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
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
March 21, 2007
FoW American Mech Infantry Company
Here's a picture of my 1500 pt Flames of War American mech infantry company. (click through to see more pictures on my flickr site)
Posted by msoong at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FoW American Mech Infantry Company
Here's a picture of my 1500 pt Flames of War American mech infantry company. (click through to see more pictures on my flickr site)Posted by msoong at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2007
First fire for my FoW US Armor Company
This it, I've finally finished my 1500pts worth of Flames of War US Armor Co. (ok I cheated, I picked the US armor co mainly because I found the excellent Johnny Lightning diecast tanks which gave me a lot of painted Shermans in 1/100 scale for about $4.00 ea.). Without going through the min/max exercise that afflicts many of the FoW tourney play, I just build up a force and went at it.
Chris and I had our first game (my first game in about 1.5 years, and first time ever against someone that actually knows the rules) at GameKastle, the local FoW hangout (they have a FoW gamenight every wednesday night). It'll be first fire for these newly painted American troops (think Kasserine Pass)..
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ABOVE: American commander studying the war dept manual on what to so with German Assult guns that's setup in range...
...The results also approximate Kasserine Pass. I cannot do a proper blow by blow After Action Report since I am still in shell shock. So the following report resembles more of a flashback from the mental ward more than anything else...
Lesson number one: American Armor sucked. I was facing Chris's German Infantry Co which had attachment of Stug III and a lone Tiger tank. On my side I have two understrengthed Sherman Platoon (3 tanks ea.), and a M10 tank destroyer Platoon. We played a "meeting engagement scenario" where we take turns setting up our platoons one at a time. I made the mistake of setting up my Shermans with a clear los to the Stugs. Big mistake. First thing I learned is that for the future, Shermans has to be setup WAY hidden and then do the run and shoot routine.
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ABOVE: A tiger and its prey...
Lesson 2: Arty kills. For the whole game after the initial raft of dead Shermans, my Priest mobile artillery turns out to be my biggest assets. I was sitting back and bombarding anything that moves waiting for a break. It didn't ultimately work but the queen of the battlefield at least stabilized the situation for a while.
Lesson 3: US Infantry fire power rocks. I was timid with my lone mech Infantry unit. But whenever they stick their guns out to shoot, they get results. Next time I'll try a arty-> smoke -> infantry advance -> shoot Germans to pieces ploy...
Lesson 4: Big Platoon is a good thing. Americans have pretty feeble tanks (which means a platoon should have 4~5 tanks to stay afloat, not 3), and heavy fire powered infantry (which means a big platoon can dish out even more firepower which is how Americans can win). All my minimum sized platoons just didn't cut it.
Lesson 5: German Stormtruppen move rule is WAY broken. German units can pass a skill test (being Skilled Veteran it's 3+ on a D6) and then move 4" in the assult phase. That means they stick their head out of defensive position, take their shot, then stormtruppe move back into concealment to avoid American return fire. Nasty!
Lesson 6: Ditch the 37mm Gun and get some Bazooka! (self explanatory)
I am now tweaking my force into a US Mech Infantry with less tanks and more / fuller infantry platoon. A rematch is coming soon...
Posted by msoong at 05:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 10, 2006
Flames of War 2nd Edition
I have written about Flames of War a few times in this blog. It's now the defacto standard in ww2 gaming (at least in this corner of the world), and is the only historical game that really caught on. I know quite a bit of WH40k players who's now playing FOW instead.
There are many nay sayer re FOW as well, and the criticism are generally the same one leved against GW: The rules are simplistic, they are "dumbed down" for the masses, they have no command control rules, they are just a dicefest, etc. All the charges are all true, but they are also irrelevant IMO. FOW is a great gateway game that gets people (many of whom are previous fantasy gamers who wouldn't take a second look at historical stuff) playing historical game. The rules might be simple, but they do reward historical tactics. Rules and figures are well packaged so that people can get started without having to become an expert in WW2 TO&E.
