details in a future post), but there is much tweaking to do, if I choose to pursue the idea, including figuring out exactly what I'm after, as these were rules about the mechanism and not about the result I want. A poor design approach, clearly.

The game did have some good moments, like this. The Soviet T-34 had been knocked out, and the ZiS-3 and Panzer IV engaged in a duel that the plucky gun crew won.

Feeling unsatisfied, I set up the table again. I started to play straight rules-as-written Morschauser's modern rules, but the lack of reaction fire wasn't squaring with me. This is the problem with having opinions about the period. I think had I just called the "trays" (Morschauser's term) platoons in my head, then I wouldn't have cared, but I was thinking the trays were squads this time and I can't imagine squads not firing in reaction.

So, I threw together some tweaks - my usual for cover, strength points, plus added a reaction fire option, added leaders (Platoon and Company in this case), morale (stolen from Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit), and Pinned and Paralyzed states. It sounds like a lot, but they very simple add-ons and were not so much complication as a little more flavor.

I probably take this picture every game these figures are in.

Mortar unit moves up behind woods - Morschauser has no mortars, but they are easily added. I added a rule on the fly that the Platoon Leader could spot for them.

The Soviets advance as seen from the German side of the table. Morschauser has no cover rules - so as I always do wth my Morschuaser modern variants, I used 4/6 hit in open, 6 only if target in cover. MGs are 2/4/6 in open, 4/6 if target in cover.

One of my favorite features of Morschauser is that infantry anti-tank grenades are accounted for (and as they appear in nearly every Soviet and Russian WWII movie I have watched, they are pretty common at least in cinema). Here the Soviet rifle units assault the Panzer IV. The other favorite rule from Morschauser - the tank overrunning the infantry - came into play a moment, after this unsuccessful attack.

The German position consolidates around the right hill. The T-34 has been paralyzed by a hit from the Panzer IV - they'll need a morale check with the aid of the commander next turn. The ZiS couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Not pictured - another Soviet rifle group charges the German armor, hits it with AT grenades and destroys it. A moment later the Soviet rifles on the right took out one of the German rifle units. With a shell of a force, the German leader ordered the remaining troops to fall back. 

Much better.  It had the right feel of toy soldiers "plus".  That is, just a little extra to feel more period representative to my mind. And by period, like history learned from war movies.

The only thing I might change is the way damage works for armor when the trays are squads. In this case, the tank is likely one tank. Because I don't use Morschauser's attack with d6 per strength but instead roll 1d6 for the tray (as if there were no strength points) which deals at most 1 point of damage. So, a tank can never be destroyed in one round of combat - which doesn't feel right.  

Featherstone's method from War Games could be the basis for the new approach. It allows for a range of results, from nothing, to forced back, to destroyed. I'll play with it a bit - maybe turn one of the force back results into a loss of 1 strength point.

When it represents two or three tanks, then I think wearing away the unit makes more sense and no change is needed.

In any case, the itch was scratched, and I got to spend some time pushing toy soldiers around and rolling dice, while staying warm,

Games (how's that for a generic title?)

Gaming for the new year has kicked off with a revisit of a game from Minden Games, Battle Over Britain.

As you can probably surmise, it's a representation of WWII aerial combat. Less obvious perhaps is that it's 1 on 1, is abstract, and plays quite quickly. There is a solitaire module which I own (it adds little to the existing solitaire rules but does give you more planes to choose from) and other air battles as well.

d12 are hit points, white d6 are ammo remaining.

It's an interesting little game that feels right even if it looks completely wrong. The rules are straightforward but there are enough special rules and optional rules to add flavor and variety.

The average game is probably less than 10 minutes, so it's a prefect space filler or you can play a longer campaign of connected battles, if desired, including one where you play a particular pilot through multiple (hopefully) encounters.

In the picture, I'm using my laptop as the playing space - I have been playing Verdun a lot on Steam and decided I need to shut the laptop down and enjoy some screen-free time (my son isn't the only one who needs to step away from the computer sometimes!).

