Posted in Uncategorized
at 12:51 pm
Last weekend at the Lonewolf tournament I had a chance to play in a
game using the beta rules for Secrets of the Third Reich (SoTR) by
Westwind and Gotterdamerung Studios.The game involved 7 players and
took about 1 1/2 hours to play (that included a walk through of the
rules required to play). The first picture shows the terrain we were
on. I think that SoTR will play well on a board with lots of places to
move and shoot from and to. Standard 25 to 32 mm based terrain stuff
will work fine but I think that the HO scale stuff will be too small.
You
can see some of the miniatures in their starting positions. Being the
dapper gentleman that I am, I got to play the well dressed werewolfs
seen in the lower left of the photo. The terrain was a mix of
Armorcast, MBA, and scratch built stuff (the tower in the background is
a GW castle piece with a scratch built top.) The force was a mix – the
kid in this photo (Comrade Burrski) had two snipers, to his rtight was
an American squad, on around corner-clockwise with the fuzzy Dr. Martin
is a German rockettrupp figure with two supports. To the left of the
werewolfs was another American squad of 8-10 guys (Bobby), and around
to the next position clockwise was a German squad with an LMG and a
couple of riflemen (Matt).
The
next picture shows Jim Bailey placing the zombies in the town and
environs. They are scattered out but do have two minders that control
them to some degree. The general rule of thumb, however, is that
zombies move towards the closest living enemy they can smell.
Here
Jim is showing us the objective – be the first to get to the piano and
play it with no zombies nearby or in contact with you. I suppose music
hath charms that soothe the savage undead breast as well. But what the
hey, it was a good objective in the center of the table.
Here
you can see the American squad that was two places from me to the
right. He benefits from a limited amount of cover here but it does no
good as the zombies don’t have weapons. Line of Sight is what the
figure can actually see even through windows, doors, and so on.
How a zombie got to the second floor, I’ll never know (use the
appropriate Groucho Marx voice with that part of the paragraph)! Jim
painted almost all of the figures we used and they were beautiful!
Nicely sculpted by Andy Cooper, the details really shine when a painter
like Jim gets hold of them. The Seperate Head System (SHS) is a nice
touch, too, allowing for multiple variants of poses.
Matt’s
forces are shown here looking toward the village. A daunting prospect,
needless to say. I think the rounded bases add to the look of the
figures and allow for lots of creativity. Again, note the care Jim
lavished on the miniatures. He’s disgusting!
Being
a retired ex-military type, I started out in the woods at the edge of
the board with my two wolves. I did not get initiative, but I don’t
remember who did on the first turn. To determine who goes first, each
player rolls a die and the high number goes first in movement and
shooting. We then proceeded clockwise around the table. I don”t know if
that part of it was a demo event rule or one in the rules. You can move
and fire or fire and then move, your choice. The Americans to my right
and the German rockettrupp chose to fire and remain where they were.
Neither could hit the broad side of a barn! The effect was to stir up
the zombies and have them move towards the firers.
Each
rifle/semi-automatic rolls one dice and each automatic rolls multiple
dice. If a 4-6 comes up, then you roll again for damage. A 6 is a
headshot/kill, a 4-5 is a knockdown. The next turn, you roll for the
figure to see if it gets up with a fleshwound (1-3), stays down (4-5)
or dies (6). You can see the zombies perambulating across the
battlefield in this picture!
At this point in the game, I was allied informally with the Americans
to my left (he had no choice – I was his ride home from Dallas) and the
Russian Snipers. This was an alliance of convenience, as both the
American and Russian knew that I would screen them from the zombies
while they could use their fire to kill them off. In this picture, the
American squad is preparing to drop down off of the hill.
The
Rockettrupp remained in position as the armored soldat attempted (and
failed miserably) to bring down any zombies. This, of course, was his
second turn, as on the first, he had fired at the Americans to his left
for chuckles and grins and knocked one down! There was a lot of good
and otherwise natured ribbing going on on that flank!
I slaughtered the zombies to my front with my dark werewolf, rolling
two sixes for my damage rolls. Pieces of zombie went everywhere,
including onto the other werewolf who was knocked down by two zombies!
The Russian snipers took down a couple of zombies so I was in pretty
good shape.
Next turn my white wolf leapt back on his feet and carried on
with the mission! This was a good thing, because even though my dark
wolf had rampaged through the zombies to his front and carried on into
the piano, my erstwhile Russian ally killed it with a headshot! Hmm….
The white wolf diverted for a bit and bit the head off of the closest
sniper that did the shooting! A quick note on hand to hand. The wolves
each got two dice to roll for attacks – 1 as a base, and another since
they had teeth and claws. The zombies each got 1… unless they had more
than one in contact with the enemy. Then, for each additional attack,
they got an extra dice! It behooves you to not get into hand to hand
with zombies unless you have a lot of support!
The
white wolf continued his rampage towards the center of town while the
other squads were having difficulties. Matt’s German LMG team and
soldaten whiffed twice and did little damage to the zombies facing him.
Dr. Martin’s high-tech guys decided to run off the board due to a
failed terror check followed shortly thereafter by Matt’s group. They
then let Dr. Martin play the zombies and we figured we had a sure win!
(A terror check is taken when horrors get within 6 inches. You had to
roll a 7 or less on two dice to stay!)
The
next turn, I got to the piano once again! And then that blasted Commie
shot me again! I was out of the game… but the laugh was mine, however,
for as the two American squads closed on the objective, the zombies
closed on them! The situation at the end is shown in the final picture
below. Duane, the American player to my right, and I were declared the
winners as we had actually touched the piano at some time during the
game.
Although
both of my allies bailed on me, the Russian sniper hurt me the worst.
Revenge was sweet, however, as he left his tape measure on the table
when the game ended. I had sold it to him that morning and I told Bobby
that I’d just sell it to him again tomorrow when he was looking for a
new one. Sure enough, the next day, his father came by and said “we
need to buy another tape measure since he left it on the table and
someone picked it up.” I laughed and told him that I did have another
one and started walking with him to my vendor’s table. Before we got
there, I told him I had picked it up and gave it back to him. He
laughed (we have been at several tournaments together and are good
friends) and he went over to his son and told him that someone had
picked it up. What was funny was the next line to his son – “give me my
money back that I gave you to buy a new tape measure!”
My overall impression of the rules was very favorable. They were quick
to learn and led to a fast-paced game. I think that platoon level will
be the most you can play with at this point as there are a lot of
decisions to make each turn. It will be interesting to see how vehicles
will be integrated and how the different arms will interact. Oh, and
the figure to the right? Just another of Jim’s cool Westwind
miniatures! You can get more info on SoTR on
the forums.
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09.22.07
Posted in Uncategorized
at 9:53 pm
The battle here is one I played at Victory Games in Lubbock, TX with Tim Fitzpatrick. We used his collection of ACW miniatures and terrain, thus the name of the battle (and, forgive me for spoiling the suspense, because he won the game!). I set the terrain up to represent a hilly, mountainous area. Since all we had to play on was a four by six foot table, we limited the sides to a corps each. I commanded the Union and Tim the Confederates.
Union OB
Corps Commander
Division 1
Commander
Artillery Battery
5 stand Zouave brigade
6 stand brigade
6 stand brigade
Division 2
Commander
Artillery Battery
Exceptional Brigade Commander with 8 stand brigade
6 stand brigade
6 stand brigade
Division 3
Commander
Artillery Battery
6 stand Brigade
6 stand brigade
Confederate OB
Corps Commander
Division 1
Commander
Two Artillery Batteries
8 stand brigade
8 stand brigade
8 stand brigade
Division 2
Commander
Two Artillery Batteries
8 stand brigade
8 stand brigade
8 stand brigade
The OBs and terrain were laid out before we determined who would enter from what end. We rolled to determine this and both sides entered from the short ends of the table.
Union Left Flank
My initial plan was to run a division up to the left-center of the board, form line, and defend a small town that was blocking the Confederate route of advance.
The Confederate plan was, apparently, to hold in the center and make a strong effort with both flanks.
Union Right Flank
My plan got off to an uneven start. My left flank units moved up to the town, and due to the buildings, I had the units more strung out than I desired and thus one brigade was out of supporting distance of the other. On my right, the same things occured but with disastrous results.
The Confederate commander immediately launched a two brigade attack against the brigade he could strike on my left. Fortunately for me this was the brigade with the attached battery and his attack was beaten off with moderate losses (see the second and third pictures in the left column). On my right, however, his artillery and infantry fire combined to immediately reduce my front line brigade from a "fresh" status (see the two pictures above). He launched an attack the following turn that routed the brigade off the board. The next turn, he turned his guns against the other brigade and hammered them so badly that they fled and had to reorganize in a worn status almost at their start point.
In an attempt to salvage the situation, I decided to change my plan and defend on the right with a brigade from my center division and attack in the center and on my left. The attack took a couple of turns to develop and when it went in it was amazingly… blah….
My center attack got hit from the right by two Confederate batteries, and although I pushed the Confederate division back, I was unable to break it.
My right flank brigade held out heroically, but after a couple of turns of concentrated artillery and volley fire, they joined their bretheren off the table.
On the left, I had better success, coming close to destroying two enemy brigades and reducing the combat effectiveness of another to almost spent status. Combat was hot and heavy and both Corps Commanders were thrown into the battles.
At this point we called the game as it was obvious that the Confederates, with two fresh and large brigades coming up onto the rear of my corps, were about to clear the roads to Washington. This was my third game with Fire and Fury rules and I must admit that I have enjoyed all of them. They are quick to learn, give good results in a short time, and don’t put a whole lot of drain on your brain with fire and morale calculations. They are not generally available, however, and you will have to get them here in Lubbock from Victory Games or online from Wargames, Inc. in Tridelphia, PA.
Here are some of the lessons I have learned so far (rules-wise, not historically). Positions with artillery in support or infantry in supported line are nigh on impossible to take with a straight attack. These positions have to be pounded by artillery for many turns to reduce the ability of the brigades to hold. If they are behind entrenchments then even more time is required. This complicates things for the attackers as Union brigades are very fragile if played at historical strengths. Confederates have more of an advantage here as they get a +1 on their die rolls when charging and generally they are of a larger size and so have to lose more to become spent or worn. Even they will suffer from losses when coming in, however.
I have not played with the cavalry in a game but I can see how the rules force you into using them historically. Mounted charges against a fresh enemy would be suicidal. There best use, therefore, would be as mounted infantry to move forward and seize and hold a place till the infantry can come forward and relieve them. (Wait… let’s see… Sam Elliot as Buford… Gettysburg… relieved by Reynolds… wow, deja vu all over again….)
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