In fact many old grognard in the club have converted. Long time Empire players are seen discussing the point cost justification of an Italian trench gun. Yes discussion might have more of a tournament slant where value/point cost becomes paramount, but the fact that people are now pushing lead instead of NOT pushing lead is IMO a good thing.
Another kudo for BattleFront (manufacturer of FOW) is how they went about releasing their 2nd edition rules. From my memory, every company that releases rules (be it the Evil Empire of Games Workshop, all the way to WRG of the historical folks), when a new edition comes out, your old stuff (usually just the rules, but sometimes rules changes are radical enough that entire army gets ditched because it's no longer effective) gets tossed out, and you get the pleasure of repaying full price for the rules and army list all over again.
This latest FOW 2nd edition release is a real class act and should be a lesson for all rules producer. I bring in my old first edition book into a retail store, they put a sticker on it, then hand me a 2nd edition book. That's it, no questions asked and no $$$ changes hand!
The army list upgrade is a bit more complicated, but still better than industry average. Instead of the normal rules upgrade where massive changes in rules usually cause some major overhaul in army list. In this case the changes are pretty minor, limiting it to price adjustment and small changes elsewhere (removal of the ronson rule makes Sherman much more competitive value-wise). You do have to pay for the new army lists ("source books"), but all the changes will be released as a free PDF download sometime in the future so the new books aren't strictly necessary.
When I first heard about the 2nd edition rules I though that great, it'll be some cheapo black and white staple together thing. Instead we are getting a full color, >130 pages worth of high quality stuff (albeit in a digest size so the print is a bit small). This "mini-me" rule book is complete, and is devoid of most fluff so it's actually preferred over the standard 2nd edition rulebook that'll be coming out within the month.
A quick glance through the 2nd edition rulebook shows that there are no major changes. Only some changes involving close assult, air strike, and clarification in hit assignment. All the changes either simplifies the rules, or just a clarification of existing stuff. A right direction IMO (not the disastrous path taken from SL to ASL)...
Now that I am reasonably enthused about these rules right now, I think the first of my WW2 rules playoff will use it. I have a few candidate for scenarios already and will finalize that soon.
Posted by msoong at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2006
WW2 Miniature Playoff
I've been collecting 1/144 prepainted plastic tanks for about three years now. With other purchases designed to fill in missing pieces (i.e. infantry, guns, truck: things that the Japanese model maker just aren't all that interested in. Most of the missing stuff are the excellent Minifig N scale figures) I now have enough to "do some cool stuff".
I have been using these figures to play Flames of War for the last year and a half. It's a fun "old style" game that's very Warhammer 40k-esque. It has the typical Games Workshop style of rules (i.e. roll to hit, roll to save, roll to damage. Buckets of D6 everywhere, and not too much command and control to speak of). Now don't get me wrong, tt's enjoyable to push tanks around and roll the dice and all that, but deep down inside my search for the elusive "perfect rules" persists.
I have always been a rules collector. With the recent interest in WW2 in the figure gaming market I have acquired the follow sets in addition to Flames of War. Many of them looks interesting, so now that my forces are almost done (all figures based and ground colored, all it needs is some base flocking), I plan to do a rules "play off" - select a "typical scenario", then play the same scenario using the different sets of rules to compare and contrast them. Of course I'll have a writeup here. The end result should also see me finally "settle" on a set of rules.
In no particualar order, the rules I wanted to try are:
Blitzkrieg Commander - (Quick start version of the rules free to download here). Probably the best of the lot in terms of physical presentation, and also the set I hold the most promise to be "the one". The book is printed in full color glossy paper, with some nice terrains and 10/12mm figures. The rules are well written (albeit written by wargamer for wargamer, so it's a less "chatty" style than typical WH rule or FOW) and there's very little in terms of errata and ambiguity. The author give very good support in terms of scenario downloads, answering questions, and providing tools on his website (there's even a computerized scenario builder where we can enter year, and force type desired, and it give you balanced forces for a desired scenario).
