D-Day Game

On Friday evening, after our regular walk to the convenience store for too many snacks, I said to my son,  "Tomorrow is June 6th". To which he replied "We need to watch a movie!" He suggested The Longest Day which I was more than happy to agree to. As it turned out, getting him away from video games with his friends was impossible - and that was OK, he should interact with them.

In the meantime, though,  I cobbled together a makeshift 4' square table from four plastic drawer units and two 2' x 4' panels and set out a variation of ""Bluff at Easy Green" from Skirmish Campaigns : Heroes of Omaha and Panzer Lehr".  I no longer have the book, but an old blog post gave me enough to go on.

I had considered doing it with my unpainted 1/32 WWII figures in order to field 5-7 figure squads, but in order to possibly entice my son to join me for a game, I dug out my remaining painted figures (most of my painted 1/32 WWII figures have been sent to other homes or are awaiting donation in preparation for a move at the end of the month). This meant "squads" of four figures, so maybe more like a handful of fire teams per side.

I have long since tossed reindeer moss I used to use to indicate bocage, so the brown strips of craft foam with trees around the fields would have to suffice.

For rules, I decided to do something that would be easy to teach quickly and require little reference if any during play on my part - One Brain Cell Toy Soldiers with a modified version of the wound table (1-2 KIA, 3-4 knock down until next turn, 5+ ignore wound).

Major Sidney Bingham, Jr., 2nd Battalion Commanding Officer of the 116th Infantry Regiment directs a BAR gunner and bazooka at the newly arrived German reinforcements. 

 

 In the event, I played twice before my son saw the setup and wanted to play! Victory!

To encourage movement, I set a 10-turn limit to get 8 of the 15 Americans off the table or it would count as a German victory. 

In the two games I played and in the game with my son, the Americans won (yay!). Which makes sense, given that the scenario is intended to be the 1st of a 3-game mini-campaign and the goal of the Americans is to get off the table, not fight to the last.

In the game with my son, my dice rolling was abysmal when rolling attacks and when rolling on the wound table, but great for initiative - which was wasted every time by the subsequent aforementioned poor attack rolls.

Americans burst out of the orchard to open fire at close range before charging into hand-to-hand and then exiting the table for victory.

Still, our game together did come down to the 9th turn before the Americans reached their victory condition. By the end of that turn though, the Germans were obliterated with but three figures remaining.

My son had fun and I had fun, so win-win really! 

It's also caused me to consider keeping the painted Americans (the painted Matchbox Germans are staying for use as villains in Christmas games) if only to draw my son into games every now and then.

p.s. Regular readers may notice the new game mat. I like how it looks, but it's not quite the measurements specified (it's closer to 47" wide than 48"wide, although it can stretch to that). I will probably cut it down to a 3' square mat (or close to it)  and a 2' square mat, for use in different games.

NP '42: Deciding on Tabeltop Rules

Over the weekend, I set up trying to settle on a set of rules for the North Pole games. There were quite a lot in contention, but the top contenders for this experiment were: One Brain-Cell Toy Soldiers (1BC) with card-based unit activation, G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. with half-sized units, and One Hour Skirmish Wargames(OHSW).

For the scenario, a German platoon of three 5-man sections, one HMG, one light mortar and a platoon leader is advancing to capture some buildings on the outskirts of Christmas Village. An under-strength platoon of British paras, consisting of two 5-man sections, an HMG, and a platoon leader, move into the area to hold off the German advance. The Germans win if they capture both buildings, otherwise it's a win for the British.

You can tell this is non-canonical as I didn't break out my dozens of Christmas trees for the woods.

The fact that the pictures below tell a cohesive story is completely by accident. They are from multiple games.

British occupy the ruined building on their left.

 

"Knock! Knock!"

British assault the house.

The German right advances under cover of light mortar fire. The mortar was more devastating in some games than others. This must be from the GASLIGHT game where the max range was 24". In OHSW it's infinite (and can't move), and in 1BC, off hand, I believe it's at least 36".

The HMG covers the building in case the British capture it, while the English and Germans exchange fire from the relative safety of the trees. Either 1BC or GASLIGHT, because tripod HMGs can't move in OHSW.

The Germans hold the farm house, and the defenders of the other building are defeated in close assault.

Things take a turn for the worse on the British right.

