May 01, 2008
Metal Storm WWII Review
Like many hobby related forums, TMP has its share of "controversies" that seems to flair up on a regular basis. Normally you can count on someone (either a innocent noob or a troll, it doesn't matter) to come out with "GW, evil empire or not? discuss" before 100+ posts flames away by the usual suspects.
In the last few years a popular surrogate which is taking a kicking is Flames of War. There's always detractors about how the rules are the spawns of the devil, and promoters will laude it as the rules set the saved historical gaming. It is in one of these long exchanged I first heard about Metal Storm WW2 (MSWW2) rules.
The author is squarely on the FoW detractor camp. He touted it as a more historical set of rules which promotes real live tactics better than the 40k-ized world of FoW. The rules are based on Metal Storm Modern which is a distant offspring of Peter Pigs' AK-47 which garnered a lot of positive word of mouth. Given that I now have matching armies of FoW which can be readily used for MSWW2, and that the rules are available in PDF format for ~ $16 US, I sprang for a copy.
The rules are definitely in the old school of "by wargamers, for wargamers". It's got very rudimentary graphics and no game concept illustrations at all (pictures are eye candy variety). It's not going to compete against FoW in getting the new converts, but will be (maybe?) acceptable for old farts like me who are used to "a good set of rules wrapped in not so good physical packaging".
FORCE ORGANIZATION
The scale of the game is the same as FoW: Each player command around a company strength force, with maneuver element being a platoon, and combat is conducted between individual stands (each being a squard or section for infantry, or an individual vehicle). interactions of the stands reminded me of DBx school of rules (with more explanation later). There are no army lists to tell you what's in a force so newbies will be lost. The formula for calculating point cost for a unit is given but a lot of "interpretation" needs to happen on the part of the gamers so definitely not for someone who's new to the period.
Treatment of hardware is very "broadbrush" and impressionistic, for example all armor defense are characterized into a few categories with some examples given (i.e. a Tiger has a D10 for armor, a Sherman a D8) . If you have some exotic vehicle you need to make your own mind up on where it fits into the continuum. If you are the type of treadheads who cares about the armor difference between a long barreled PzIII and a early short barreled version, you will be disappointed. The author cares more about troops quality than hardware.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
The author stated that the rules emphasis is on troop quality more so than hardware, so your quality decides how well you shoot, how much penalty you take due to hardship, and how long you will stick around the battlefield when bad things starts to happen. Hardware might give you a modifier of somekind but is definitely not the deciding factor. I am not going to go into the "historicity" of this decision, but from a pure gameplay point of view it simplified on a lot of nuts and bolts consideration of playing a ww2 game like FoW (where number of machine guns on a tank and their rate of fire is important), and one can get into a game much quicker, and think about the game probably more appropriate of the intended scale (after all if you are a company commander, you think about "sending in your heavy armor reserve", you don't worry about whether your tank can maximize number of machine gun tubes firing this turn).
TURN SEQUENCE
Turn sequence is what I call The Sword and the Flame sequence, where you use a deck of regular cards, and when you flip one color, side A get to move one unit of its choosing, and if another color, side B gets to move a unit of his choosing. Cards are not tied to a particular unit so planning is a little less restrictive.
Once a unit is activated he gets to do either one or two actions depending on what it is. Very straightforward and clean. Movement is also very Sword and Flame like: roll a number of dice and move that amount of distance in inches, modified by quality and terrain.
One change is that a unit can be in overwatch mode for the turn (decided before the cards are shuffled). In this case a overwatch unit may fire BETWEEN card draws (instead of the more obvious "you get to fire anytime during an opponent's move") I am still trying to puzzle this out to see if I like this, since theoretically speaking if you can't see a enemy unit in the end of a card draw, you can't fire at it, and on the next card draw he can activate and then hit you on close combat before you can shoot back even if you are on overwatch. In out test game we used overwatch fire sparingly but didn't seem to make a big difference.
COMBAT
Combat reminded me of a combination of Piquet and DBA. Any attack (regardless of fire, melee, vs inf or armor) always rolls two dice, defender always rolls one die. if attacker beat the defender on both, it's dead. If only beat it on one, then it's gone to ground (pinned, or for armor vehicle it's "threatened"). Very straight forward and clean.