Also of note, my copy of The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game arrived:

I purchased this on a whim on Black Friday - the price was something like $9.99 USD. Even if it's a terrible game, it comes with figures (I'll give the game a proper post once we play it).

Finally, some figures have entered the preparation stages:

Two things are probably worth noting about the picture.

On the human figures, the black that follows the mold lines is soot from a candle. It ends up on the needle that I heat up and run along the lines. I've mentioned using the hot needle before - it works well enough to smooth them out without marring the figure too badly, but I care less and less about mold lines (with the exception of the one on the helmet). Life is too short.

The gold figure is a Classic Toy Solders Carthaginian. I had no idea they had Carthaginians of their own until recently. Everyone always focuses on HaT (like the figure to his left). The shield is a little skimpy - accurate or not I don't know- but it'll do for my purposes

Goodbye 2021 and Hello 2022!

Happy New Year, one and all!

2021 saw a lot more painting than I have done in many years - in part due to finally kicking off the WWI Southern Front painting and in part due to starting preparation for the who-could-have-predicted VSF Venusian campaign. 

The former went from 0 to about 40 figures and the latter a more modest 0 to 20 figures.

One of my goals for 2021 was to finish the white coated Russians for my colonial collection. I did so, and that collection is essentially complete as far as I am concerned. It was a small project that started in June of 2017 as a possible VSF project before morphing into a "What if?" collection for The Great Game.

That final transformation was solidified by my finishing listening to  The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia early in 2021.

A photo from "The Khan's Gambit", posted March 1, 2021

I managed to play a good many games last year, including my Fictional Citadel campaign which spanned four real world months and 10 games. All of those were played out using Bob Cordery's The Portable Wargame

photo from "Fictional Citadel : July 6, 1943 PanGermania clashes with the 3rd Soviet Guard Rifle Division", posted September 3, 2021

 Other miniature rules played this year included Panzer Kids Deluxe, Trench Hammer, Crossfire (finally!), Disposable Hero/Coffin for Seven Brothers, One Hour Skirmish Wargames, One Hour Wargames, Fistful of Lead : Bigger Battles, GASLIGHT, VSF Fubar, and Wings of Glory WWI.

I am clearly not a slave to any one publisher's games!

A photo from "Somewhere in France, 1944 - Panzer Kids!"  posted March 14, 2021

I had a goal to play one board game a month in 2021, and while that did not happen, I did play far more than previous years.

Games included several Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 scenarios (some more than once), Long Range Desert Group, Pavlov's House (played 3 or 4 times), Enemy Coast Ahead : The Doolittle Raid, and Battle for Moscow (easily played half a dozen times if not more).

Discovering Vassal at the end of the year allowed me to sneak in a late ASLSK game and gave hope that I might play Burning Mountains in 2022.

A photo from "Three Solo Boardgames", posted August 6, 2021

On the blog, I posted 83 times. That's not my highest but felt like a comfortable amount, given everything else in life. Indeed, in 2022, I plan to dial that back a little.

So, speaking of 2022...

My primary goals for the year: 

• Play 1 toy soldiers game per month
  
• Play 1 board game per month (not even a wargame necessarily)
  
• Get at least one Venusian force with options ready for the table
• Bring each WWI force up to three "companies" (H.M.G. suggests 8 figure Bersaglieri and 9 figure Austrian) and 2 MG bases.

Odds are high that Venusian force that gets kitted out first is the lizard folk.

Finally, as mentioned, I will try to post a tiny bit less here. 

There are two reasons. 

The first is that I try to comment on different blogs weekly but, when I have to use my time to write a post, it reduces how much time I have to read and respond to posts by other bloggers. Less writing of my own posts, the more time I can read and respond to other posts. To me that is an essential part of being a member of this community and I want to do it more.

 

The second reason is that I am making a push to expand my guitar teaching this year and that takes up what would be hobby time. Less hobby time, less activity to write about.

 

And so, without further ado,  Happy 2022! (or at least Not Terrible 2022!)