Game over. This is most likely from the OHSW game, as contact with a downed figure is immediate figure removal.

I'm not sure I'm any further along in deciding.

I *can* say that, while it's no secret I love OHSW,, 18 units (the Germans, each figure or weapon team is a unit) on one side really felt like it was straining the system. 

The action felt less chaotic whirlwind and more disjointed than usual. At best you can take action with 13 units, and more often than not less than that. If you want to move and shoot with each figure even drawing a King, you're looking at 6 figures taking action.  To make it work, I'd have to drop one of the 5-man sections or support weapons or some similar combination (never mind that I have tanks, half-tracks, PAK-38s etc. for the Germans to use at the North Pole).

Both GASLIGHT and OHSW handle characters and vehicles easily - so a coin flip there.

GASLIGHT requires some adjustments for the under-sized units: morale and Shoot values primarily. Morale is somewhat silly in GASLIGHT, which I love, but maybe not for WWII troops (definitely would use for woodland creatures, elves, etc.).

1BC wins for simplicity and adding card activation made it more like GASLIGHT. There's no vehicle rules so they require improvising - nothing I haven't done before, and I could probably bolt on either of the others in some way, but still, it's extra work.

I really like the Force Motivation and Force-level Morale check in OHSW as opposed to individual unit morale checks in GASLIGHT or 1BC. Although, this was the first time I ever came close to a side failing their morale check - the paras lost their PL (a Leader(3) in OHSW terms) and only had their section leaders (Leader(1)  in OHSW terms). They came within 1 point of failing their morale check.

So, each set has things that work, and things that work sort-of. And I like them all. 

Maybe I'll just choose whichever one I'm feeling on the day? Or maybe, more play tests are in order? Oh darn.

Italian Army Crosses the Alps!

France. June, 1940.

Elements of the Italian army actually made it past some of the French defenses - a platoon with L3 support is advancing to capture a small village.

French infantry are heading to the scene to stop them.

The sides race for positions.

The Italians make use of cover to protect their advance. The tankette however decides to chug along in the open. Not because of its superior armor - it's not especially renowned for its thickness - but its pilot's bravado demands nothing less. He has had exactly 1 day of training on the L3, which is more training than most. Also, his L3 is still running which is a miracle in itself.

French squad with LMG stakes out a place in the woods.

And the LMG draws first blood!

The French mortar had a mildly successful day dropping rounds on unsuspecting Italians. However, it wasn't enough to slow them down.

The tankette sat for awhile once the pilot realized getting close to infantry without support might be a bad idea. Instead he unloaded double HMGs at the French in the fields, to horrific effect.

From this angle the L3 looks menacing, despite actually being super cute - dual machine guns tearing up the French squad excepted.

Throwing caution to the wind, drunk on his own success, the Italian pilot mashes the accelerator (or however these things worked) full speed ahead. This exposes him to a state-of-the-art French anti-tank grenade delivery system. It's a tense moment.

If you look closely, you can see how it went. There's a downside to leaving cover even if it's to do something arguably heroic.

The tankette sped off the table. The remaining French from the squad in the field and the mortar were unable to act before it did so. This was one of the Italian objectives accomplished, by a very gamey maneuver might I add.

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

The last French survivor (an NCO) and the mortar itself were captured. The fellow with the scared expression, front row, right, has just realized that the mortar crew had spiked the mortar with a grenade, which is about to go off.

A few things of note:

I once again used the venerable, and free, One Brain-Cell Toy Soldier Rules,with the advanced options for wounds, the advanced turn sequence, and a house rule for AT grenades. 

While other, more serious, games may have greater depth, these rules manage to"feel right",  if you try to use proper WW2 tactics (at least to my imperfect understanding of what that means). As I'm probably on the "Pulp WW2" end of "feels right", take that as you will.

Play time was maybe an hour or so?

I like how the minifigures look with my regular terrain and scenic items. It reminds me of playing with toys with my son when he was little. 

Speaking of scenic items - the two buildings were probably made around a decade ago and have served me well since. Foamboard / Foamcore is solid stuff.

Oh and no one has asked, but the mortar can fire if you put a spring in it (sometimes it comes with one, sometimes it doesn't - this one did not, but I have a suitable spring from a Lego-type cannon).

The French FT should be arriving soon - USPS says it's in TN on the tracking site, but we got an email saying it would be here today. So, who knows?