The command rule is based on the Warmaster command roll concept, where a commander can push his forces to do stuff as long as he make the dieroll, but the harder you push them the more difficult it gets. The basics are simple to understand, and it gives historical results. Thinking about it some it think it models 20th century warfare probably better than the original ancient/medival/fantasy roots. Definitely one to try first.
Axis and Allies Miniatures - Wotc want to cash in on the WIzkid led collectable miniature game fad, so they came out with D&D mini and Star Wars mini (both moderate hits I think. The local hobby shop has a SW mini night everytime I visit, which is more than any other non-GW minigame I've seen played in public). Now they think there's a untapped historical market waiting to be exploited. Then came A&A Miniature game (AAM).
I've commented on the quality (or the lack thereof) of the figures which is the main reason I decided NOT to collect the figures. In short they are ugly/distorted things, with bad paintjob compare to the excellent World Tank Museum stuff. Worst of all, the figures do not seem to be of the same scale against each other, so some tanks are 12mm, some are 15mm, and the figure is large 15mm. It's a big mess.
Luckily, the rules can be downloaded online, and all the unit stats and special unit "traits" can also be found on the Geek (seems like all modern mass market mini games are "traits" based now, where you get the basic rules as paid for, and then the unit card will give you traits/(rule breakers) that individualize the said unit. Having gone through the rules, they seem ok, if a little basic. It can be a step up for the Memoir '44 crowd and simpler than others in this list. Given that I've already made a 4" hex map grid and matching terrain tiles for my home made Command and Color Napoleonics game, it'll be easy to use the same setup to give this one a try...
Fields of Honor: WW2- Shane Lacey of Great White games have always produced some well thought out stuff that's off the beaten path. His miniature/RPG hydrid system: Savage Worlds is a system that I liked, and will do some RPG-lite/miniature game one of these days. Shane is also a historical mini gamer who came out with the original Field of Honor rules for the 19th century (Which I have played of course, being the editor of Savage and Soldier means any colonial rules set gets an airing at the Soong house). He also produced a AMerican War of Independence Mini/boardgame that never really caught on. Now that WW2 seems to be the hot period, out comes the WW2 version (available as a PDF download for a reasonable price).
The system is extremely simple (prob just a little more details than the Axis & Allies minis game). The command control mechanism is card based, where each higher formation has a card, and a turn of the card means that formation gets to move/combat. Unit thus activated can "hold" their turn until later, and can thus interrupt during another player's turn.
I've only flipped through the rules, and it looks like a simple and fun set. I've already spotted a lot of rules ambiguity such as details on movement (there's one paragraph on movement, and no mention on the details: Do you move straight forward and then pivot around the corners to turn? Or do you just move disregarding facing? Being someone around the block means that I can easily interpret the rule in any of 10 different conventions of simply "moving a unit". The whole "hold and interrupt" concept can also use some clarification/example (i.e. what happens when both of us have hold units, and I interrupt one of your move? Can you in turn interrupt my interrupt move? Not clear). A list of Questions to the author is forth coming...
Division Commander - This is another PDF purchase that looks promising. It's a bit different from all the rules mentioned above (which are all tactical in scale) is that this is a much higher scaled game. You run one of many "divisions" and each unit is a battalion I think. It also use a "draw a card from the deck and specified unit gets to do stuff" method of command and control. There's also activation dieroll to simulate frictions of continuous operation. This could be my ticket if I ever have the urge to try Gamer's OCS for some reason...
Next task, flock the bases, and then pick out a scenario...
Posted by msoong at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
Kursk AAR (Flames of War)
For our 2nd outing of Flames of War, I decided on a game modeled on the battle of Kursk (Since my forces are tank heavy, AND they are Eastern Front exclusively, seems like a logical choice). I eschewed all infantry and had a Tank only force for both side. The point total is set at 2,500.