Modifiers and quality comes into play through the quality of the dice you throw. So if you have an 88 firing? you'll get some big dice (D12 & D12), and if you have something crappy maybe you only get D4 & D6. The same principle applies to the defense (see my example earlier on tank types). Any modifiers (there are only a handful so easily remembered after a few turns) are applied as dies up or die down (a la Piquet). This may cause some strangeness for those who's not used to handling different die types (i.e. D8 with a -1 modifier becomes a D6) . This is definitely a broadbrush threatment akin to DBA combat results, but it "feels" right for the level of game the author intended. Of course every die regardless of type has a "1" on it, and a bad roll could mean that your King Tiger gets taken out by a anti tank rifle. But if the explanation of (it's a critical hit that happened to went into the vision slit) causes you problem, this might not be the rules for you.
Gone to Ground is more likely than killed outright, and this means the stand is pinned (can not move or fire, can still melee with a negative modifier). one can either spend action during an activation to remove GTG status, or it'll get reduced by one level at end of turn. It's possible then to inflict multiple GTG result to keep troops down which is a pretty historical tactic.
MORALE
The game doesn't use a tradition morale test, but instead uses a Mission Resolve (purportedly from AK-47, though not having played it I am not sure). The theory being that on a modern battlefield adverse events causes cumulative stress (i.e. losing stands, seeing friendly unit dying, etc.), once stress builds up to a certain level the unit will just quit the field. In game terms this means that unit are called upon to make Mission Resolve tests on certain events. If they misses nothing happens, but on the third miss they are just GONE (we call it the three strikes rule). This means there are some record keeping, but it's not onerous. I think it works, but will need to reflect upon it a bit more to see if this is superior to the more traditional "roll to pass or you are pinned/shaken/routed followed by rallying" mechanism.
OMISSIONS
There's a very explicit omission stated by the author: based on his research there are very few instance of infantry close assaulting tanks without AT weapon (in the rules that means weapon with explicit AT capability like ATR or bazooka, there are no stats for molotov cocktail or improv weapons), so in the design close assault vs vehicle (and conversely vehicle overrunning infantry) is simply forbidden. In our game we have no situation where things might be weird, but I can see in a city fight for instance the tank can just rumble forth into infantry infested narrow streets (assuming that inf have no ATG hiding about) without any worries. I don't have enough historical data to see if this is realistic or not, but since every other set of rules in gaming history have rules to support infantry passing a morale check and then jump on tank to assault it with bare fists I thought I'd mention this (and if this really is a problem, the rules structure are flexible enough that to bolt on a rule of your own devise would not be hard).
Continue reading "Metal Storm WWII Review"
Posted by msoong at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 24, 2008
WWII playoff
Chris, Freddy and I are now in a WW2 mood, and we are playing with all kinda rules, using both our 15mm FoW army and Freddy's various 25mm/20mm stuff. More detailed writeup will follow later, but here's what we've got so far:
1. Disposable Hero: Set of Mass Skirmish rules (my term given to rules that are 1:1, but smallest maneuver unit is a section or a squad). Very straight forward and gives pretty realistic results, what I call "workman-like" in that it's got all the basics, but nothing too innovative. Will be used as a baseline for us to compare all other Mass Skirmish rules against.
We played two games so far, one a 25mm game with Ge vs Ru, about 1 platoon a side plus one vehicle ea. and a second game of German attack into Arnhem using Freddy's collection of 20mm stuff. We found that attacking into a city is hard business and makes a long and attritional game. A village will be the largest I'll do from now on.
2. I Ain't Been Shot Mum using our 15mm FoW army. I call it a Company level ww2 RPG game, where a game master is really de rigure. It's got a high chaos factor, and a lot of anxiety and excitement since units are hidden and move on "blinds" until they are revealed. In principal I have resistance against rules that uses hidden forces (i painted all those nice figures damn it I want to see them on the table!) It's fun enough that it'll probably get an occasional outing when we are in a RPG mood, but won't make it as our "default" set.
3. NUTS! - First time I tried this weeks ago I didn't like it, main reason being that the rules are badly organized and I was lost trying to read through it. THis time Chris did more prep and we played 2 games in about 2 hours (living up to the Two Hour Wargames label twice over!) and I enjoyed it much more. It's at a lower scale of individual level game, so running 1~2 squad per player is about the limit. THe game feels like WW2 small unit action, with minimal level of DRM and charts. Highly chaotic. In both of our games once a side "dominated" the battle field (i.e. have firelane setup before the other bloke can get into position), the game is pretty much over in that if you pop up into an established firelane you are pretty much hosed. THis fits in well with my understanding of WW2 battles. Will get occasional outing (I say occasional since I prefer more toys on the table, so "mass skirmish" or Company level is probably my preferred level of game), but this being so innovative and so atmospheric that I'll definitely play it again. I just hope the rules could be better organized and some key concepts better explained (there's also a lot of wristage, since a 1 on 1 firefight can literally take forever).