The Germans have a small force of PzIII, PzIV, PzV, and a single Elephant (a very expensive unit that), vs a Soviet force of 3x T-34 companies and a unit of SU-152, and a unit of KV-1. The scenario chosen is the Meeting Engagement scenario downloaded from the FoW website.
The game moved at a fast clip, with the T-34's darting about at 32" a turn. The Soviets decided to charge in the T-24's toward their objective and engage in close range combat against the Pz-III. Recognizing that PzIII vs T-34 is a losing proposition, I (playing the Nazis this time) wisely retreated out of the way (thankfully the T-34s can not do a double move and fire due to their two man turrets). The German right-flank is in jeopardy as the Commies closed in on their objective.
The next tuen the Germans rolled lucky on the reinforcement dieroll, and have their Pz-IV reinforcement come in right where the T-34s are. Some close range gun play ensued, with most of the Pz-IV and most of the T-34 mutually destroyed.
Meanwhile the PzIII who escaped the T-34 decided to advance to capture the objective on Russian left, and the PzV are cleaning up the Rusian right. Coupled with the lack of ability for the Russians to bring on Reinforcement, the Germans won the day after the Commies failed their battalion morale.
The 2nd game confirmed my observation from the first game that it's much harder to play the Russains well (as they manuever in front of the deadly Ge tanks with armor that can't be penetrated by Ru guns from their frontal armor. Ru will have to do some serious hide and seek manuever just to have a fighting chance, and if one if playing wiuth the new Stalingrad rules, the new Sov rules hampers their tank forces even more. I'll have to try out the Ru forces again to see if the balance of power is broken...
Posted by msoong at 04:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 20, 2004
Memoir '44
Our friday night German game group contains a lot of ex-hardcore hex wargamers, and we still get to play "light" wargames when there's a suitable candidate. The new Days of Wonder release of Memoir '44 seems to fit the bill.
I have the original Battle Cry Civil War, and I was even interested enough in the system to order the Napoleonic variant from the designer (for pictures of my Albuera game is here). But ultimately I found the system wanting. (I can imaging the same use of cards to bring about a more historical tactics, instead of the "move right/left flank" cards that you currently get). I still enjoy it as a light "game" for non-wargamer though (and the designer Richard Borg is a good egg, and his endeavor is worth supporting).
Our group decided to do a double board Omaha Beach scenario, and since we only had 6 players that night, that means all of us are in (three players per side). Now a beach assault scenario is not my first choice of an intersting scenario (I much prefer maneuver battle to a headlong attack onto bunkers type), but it's one that all 6 of us can play, so there we went.
The scenario specific rules are pretty interesting: The commander in chief of each side draws 2 cards each turn, and can give up to 1,2, or 3 cards to the other players (with no more than 2 cards to any single player), and that's actually pretty interesting decisions to be made. The rest of us grunts have less choices: We get a card (or none) from our superior, and we execute it. There's no choice to save the card fo r future use.
The actual card play are classic Battle Cry though: Infantry is pretty much unchanged, and Tanks are kinda like cavalry (but with more powerful range attack and has a overrun capability). Artillery is pretty much the same except can ignore LOS blockage. Movement is still the "right/left/center flank" variety. There are no account for combined armed attack (which IMO can be added quite simply by cards that allows inf/armor/guns to attack in conjunction with some added bonus die).
One improvement for Memoir '44 is the card deck itself, as there are a lot more intereting stuff in it (things like airstrike, artillery attack, etc.) Things that I see as a good way to simulate the wild and woolly part of a WW2 battlefield in a elegant manner.
The game started out as a slaughter for the GI on the beach. Artillery is just deadly (scenario special rules makes a certain types of card to be a powerfull offboard artillery bombardment for either player) which is a bad thing for the Yanks who's wading ashore.