Next up: Metal Storm WW2 (company level game) and Battlefield Evolution WW2...
Posted by msoong at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 30, 2008
WW2 Conundrum
I have long had problems with the many different scales of ww2 figures that I've collected over the years. Now I have:
- 20mm German/Russians (Old painted airfix and Hasegawa kits from the college days. Some fond memory but haven't really done much with them lately).
- 15mm German/US (Flames of War, build up a matching 1500 pts army so I can play).
- 1/48 German/US (started collecting some cheap Walmark tanks, followed by some recent sales purchase of Corgi 1:50 scale pre-painted metal. Also some Tamiya 1/48 hard plastic US & Ge infantry).
- 12mm N scale Ge/Ru (mostly World Tank Museum mixed in with Minifig infantry and early war tanks). Use them for Blkitzkrieg Commander and Ambush Blitz!, but waiting for a good set of "grand tactical/operational" rules (something in Bat/Div level of command) to use these for.
I am also constantly being bombarded by images from friend's Rapid Fire! games (Freddy has TONS of 20mm built for Arnhem), as well as lot of web site eye candies show casing cool looking 28mm or 20mm figures. Recently with the play of Disposable Heros rules at Historicon, upcoming release of Battlefield Evolution: World at War, and Rules of Engagement out of the UK, my eyes are firmly on the ww2 skirmish scale.
I want a set of rules that's on a simpler end (roll buck of D6 school of gaming is fine by me when it comes to skirmish level ww2). Now the question is with my Skirmish scale (20mm or 1/48), what do I want to do?
20mm PRO/CON
+ They are cheaper
+ I already have some Eastern Front figs and vehicles and wouldn't be hard to expand on them.
+ Lots of pre-painted cheap vehicle to be had
- Lack of "awesome quality" figures (AB is the standard setter, but they don't really have Russians. Their best range is UK/Commonwealth but I don't want to duplicate Freddies' collection). Fantassin comes close so I'll be doing some more research on them.
- Lack of terrain. ALl my buildings are for 12mm/15mm or 25/28mm. Trees & roads is not a problem, but I'll need to startup on HO scale buildings.
1/48
+ I have some figs and tank already
- There's less out there for vehicles.
- They cost more per figure
- The size seems to vary more. My Corgi 1/50 is about a head taller than my Tamiya 1/48, which are close enough to 28mm metals out there.
Current thought is that I can do BOTH scales, but carefully segregate them by period so I do not dup the figures. One obvious setup will be:
1/48 or 28mm scale: Late War Western Front, US Infantry vs Ge Infantry. Future expansion in this area can be Br Paras vs SS. All of these can share 1/48 or 1/50 vehicles.
20mm: Eastern Front with some different Ge variant (maybe Fallshirmjager?) vs Russians of all kinds.
Stilling thinking hard on this...
Posted by msoong at 02:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (5)
Ancient Update
The recent release of Field of Glory (FoG) has kicked the local gaming scene into an Ancient mood. In addition to a playtest of FoG (see last blog entry), Chris and I have also played a game of Armati II (same Romans vs Carthaginians setup) which I'll have an AAR/Review up shortly. Now I have bought a 15mm Xyston Pyrrhic army from Brookhurst (they are having a Xyston sale), and Chris bought a Corvus Belli Carthaginian army . We'll both be busy with these guys and in the mean time we'll be doing any playing with counters.
A brief note re 15mm: I got out of that scene a while back (sold all my 15mm Italian War, Han Chinese, etc.) mainly for lack of good rules and the fact that the 15mm figures just don't look that good. That has changed with Xyston, since they have the modern 25mm quality, carefully shrunken to a 15mm (more like 18mm) frame. They look great painted up using my block paint/magic dip painting style. Some pictures will be up shortly after my move is complete.
Another reason I went with 15mm is that the local scene for Ancients is almost exclusively 15mm (many are jazzed by FoG and are dusting up their old Ancient army, or building new ones, the local store even started carring Xyston inventory). I am forseeing 2008 as the year of the Ancients*
One problem with 15mm is that other than Xyston, not many others comes close to that standard (the new comer Splintered Light Miniatures comes close). I will probably go gaga if anyone ever comes out with Xyston quality figs for the Crusades period.
*I am also catching the ww2 bug, see next post....
Posted by msoong at 02:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)
February 29, 2008
Field of Glory AAR [Updated]
Once in a great while a set of rules becomes the "hot property" of the moment. A while back Warmachine came along and captured the hearts and minds of many disaffected Warhammer players in providing a deeper game. Then there's Flames of War which became the first set of historical rules to received a lot of people who used to play only scifi and fantasy. Now we have Field of Glory [FOG] who's trying to be the "gateway" game for Ancients.
FOG is published by Osprey books who's known to put out attractive and concise books on military history subjects. The first thing one would notice about FoG is its physical quality: It comes in a nicely printed hardback book, with nice thick quality pages and full color treatment (in fact it's better quality paper than their Osprey books). There are pages full of illustrations cribbed from their books, pictures of miniatures (somewhat uneven in quality), and some VERY nice full color diagrams which explains the various rules situations. If you are the type that gets seduced by eye candy in rules, FoG can't be beat.
Continue reading "Field of Glory AAR [Updated]"
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February 28, 2008
Update
Hello everyone, sorry about the lack of entries. Here's a brief update on what's going on in Milton's world....
1) Real World: has been a blur the last few month: I have a new job starting the beginning of Nov, Linda has a new position within her company, the house remodeling drags on (suppose to finish before thanksgiving '07, and now at end of February it is still not done), Somewhere in there I was also serving in the local grand jury. this explains a bit about the lack of update...
2) "new" periods: Due to influence from friend's kids, I got into 40k .."Uncle Milton, oh wise-one, please show us how to do this miniature gaming thing...". I bought the Space Marine megabox in late October, and by the new year I finished painting the entire box! (Probably a speed record for me). They still haven't seen any action yet as the kids are more into the modeling/painting aspect than playing, oh well...
Posted by msoong at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6)
August 01, 2007
Another Cool Service Discovered at Historicon
A service I didn't know existed, but something I've always wished for: A customer map making service! Go check out DSRGAMES For a reasonable fee, They can either print out some fancy map you have onto a giant plotter map, or for a few quid more you can give them what you want and they can use their design skill to print you a professional looking wargame map (always wanted that customer ASL monster scenario that you've researched on for the last 10 years? Here's your chance.
The blog also contains a lot of behind the scene entries which is fascinating...
Posted by msoong at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
July 31, 2007
The Prefect Period
While I was at Historicon, the thought of starting a new period has crossed my mind more than once. Being an engineer type, I tried to put down some "objective" (as if that's gonna be easy) criteria on how to go about this decision. Here it goes:
1. In 25/28mm or larger- I can no longer comfortably see in that scale anymore. So other than completing troops in 12/15mm that I already have, anything brand new which I start have to be a larger scale.
2. Something small-ish- i.e. My dream of re-starting on my 25mm Napoleonics again should be squashed quickly.
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July 30, 2007
Historicon '07
Note: I have not uploaded my pictures yet. Those will be coming this coming weekend…
Setting the Scene
The stars have aligned this year which allows me my 3rd ever East Coast convention trip: Wife is off overseas with the girlfriends, and I have airline miles to burn. So I took up Freddy’s offer as a roommate at the Host in Lancaster. Historicon, Here I come!
I have been good lately with my resolutions. I sold off a bunch of unplayed boardgames which financed my small foray into 1/48 Tamiya figures and a few Walmat 1/48 Pz IV tanks. Other than that I am content with all the “active” projects that I have (i.e. 25mm Ancients, 12mm WW2, 25mm Colonials, and some 15mm Flames of War on the side). I have a very small want list when arriving at Historicon (mainly rules) with no prospect of accidentally starting major projects. Life is good (and safe).
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July 15, 2007
Ambush Blitz! AAR
I have been looking for a fast play set of Non-skirmish oriented WW2 rules for a long time now. Something with more meat than Memoir '44, and less complicated than Command Decision and Spearhead (Flames of War is kinda in between scale and I am deliberately leaving it out here). Our little band tried Blitzkrieg Commander and was not too impressed. I decided to put on a a game Ambush Blitz! for our (somewhat) frequent summer Wednesday night game.
Now this is NOT a well known set of rules in these part of the world. I heard about it through a mention in TMP which tout it as "fast play WW2 using a hex grid". Further inquiry showed that it is supported through the 1/144 Yahoo group, and the author expressly designed the rules to be used with 1/144 (close to 10/12mm scale) figures. Since I have my massive horde of 1/144 armor force AND I am looking for a fast play set of rules, I decide to take the plunge and order the rules.
Continue reading "Ambush Blitz! AAR"
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