After the troops made it to the beach however, we started to kill off the German defenders with some serious number of dice roll. At the end I think the Allies lost 5 to 6 to a much closer game.
All in all it's Battle Cry improved, and with the smaller footprint (a serious factor for us with storage space issues), a tempting target to replace my ACW Battle Cry game, once I resolved to sell off my ACW copy...
Posted by msoong at 09:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 11, 2004
Flames of War
I am a big fan of the 1/144 collectable tanks from Japan (another excellent site, in English, here). Over the past year or so I must of accumulated more than 300 of these little critters, waiting to see some action. Looking for a good set of rules was more of a problem since I am looking for something quick and relatively simple (I just wanted to shoot my tanks!)
Two new set caught my attention: Blitzkrig Commander (with a command system based on Warmaster, which I liked), and of course, Flames of War, the new miniature phenom.
Nowadays when I walk into D&J Hobbies (one of the few hobby shops around here of any consequences) in the past, you see a lot of Warhammer/40k players discussing the latest Games Workshop release with the clerks. Most customers are the young set, with only occasional glimpse of the old farts like me. Nowadays all these young-uns are gathering around discussing the relative merits of a PzIV vs a Sherman, quite an amazing sight. The most prominent miniature display case used to be for GW product (with a smattering of Foundry figures), now that place of honor is occupied by FoW blister packs.
I finally had enough 12mm infantry finished to go with my horde of tanks, and they are ready for action! I tried a demo game at Cold Wars and I liked what I saw, so using FoW for the first ww2 game I put on seems like a good way to go.
Chris, Phil, and myself gathered for a Late War Eastern front "Hold the Line" scenario. (see photo album here) I designed the forces for both sides: The Russians have 1 platoon (actually a company) of T-34, 1 platoon of T-34/85, and two platoons of infantry. The Germans have a small platoon of Panther, 1 platoon of Pz-IVJ, and 1 platoon of panzergrenadier mounted on halftrack. Phil and I are defending as the Russians, and Chris's got the Germans on the attack (Why is the Germans on the attck in '44 you ask? So I made up some probable cause about overzealous Russians who outran their supplies, and the Germans decided on a local counter attck to capture the Russian fuel depot).
We had our 9x T-34 setup in the middle of the board, which looked like it's far enough away from the attacking Germans that we'll have time to maneuver to the German flank. How wrong we are! We made the mistake of not looking at the combat factors of the tanks before we setup. It turns out that the T-34 have 0% chance of causing any damage through the Panthers frontal armor, and have 0% chance of making an armor save against the 75mm gun from the Panther. So even given the fact that the Germans had to fire after movement (thus having their RoF lowered to a 1), and they get a clear shot at us after just the opening move, they managed to whack about 3~4 tanks after turn 1.
Things went downhill from there. The T-34 is looking for a hiding place while waiting for the T-34/85 to come on (in a Hold the Line scenario 1/2 of the defenders troops started out as off-board reserve, and have to dice to come in). When the T-34/85 finally came on they decided that we have to play cat and mouse with the Germans, and have to do some flank move in conjunction with the surviving T-34 in order to have any chance at all. The maneuver begin to pay off when we tok out a Panther and 3 Pz-IV from close range, but time is not on our side.
One platoon of Russian infantry had to double time in order to void a certain German victory when the Germans main attack force arrived at the fuel depot (if the Germans starts out within 2" of a victory objective while there are no Russians within 4" of it, then game over). It turns out that getting shot in the open is quite deadly (shooter gets 2x the dice). The game ended when 2 of the 4 Russian formations bolted to rear after morale failure.
A good time was had by all. In hindsight any T-34 facing Panthers (or even nastier cats) is to hide far far away (and I mean no LOS possibility after 1 or 2 turns), and then play the maneuver game. We also might want to try airpower, since a Sturmovik ought to do wonders against a tanks top armor...
Posted by msoong at 09:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack