WW1 Skirmish Rules: Playtest 5

Hi guys,

It has been 2 months since I played my last playtest - or at least  it was 2 weeks back when I played this game and wrote this post. Yup, it took me 2 weeks to put photos in and slightly edit the text I've written while playing the game.

Anyway, the rules were being worked on and have now reached a point where I can confidently call them 'draft 1'. No, not 'version 1', draft. As in they now include more or less everything I wanted in a game and it is time to see how it works out. Scenarios and victory conditions still need to be done, but the core game should be fine now.

For those unaware, the rules are intended to play with something like 20-30 miniatures per side and should (that is the intention, at least) encourage players to engage in melee. If anyone would like to give them a run, please contact me via the form on the right ->->->->->

This particular game, as I imagine it, would look something like this:
1 - Assault troops attack
2 - Defenders launch a defensive bombardment
3 - Defenders counterattack

As usual, I am making things up as I go.

Attackers forces:

4 men Shock unit (assault troops)
4 men Shock unit
4 men flamethrower
4 men light machine gun unit

3 turns after the initial attack, attacking infantry is scheduled to consolidate trenches:

3 units of 4 men with rifles each.

They appear on a roll of 3+, all at once.

Defenders forces:

2 men sentry unit
2 men sentry unit
2 men sentry unit

Additionally, they get support from one off board HMG flanking the trenches.

When assault troops enter first trenches (4" into the defender's half of the table), defenders get an artillery barrage.

The barrage is followed by the main counter attack:

4 men assault troops
4 men assault troops
4 men rifles

They appear on a roll of 4+, all at once.

Additionally, every turn before the main counter attack force arrives (after the bombardment), on a roll of 2+ a local force emerges from the dug outs, attacking from any board edge except the attacker's (randomly determined).

This 'force' consists of 2 men armed with rifles.

Everyone is rated 4+/4+, except both sides assault troops that are rated 3+/4+.

Game lasts for 8 turns, at which point VPs are counted:

Each opponent killed - 1 point
Each opponent captured - 3 points

Attackers control defender's forward sap - 10 points
Attackers control defender's first trench - 20 points
Attackers control defender's second trench - 30 points

Defenders control their second trench - 10 points
Defenders control their first trench - 20 points.
Defenders control their forward sap - 30 points.

THE GAME:

Markers:
Yellow indicates modifier to save due to action or terrain (1-3)
Orange indicates unit activated already (or failed to do so).
Blue indicates 'On guard' status.
Red indicates suppressed units.
Green indicates penalty to saving roll due to terrain

DEPLOYMENT

The barrage has lifted and the six sentries, fortunate enough to have survived the bombardment, have signaled for help at the sight of advancing assault troops.

Attacker has divided his troops (top down): shock unit, LMG unit, flamethrower (paras), shock unit.

TURN 1

I gave the attackers the first turn, given they launched the attack.

Attackers all activated and pushed forward. Shock and flamethrower units are armed with pistols and could not fire. LMG made use of  'marching fire' rule to suppress the forwardmost defenders.

I love this miniature and it fits perfectly as a stand-in!

Defenders were less lucky as the suppressed unit lost its chance to activate and the other two failed to do so and went 'on guard.

TURN 2

Defenders won the initiative and previously suppressed unit activated. To buy them some time, they withdrew and fired their rifles at the LMG unit, as it was standing out in the open. They both missed.

Middle unit also activated and fired at the LMG unit, hit one but failed to produce a casualty (hit was saved).

Last one failed to activate and went on guard.

Attackers had a bit more moderate luck, as upper two units (shock, LMG) failed to activate and bottom two surged forward, flamethrower engaged the defenders. A burst of flame was enough to convince the defenders this battle is lost and they surrendered!

Flamethrower!

Defenders that were on guard now opened fire at the flamethrower unit and killed one of the crew.

TURN 3

Turn 3 marks the timed arrival of the follow up infantry, which failed to keep pace with the assault troops (roll failed).

In the same turn, defenders off-board HMG opened fire in the area in front of the barbed wire, catching all 4 of the attacking units in its beating zone.

The problem: 6" wide corridor at any angle might be a bit of an over kill!

Resolving the impact from bottom up, shock unit didn't lose any of its members and was not suppressed by the barrage; flamethrower lost a member, but was not suppressed; LMG lost a member but was not suppressed; shock unit didn't lose any member but was suppressed.

Initiative was won by the defenders again. Both units activated and fired at flamethrower (1 man killed) and LMG unit (no effect).

Attackers successfully activated flamethrower's lone survivor who jumped over the barbed wire and continued down the trench.

One of the shock units moved to the wire with an intention to cut it, rather than trying to jump over it - this will also make a passage for the reserves that are bound to arrive sooner or later.

The LMG team is making great use of its marching fire as it pushed forward and suppressed another of the defender's units. While this fire can't grant kills, it is a god way to force the defenders to keep their heads down.

Last of the shock units failed to activate and keeps hiding in one of the shell holes!

TURN 4

The reserves arrived!

The problem: I neglected tackling accurate rules for support. In previous games they were unit by unit dripplets and getting support equaled activating the unit. This time, I played it that successful roll for reserves brought supports to table edge (just outside it) and a successful activation would bring them on board.

Defenders won the initiative again, but fail to activate their first unit.

Attackers activated the wire-cutting shock unit first and it cuts the wire sufficiently. Flamethrower's lone survivor activates next and moves forward, eager to lob some grenades. He must have been the last on the list of dedicated bombers, however, as he failed miserably.

Two-left-hands Joe did not pay attention at the bombing practice

Attacker's other shock unit, the lazy one, failed to activate again. As it is suppressed its members simply sit it out in the shell hole. This reverts initiative to the defenders, who activate and kill two of the wire cutting shock troops!

Attacker's LMG activated again and moved a bit closer into what looks like a good position to hold the line from. The LMG didn't fire but two of the crewmen fired their rifles at top defenders, hitting both and killing one.

Only one of the reserves activated and the unit sprinted in one of the old saps, to close in with the defenders.

TURN 5

Defenders won the initiative again and failed to activate its unit.

Keeping the mid defenders suppressed is a good chance to get them to surrender, but the attackers are still too far away. Flamethrower crewman fired, but missed again.

...nor on the shooting range.

All attacking units, except for the two reserves that failed to activate last turn, now activated. Apart from some shooting without effect, they just closed in.

The last remaining defender's unit failed to activated.

The problem:  I have the attackers at the level of the first trench in the sap (flamethrower), but to make it easier to determine who controls the trench, I decided this does not yet count as them being in the trench itself.

TURN 6

The attackers won the much needed initiative this time, and the flamethrower lone survivor activated. Inspired by the thought of a medal, he surged forward and captured the startled defenders!

Prisoners of war!

The top shock unit, that gained a reputation for laziness earlier has now activated and bombed the last defender - time to push forward!

While the board was empty of defenders, some attackers pushed as far forward as possible, while those that failed the activation went on guard to wait for the incoming counter attack.

Yet, even now one of the  reserves failed to activate for the first time.

TURN 7

The defenders have signaled that enemy has broken into one of their trenches! Not long after the rockets were fired, barrage felt on the area.

Mind, as this game is played on such a small area, the bombardment covers whole table, if the defenders would not have all been removed from play by now, they would have been hit as well.

The effects of bombardment were determined from defenders edge towards the attackers as follows:

2 men  shock unit - 1 man dead, not suppressed
1 man flamethrower - dead
4 men shock unit - no casualties, not suppressed
4 men reserves 1 - 2 dead, suppressed
3 men LMG - no casualties, suppressed
4 men reserves 2 - 1 dead, not suppressed
4 men reserves 3 (waiting to enter board) - no casualties. Mind, I rolled for them as usual, seeing they are 'close by', why would they be spared?

The main counter attack does not yet arrive, but from near by, two defenders rushed to delay the tide!

While the initiative was won by the defenders, they failed to activate.

Attackers used the time to find better positions, go on guard and so on - except, of course, for the reserves unit 3, that still didn't show up!

TURN 8

Whistles were sounded as the counter attack force made its approach!

The attackers have not only won the initiative, but also managed to activate every single of their units in the anticipation of defenders' arrival.

The defenders jumped on the attackers and the advancement of two assault troops ended in one of the attackers (lone survivor shock unit) fallen as a casualty to grenades.

Large, 4 men rifles unit that was with the counter attacking force also moved down the safety of the deep trenches, lobbed their grenades at one of the attacker's reserve units and while scoring two hits and forcing a suppression test, failed to get any kills or at least to suppress them.

Small defenders unit failed to activate.

Now, at the start of the game I said the game would last for 8 turns, but as the game has only really started on  the 8th turn, I decided to end it on 10th  (okay 12th at start, but then I got tired of playing and concluded at 10).

Should  the game have ended now, the result would be:

Attackers: sap (10), first trench (20), kills (2), prisoners (12) = 44 VPs
Defenders: second trench (10), kills (7+ 5 bombardment), prisoners (0) = 23 VPs

This seems hardly fair perhaps, as the attackers took so long to initiate the defenders bombardment.
If we also count the troops deployed: 28 attackers versus 20 defenders and add the difference (8) to the defenders (to  even the field), the result would be 44 versus 31, for a good attacker's win.

TURN 9

Defenders won the initiative, but their bombers failed to activate.

Attacker's reserves that were subjected to grenading last turn now returned the favour and killed 2 of the defenders!

Attacker's surviving shock unit moved up some shell holes in the trench system and bombed one of the defenders bombers. As the tradition goes, they scored 3 hits but failed both to suppress the target unit and to remove any figures from play!

The rest of the attackers units either activated and moved forward or failed to do so and went on guard, ready to cut down any defenders bold enough to climb out of their deep trenches.

Defenders, too had a changing luck with activations. Notably, the larger rifles unit activated within assault distance of the enemy, but out of sight. So instead of engaging in melee, they had to move down the trenches and opened fire, killing one.

The smaller of the defender's units now activated  and lobbed grenades at the aforementioned enemy unit, killing another one.

A close up on trench junction. Slovenes were stand-ins for the defenders.

TURN 10

The defenders won the initiative yet again and the larger of the rifle units tried to activate in order to assault the attackers. They failed, which produced an awkward situation.

They were in LOS and within 6'' of the enemy, but there was also a friendly unit within 6" and LOS. The rules state the unit does not surrender if there are more friendly units within LOS and 6" than Enemy units, but as there's 1 of each it surrenders.

Had I gave it a thought earlier, I would delay the activation of this unit, because the attacker might fail his activation and give himself up to the defenders instead. Alas, 2 prisoners for the attackers!

Upper duo surrendered!

Attackers shock unit moved forward just slightly to avoid being confronted by two of the defender's assault units and kept lobbing grenades into one of them, scoring a kill. It is better for the attackers to wear down the defenders (who are the ones attacking at this point), making the melee easier.

Defender's bombers disappointed as they failed to get any hits with their pistols and bombs.

Other unit emerged from the dug out they were in and threw a salvo of grenades towards the enemy shock troops. In all fairness, I forgot to do that with the attacker the turn before. Anyway, they scored 6 hits which were distributed between the 4 men so that two got two hits each and two got one each. Now, they were saving on 5+ and both of the former made it, while both of the latter failed them! Ugh!
¨The explosions were enough to suppress the unit.

The last of the defenders units, the smallest one, activated and moved to the cursed junction, where their friends surrendered to the enemy just moments ago. While they did not surrender, they missed their shots and the lone attacker survived - will he be able to capture them as well?

Well, as it turned out - no. He failed his activation and raised his hands. First prisoner for the defenders!

Attacker surrendered this time.

The rest of the attackers did nothing worth mentioning.

So, after another 2 turns, the end result is:

Attackers: sap (10), first trench (20), kills (5), prisoners (18) = 53 VPs
Defenders: second trench (10), kills (11+5 bombardment), prisoners (3) = 30 VPs

If I continued, the defenders with fresh shock units would defenitely wipe out the attackers at least in the first trench. While LMG is a formidable weapon, it is night useless when troops are fighting in the trenches, out of line of sight.

POST GAME THOUGHTS:

Well,  I inevitably become bored sooner or later when playing solo, but this is not the rules fault. This is perhaps rare with me, but I am VERY satisfied with how the rules work. I was a bit surprised at the power of six sentries, but that was in part my fault for slowly advancing, when I should instead run to the wire, cut it and get across by turn 5 the latest (as opposed to turn 8 as it was).

While there was no melee fought (in the one chance I had, the sentries surrendered before I'd roll to hit), I found surrender rules to work very well. There were not that many prisoners that the game would have been broken and I am really satisfied with them.

Except for grenade salvo (where every member of the team throws a grenade), grenades don't seem too powerful at all, and as for salvo - c'est la vie?

The off board support worked fine, the machine guns are a nuisance more than a real threat and the bombardment, while devastating covers up whole table and can hurt the defenders as well. As the rules stand at the moment, the owning player decides from where to the end of the board bombardment would hit, which is honestly a bit too much of a good thing. Joe offered some ideas for random hits, which I have yet to look into - but so far I am quite satisfied with the saturation of the whole board.

Reserves I am not sure about yet - they would certainly come en masse, but when they fail to activate it is a bit of a buzz kill. Still - why give them free activation?

Lastly, small units of two or even just one man seem to do just fine. This is another great thing, I never understood what good does having 100 miniatures per side do.

I suppose this was another of the long posts, where I mostly talk to myself. If it helps, I finished three initial dollies for my sculpts and started working on the rifley YET again. More on that at a later date!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

WW1 Skirmish rules: Playtest 4

Hi guys,

Long overdue I finally played another test game. I am getting progressively lazy so I decided to limit myself to a 2x3 board once again. The size suffices for my current needs, but I imagine game being played on a larger board, so there are more venues of approach, which makes moving more than just means to get closer to the enemy and it saves games from being a one trick pony frontal assaults.

I am aware it's a bit pointless to talk about the rules you haven't seen yet, but I would wish to have them finished-not-polished before I show them, because things literally change from day to day even now.

The biggest change from earlier games is that I've dropped the concealment + cover modifiers. It was a hard choice, because I really liked the variation it produced, but the added complexity made it all a bit too awkward.
Now,  shooting unit's ability to shoot never changes, which is justified by the logic that unit's expertise limits the model's chance to hit an intended target area as it is. Obstructions in LOS due to terrain are also ignored, as this leads to nothing but arguing in the game. Or at least that is my experience - true LOS sounds great until one argues he can see your standing miniature through a crack in the wall, but you can't see his crawling one.

To avoid that, what matters is where the target unit is at the time of being shot at, which then improves or worsens the targeted model's saving roll. Every model has a generic saving roll, so there's always a chance for a lucky escape. Additionally, some weapons can lower that save or ignore it all together. It's all a bit abstract, but it helps with high rate of fire and survivability of small units. Well, or doesn't as there's so many more hits now.

To test the new mechanics, I played a quick game where two rifle units and a HMG are defending against the attacker with 2 bomber units, supported by LMG (to test new weapons), supported by a reserve of 2 rifle units.

THE GAME

I used my modern Slovenes and cold war Germans to act as proxies. I have to admit I am really happy to be using them, albeit as proxies.

 Defender's rifle units were positioned right next to the wire, with a HMG some distance behind.
Attackers were simply left off board, this seems to work just fine so far.

One thing I keep pondering about is how machine guns would fire down the flank of the line, so they should not really be in a game like this, but an off-board machine gun rule of some sort would have to be implemented. When a HMG would be on board for the defenders, it should ideally be positioned for flanking fire somewhere off table, and thus have little effect on the game played.
For now, I've accepted that shouldn't be forced, game is just a game after all and I for one always liked my machine gun models. 

With a gradual introduction of means to deal with machine guns, including (off table?) infantry guns, I suspect players would be more eager to try and conceal machine guns behind some kind of terrain.

Massive 'points difference' in the two armies - can the defence hold?

I am no fan of markers, but as I'm playing alone and considering the rules and what not at the same time, I am finding them very useful to remind me what I was doing. This is even more important because this drawn board gets quite confusing at time.

Just for the sake of my own consistency, here are the beads I used:

Yellow indicates modifier to save due to action or terrain (1-3)
Orange indicates unit activated already (or failed to do so).
Blue indicates 'On guard' status.
Red indicates suppressed units.
Green indicates penalty to saving roll due to terrain


TURN 1

Bombers (paras) activate and rush down the deep sap towards the defenders.
Bombers (West Germans) activate and run into the nearest shell hole. As they are both armed with pistols there's not much else they can do.

[at this point I realised I saved the new version of the rules as the old ones and I've printed the old ones, confident that I'm printing the new ones!]

LMG team rushed to a disused listening post and set up their weapon.

With attackers all activating, it was defenders' time to try. HMG fails outright, going "on guard".
Defender's rifles at the mid promptly bombed attackers in a shell hole! This was a no-nonsense affair, attackers losing two of their numbers!

Defender's last unit fired their rifles at the same bombers and managed to kill another one. That's quite a bummer and bombers (West Germans) were down to 1 man just like that.

Sole survivor on the mid left side of the wire.

TURN 2

Turn 2 sees the attackers win the initiative and the now single survivor bomber activates, filled with thirst for revenge.

THE 'problem': As it has dawned to me in the next second, trying to activate him first was a horrible idea, as he was slightly outside the bombing range. If he would try to move closer, the HMG on guard would rip him apart. Not wishing to sacrifice him for nothing, I rather had him hunker down and hope he survives until there's a better chance to react.  That, I feel, is a good example of where "skills" would come in play with the game.

He 'takes cover', enjoying a luxurious save of  2+.

To prepare the field for the advance, I tried to activate LGM team, which, true to Murhpy's laws, failed to do so and went on guard. [Talking about skills before, that's a good example of one die roll ruining all your plans. ]

There is a war to be won, however, and bombers (paras) move on into a firing trench, offering them solid protection. I don't even follow my own rules, so I was ready to cast the MG ROF die before I noticed there's a defender's unit obstructing the fire of the machine gun! Yay! (Or nay, I am unbiased!)

Having all 4 members of the team in range of grenades, bombers (paras) unleash a hail of bombs down the defenders on the middle. They scored 5 hits that had to be distributed among 3 of the 4 defenders and as luck would have it, only one would be removed from play!
There was enough of bang in these grenades to have defender's nerves waver, failing the motivation roll and becoming suppressed. If only I had a unit that could assault them now!

The defender's other rifles now activated, firing at bombers (paras), hitting twice but without any visible effect.

Defender's HMG failed to activate agian and remained on guard.

Situation after turn 2.

TURN 3

Skipping my own rules, I noticed I should roll for attacker's reserves on previous turn already! Any way, one unit of riflemen did appear and can help press the attack.

Defenders won the initiative and rifle unit on the mid failed to activate and decided to go 'on guard'.

THE PROBLEM: I am still deciding whether I should  let on guard units react to movement and fire; movement only; movement and assaults. I am currently favouring the idea that one can't react with fire to fire, but only movement. I might let them fire on the assault actions with pistols only, as riflement, for example, would brace for the bayonet charge. I will let them react to movement  this time, but not firing.

Learning from my mistakes earlier, LMG team activates first this time with an intention to prepare the grounds for infantry assault.

The way MGs work now, they build up their ROF based on how many crew members the unit has. But these being weapons of suppression, they can force a suppression test based on ROF alone, and not on hits as other weapons do. In general, 2 men serving HMG and 3 men serving LMG are enough  to force a suppression test by ROF alone.

As troops aren't fit for assault across barbed wire, LMG fired at defender's HMG in an attempt to suppress it. It scored massive 4 hits (4 sixes!) out of 6, but it can only hit the gunner himself, the rest of the defender's crew being safely out of LOS! Gunner was thus forced to save 4 hits and did so for all but one. As another man simply takes his place, a spare crew man was removed from play.
The defenders failed their motivation and weapon became suppressed - this means it won't have a chance to activate (or react) this turn, so it's a job well done!

HMG team ducks, 3 yellow beads indicating they now save on 2+.

Bombers (para) activated next. They've spent their bombing volley now, but one of them can still lob grenades. The rest fired their pistols like some kind of cowboys.
Combined, they scored 4 hits (plus additional 2 as bomb's hits count for 2 in regard to suppression), triggering a suppression test.

Attacker's LMG team didn't have a desired impact on the game.

THE PROBLEMS: Rifle, being the basic weapon all other weapons are tailored to, has 1 die ROF. Pistol has 2 (as they are faster to fire etc), but I'm starting to believe that's already too many. Three men armed with pistols fired 6 shots combined. But on the other hand, when in trenches at least the lead man can have 2 shots instead of one. That will need some further consideration, with SMGs being additionally annoying to resolve.

A more pressing matter, 3 men unit now  faces 4 hits of 2 kinds. Bomb hits lower their saving throw and pistols do not. So one could put 2 bomb hits on a single man, the other 2 having better chances. Instead, I will play it that hits granting the lowest save are distributed first. So two guys get 1 bomb hit each, one gets a pistol hit and third is allocated to whomever.

In the end, both bomb saves were saved and guy with 2 pistol saves failed one of them. Furthermore, unit passed their motivation and was not suppressed, which is really annoying, as this means that bombers (West germans) unit's sole survivor can only go to ground again, lest it gets shot to pieces by defender's reaction fire.

The other defender's rifle unit failed its activation as well and it too, went on guard.

With all units activating, failing to activate or being suppressed, reserves finally move on board and run straight into the shell hole where bombers (West Germans) were. As rifle units only get to throw grenades one per game, they are reasonably safe in there, but they do receive reaction fire from the defenders.

THE PROBLEM: 2 units are on guard, so the question is, can they both react to single movement action? So far, I've been thinking it should be allowed. If they all react to one action, they simply won't be able to react to another one. But now that I'm actually playing I am not too sure and I think it should be limited to one unit (justified by time frame of reaction, each unit covering one sector or simply game playability). I will play it with a limit for now and see how it works out.

The defenders thus decided to react with the larger of the 2 units. They scored 2 hits, killing one man.

Situation at the end of Turn 3. Can the attackers push through?

TURN 4

No reserves for the attackers this time, and the defenders won the initiative again.

Defenders' HMG tried and failed activating yet again, which is slowly becoming rather annoying.

Attackers' LMG fared no better this time.

Nor did defender's larger infantry unit...

Bombers (paras) activated just barely and I started considering what to do with them. They would not be able to move too much as everyone is on guard on the other side of the barbed wire, so they kept bombing the defenders in the middle.

They were far less effective this time, scoring no hits with a bomb and 3 hits with pistols (all were saved). That was, luckily, enough to force a motivation test for suppression  - which defenders passed.

Attackers' reserve unit now activated and faced the problem the bombers faced before. If they move forward they will be shot at by the machine gun. I have no rules for smoke yet, which is rather limiting. Having one man in the grenade range (if the board was 4 feet long I could have put barbed wire outside grenading range - hows that for a trick, eh?), they threw that and would fire rifles if they weren't so foolishly placed. They scored 3 hits with grenades, killing both of the remaining defenders.

Bomber (West German) activated yet again, and went to ground. The thing is, should he fail his activation, he would start running away, so now at least I have him there in hopes of him being useful in this game.

TURN 5

Last of the attacker's reserves arrived on the battlefield.

Defenders won the initiative and their HMG failed the activation, as usual. I could swear this pattern repeats itself in every single game.

Attacker's LMG activated this time and fired at the HMG with an intention to suppress it. Scoring 2 hits, it failed to produce any casualties, but it did suppress the HMG crew due to weight of fire (as noted earlier).

Now is the time for the attackers to push - or is it? As expected, attackers' bombers (paras) failed to activate, wasting their chance.

Defender's rifles were a tad more lucky and activated, opening fire on attackers' reserves, killing one.

Reserve unit then activated and pushed forward, attempting to cross the wire by jumping over it. Being no athletes, both failed miserably and became entangled.

Uh-oh.

THE PROBLEM: The option to jump across wire was suggested by Joe and I have to admit I couldn't wait to try it out. Leaving history aside, I find it very amusing. Now the lads are entangled, so the question is, how easy they are to hit? A default save is 5+ and being hung on a wire like that, they can't be as nimble as an ordinary man on the battlefield. I think  removing the save all together is a bit harsh, given how easy it is to hit, but they should suffer a -1 modifier.
Further more, entangled models should count as being suppressed for melee (meaning they can surrender before the fight), given how they can't really do much. Perhaps they should automatically surrender to units within a certain distance, but hat would be another deviation from standard procedures.

Bomber (West German) activated (this guy really showed some motivation in this game) and attempted to cross the wire by jumping as well - surely a trained assault trooper would fare better? Not really, and now there's 3 scare crows in the middle of the board.

With all units activated this turn, reserves moved on board taking the usual way towards middle shell hole.

The attack is crumbling!

TURN 6

Defenders won the initiative yet again and, you guessed it, HMG failed its activation roll once more.

Attackers' LMG failed to activate.

Defenders' rifle unit failed as well and defenders would have to count on reaction fire to keep the attackers at bay.

To conserve larger units, I decided to start by try to activate two of the units in the wire. Reserve didn't activate and remained stranded, and bomber (West German) both activated and wiggled himself free, eager to push on.

Moving into grenade range of defender's rifles, I had to decide what to do about him. I didn't wish to waste HMG's reaction on a single man, and defender's rifles could only have one man fire his bolt action, with a bad chance of scoring a hit. So, being true to reality, defenders threw a bomb. They scored one hit which wasn't saved and the bombers unit was now finally completely wiped out.

No other unit activated, so  bombers (paras) couldn't benefit from the spent reaction of the defenders.

Situation at the end of turn 6. The sole attacker that has pushed across has already been removed from play.

TURN 7

This turn saw defenders win initiative again, but this time HMG activated, meaning things are about to get ugly.
Recognising bombers (paras) as more dangerous than the LMG, he sprayed them. Scoring 6 hits it failed to remove any miniatures from play (whaaaat?) and failed to suppress the bombers. Awful.

Defender's rifles failed to activate and went on guard.

Attackers LMG failed to activate and as reactions can only be made to enemy movement, can't do much as the defender has no reason to move around, being safely positioned behind the wire.

The rest of the attacker's units all failed to activate.

TURN 8

Attackers won the initiative for a change this time, but as LMG failed to activate that helped them little.

Defender's HMG failed to activate as well, reassured that it can always react to the enemies that will have to move sooner or later.

Attackers earlier reserves unit, now free of the wire, rushed towards the machine gun, threatening with the assault. The machine gun crew had to react with fire to them, lest they get assaulted with bayonets.
Scoring 6 hits, they erased the riflemen without much hassle.

Foolish attempt to dislodge the MG crew failed miserably.

Losing half of it's maneuver units and barely breaking across the wire to say hello, attackers need to make their best to end this in their favour.

I had reserves moving first, attempting to force cross the wire (that should've been cut by now!)
Only one of 4 men made it through and two of the Defenders rifle unit could take reaction shots  [at this point I also remembered reaction activates units, to avoid abuse!] and scored that one kill.

Attacker's bombers (paras) failed to activate and the turn ended.

TURN 9

The defenders won the initiative, but HMG failed to activate.

Attackers reserve unit, stranded on the wire lucked out and activated, both entangled men wiggling themselves free of the wire. They pushed on towards the defender's rifles, as attacking HMG on guard wouldn't end too well for them. They threw their grenades and scored one kill.

Attacker's LMG failed to activate and could not attempt to suppress the defender's MG.

Defender's rifles activated and to give me at least a taste of close combat, assaulted Attacker's reserves.

In contrast to earlier test games, this was the only melee fought in this game.

If assault actions could trigger reaction fire, attacker's LMG would stop this assault dead in its tracks. While I like that the battlefield is a dangerous place to be, losing units cheaply would ruin the game as everyone would just sit in their shell hole without any incentive to move.

As the defenders assaulted the attackers in deep trench, the latter never saw it coming and fought with a slight handicap. The melee round ended with 2 of the attackers and 1 of the defenders lost.

Bombers (paras) failed to activate again, which is slowly becoming very painful. I have little idea how to fix that, as they activate on a roll of 3+ as it is!

End of turn 9 leaves defender's with only a HMG and half a rifle unit alive.

TURN 10

Turn started with resolution of the melee that has been started last turn. In 1 vs 2 fight, everyone scored a hit, leaving one defender alive and victorious.

Attackers then won the initiative and LMG failed to activate, followed by defender's HMG failing to activate.

Attacker's bombers (paras) finally activated and set out to end this charade.

The rest of the turn was pretty uneventful as very little started to happen.

After in turn 11 three of four units failed their activation tests, I decided to call it a day, as the game became boring. The attackers had 8 men versus defenders' 4, but unless HMG would be kept suppressed, the game would probably eventually come down to HMG and LMG spraying each other.

POST GAME THOUGHTS:

Well, this game was different that those before in so many respects. Barbed wire completely shut down the attack. As opposed to last game I played, the attack was now limited to a frontal affair, had the attackers have some bombers working their way from the flank, this game would have played a whole lot differently.

In general, I think the simplified shooting rules are a step in the right direction. Saving rolls keep both players busy and the lack of penalties for shooting, while at first glance counter intuitive, helped speed things up quite some.

I am not too convinced by the reaction fire and on guard status. Failing the activation limits your choice of action (hide or scan the horizon basically), but I feel weapons like MGs are just too powerful, which could lead to abuse. I think best option is to force a re roll to hits for reaction fire (ie its snap shooting). Another options are halving the ROF and having a yet-another test to see if a unit can react. Former is doable, but re rolling of hits is a much more elegant solution I think.

In other news, I've gotten really deep into this whole WW1 project and I have grand plans for it. More about that at a later date, but let me say it will hopefully keep me occupied for another year or two.

Thanks for reading (or at least looking at the photos!),
Mathyoo

WW1 Skirmish Rules: playtest 3

Hi guys,

I have to thank everyone for every little bit of input on the rules. After giving it quite a lot of thought and debating them over with Zabadak, I gave them another try now.

I am now at a stage where I am afraid I am overthinking the rules and I am holding myself way back to try and find the optimal stance between too complicated and too simple. As this is a rather new experience for me (and a quite entertaining one), I searched for any tips and tricks and I found all sorts of "what makes a successful game" kind of "suggestions" that I found absurd to be frank. It is a lot like searching for medical advice online and it's horrible. From several blog posts and pages that took game design as a serious business (offences punished by severe talk down), the  only reliable advice I came upon was that game has to be playtested a lot.

Should you wonder, I do get overwhelmed by all the things I have to do, mostly because there's a huge gap to be bridge between "keep it simple" and "making it realistic". The easiest solution to that, and something I should probably use in everyday life more often is to break the load in smaller pieces. So instead of doing everything at once, I just have to fix the movement, fix the shooting, fix the melee and add stuff that looks cool.

UNIT SIZE
Units have to roll for activation and can be useless given bad rolls. To fix that, I considered breaking squads in halves. In previous games I had up to 10 miniatures per unit, portraying squads, because 'reasons'. Now I broke them in half-squad sizes, so there would be 2-4 (1+D3) miniatures per unit. Most squads were 8 men strong by mid war, so with the added simulation of bombardment effect, half would be anywhere from 2 (barely playable) to 4 (full half-squad).
There was an instant fear present, that this might be too small, but as you will see I think it worked just fine.

Having smaller elements means in a game with 20 miniatures per side, you can have 4 and more units, while before you could only have 2-3. More units means more flexibility and a failed activation roll doesn't render 1/3 of your army useless. An unfortunate roll for morale making whole unit surrender doesn't affect you as much, if that's 1 in 6 units. The surrender rules I think are very elegant and I feel they are a nice addition and I would like the players to try and force as many 'surrender' checks as possible on  the enemy, which can only be done by suppressing them and assaulting them, so by combining the units with some thought behind it, rather than simply throw some dice hoping to hit something.

The problem here comes with the support weapons. I love the idea of large HMG teams, where spare men take over the casualties positions. In one of the period manuals, Vickers HMG was described as being "invincible", because only 2 man were needed to man it, and even 1 could do in desperate times. So by cutting teams to 2-4, that lowers their survivablity a lot, but also displays the danger of having a machine gun this close to front line.

Likewise, this would mean each unit would have 1 bomber (the rest being carriers, spare men), so grenades would not fly all over the place anymore.
Rifle grenades are a bit more problematic as surely they would be firing as batteries, all together. So a mechanism to allow two teams of same type (ie a full squad) in a certain distance of one another was devised. This, I figured later, could also be used to have a separate infantry unit serve to help crew a machine gun whose unit was depleted. This is another thing I found very great (at least on paper), as obviously anything that would keep the machine gun going was a good plan.

Should a player wish to keep the spirit of the squads, teams made into a single squad could be forced to stay within a distance to one another - but why restrict it? Everything happens in the chaos of battle, so the more flexibility the better. It is not as if a 3-4 feet wide board represents any large area.

Not to make this post text only, I decided to give small units a try in a game of trench fighting, to see how Actions work. If you remember me being bothered by weapons in last game - I decided I will rework them completely. Instead of making stuff up, I will find a weapon (ie a Rifle) and then build others around it (more or less bullets fired; more or less mobile; more or less accurate; more or less destructive). I plan on making all sorts of weapons profiles,  as nothing I hate more than buying and painting a fantastic artillery piece and not being able to use it, because "it would be far away". I've read several memoirs where guns were very close, for better or worse, and even an instance where on the Balkans front, late in 1918 civilians would fire grape shots at Austrians soldiers from Austrian guns during the latter's retreat. So, while manuals are great, anything can happen in the war and should player wish to have a force made of nothing but machine-guns, why not - as long as weapons are balanced there should be a counter to every thing but a diverse fighting force.

To cut the already long intro a bit shorter - the game:

The attack is well under way and the attackers are advancing both from the front and the flank.

Bombers Unit - 2 men - activation 3+; 4+ expertise
Bombers Unit - 4 men

Riflemen -  4 men - activation and expertise 4+
Riflemen - 3 men
Riflemen - 3 men

This equals to 16 miniatures, which should be enough as I am playing on 2x3 this time.

I gave defenders exactly the same number of units:

Bombers - 4 - same as attackers.
Bombers - 2

Riflemen - 4 - same as attackers.
Riflemen - 4
Riflemen - 3

Rolls were slightly better for them, so they have 1 man extra.

Weapons note: Bombers are equipped with pistols, close combat weapons (daggers, clubs etc) and grenades, where a dedicated thrower (1 miniature per unit) can throw grenades all the time. Once per game, a whole unit can throw a salvo.

Riflemen are armed with rifles, bayonets and grenades, where grenades can only be thrown once per game. For now, this means once per game, one miniature can throw a grenade once. This sounds a little, but it saves us from book keeping and it keeps grenade salvo unique to bombers.

Set up:

Ouch! The small table really shows. For defenders, I've put two riflemen units (3 and 4.1) in front trenches. Behind them in a purpose built bomber's pit (I know!) are 2 bombers. In trenches, desperately trying to delay the flanking bombers are riflemen 4 at the end of parallel communication trench and bombers 4 in a reserve trench. First thing I noticed was my parallel trench is WAY too straight and bombers advancing down that trench would need a lot of luck. It's more of a not for future, but when designing terrain it shouldn't be straight in any direction for too long.

Attackers were positioned off the table (because I decided to use half size table), 4 bombers rushing in from flank down the aforementioned comm trench, 2 bombers will roll up the fire trench from shell holes and 3 riflemen units will push from the front.

Attackers have first turn, because there's nothing useful defenders can do with no enemies on board.
I am trying to avoid counters, but lest I forget who tried activating, green beads represent units that can still be activated.


Turn 1:

Attackers bombers 2 activate and move in a shell hole towards defenders in firing trench.

[THE PROBLEM: Yup, right at start. Can they assault the defenders right away? I think they could - why wouldn't they? Game started in middle of the battle, so there's no reason to delay. Enemy is within 8" of the table edge. To compromise this, I decided the bombers can't throw grenades before the assault as they were not on board at the point prior to move.

The defenders do not get reactive fire on the assault move (I justify this by defenders bracing to meet the melee. Option here would be to decide if defenders fire as a reaction (if they were 'On Guard'), but then hit second (after attacker's hits are resolved) or meet the attack and fight as per melee rules. The problem is, assault troops armed with pistols pretty much always hit first anyway. I will look into it, but at this moment, I would prefer it not being an option as whole game portrays one large assault.]

The bombers rushed into the defenders, who were then repositioned to fight (get as many as possible in base-to-base contact).

[THE PROBLEM: I decided only miniatures in btb contact can fight - trenches are narrow, so this means a unit with more troops would still only be able to use only a few. As defenders left enough space in between them, I've put bombers in those spaces, to make a sandwich: bomber-defender-bomber-defender-defender. Last defender can not hit anyone. I am not sure about moving pass miniatures, but it makes sense that an engaged miniature can be moved forward to engage with someone unengaged.]

Bombers have an option of using pistols (no bonus to hit, but resolved before the rest), to try and avoid being hit by defenders. Their other option are daggers, giving them +1 to hit, but would be thrown simultaneously with the enemy. Pistols can only be used for the first round of combat.
Defender's only option is bayonet, giving no bonuses, but having no drawbacks either.

Bombers missed both their hits, while defenders got a hit. Melee will continue next turn.

Larger attacking bomber unit activated next. Risking enfilade fire from defenders down the trench, they rushed towards defending bombers and assaulted. Again, no pre-assault grenading was allowed to make up for the instant rush. Again, because they're fighting in trenches, a melee of two units came down to being a duel where both sides suffered a casualty!

[Both have an option of pistols and clubs, which is something I can not playtest myself. As long as both use pistols or both use daggers and clubs - there is no difference. They both either hit on +3 or +4. The problem is, one of the sides can opt to use clubs (easier hitting), but has to hope the side using pistols does not score a hit.
Ie. If attackers fire with pistols and hit the only defender in contact, he won't get to hit. This is a great chance for players to decide, but I will simply use pistols as solo gaming can not solve this.]

One of the attacking units didn't activate, so initiative passed to defender.

I was not sure whom to try and activate here, rifles far back could try to rush in melee against larger attacking bombers, but that can also wait. So I decided to try and activate rifles in the fire trench.
They passed and went 'On guard' - orange bead.

Defender's 2 bombers did the same, while larger unit in the supervision trench ran towards attackers engaged in a melee against defender's bombers.

Only troops left to activate were two of the attacker's rifles. 4 man unit activated and moved towards the barbed wire.

[THE PROBLEM: The wire being really close, the attackers could choose among these actons:
- Walk (and fire or throw grenades)
- Run (harder to hit, no other bonus)
-Take Cover (3" move for extra concealment and cover). In this instance this move represent rolling in/out of a trench hole and so it has to be renamed (Joe's idea and I love it). "Take Cover" indicated miniature could not advance).

If they'd 'Walk', they would suffer reaction fire by two defending units and whoever survives would be able to toss a grenade or fire against well entrenched enemies. Run is pointless  and 'Take cover' would mean they up their survivability chances quite some.]

I decided to have them 'Take cover' (I've renamed the action to "crawl" after the game) towards the wire. This means they enjoy +1 concealment and 6+ cover. On top of that, they get another +1 concealment and cover from wire. Concealment is always cumulative and cover only adds up because they try really hard not to get hit with this kind of move.

[THE PROBLEM: This looks like an action that could be abused, moving 3" infront of enemy for an abundance of cover. After the game, I made a "Take Cover" action with 0" move, extra concealment and cumulative cover (as it is now). And another action (currently named "crawl") that would enable a 3" move, have extra concealment and cover, but where cover would not add up (so a player would choose this 6+ or whatever terrain would grant him if it's better)]

Defending rifles in a fire trench ahead can now react to this crawl move with one of these:
Fire 4D6 of rifles at basic 4+, and additional +1 for wire and +1 for crawling, so a roll of 6 would hit. Or they can throw one grenade (3D6) which ignores concealment (as blast radius negates the need for a really careful aim).

[THE PROBLEM: Grenades will be played as they are written atm, but I have to consider if they would not only negate some part of concealment (-1 or -2 as opposed to all of it) and if they would negate any cover (my guess is no, so larger calibers, like trench guns can be useful). Also, I need to consider if grenades would give extra "hits" towards suppression (1 grenade hit could count for 2 hits suppression wise, so hitting with all 3 grenades would suppress an enemy). Grenading will demand a game of its own for testing.]

Riflemen's grenade did absolutely nothing, because dice rolled were 1, 1, 2. So much for the overpowered grenades!
Defender's bombers in a bomber pit are too far to react to this group, but will react to middle group, if it activates.

Same story here, attackers crawled to the wire and bombers throw their grenades, hitting twice (4,4,1). The wire and crawling grants attackers a 5+ save (none basic -> 6+ crawl -> 5+ wire, so cumulative covers seem to be okay. They failed both. [Mind, this would now be changed, so there would only be a 6+ save from either crawling or the wire].

Everyone had their chance at activating and everyone but one attacking rifles did so. First turn left 4 attackers and one defender dead. Not the best of the starts for the attacker!

TURN 2:

At start of turn 2, there were 2 unresolved melees to fight.

I first resolved melee in fire trench. There, both sides activated. Gap, opened by a dead attacker was closed (2" move for miniatures not in btb). As pistols can only be used in first turn of combat, bomber enjoys +1 to hit on his truncheon (hitting +3), while defender needs a roll of 4+. Both are thrown simultaneously and bomber scored a hit.

The melee is not over, but there's a large gap between the fighting sides, so I think gaps should be closed at end of previous turn instead of at start of this one. If this is not done and another unit jumps in that gap, unit that was in fight all of the sudden loses contact. (After the game, I decided gaps should be close right after the casualties are removed, so the units keep contact).

[THE PROBLEM: Resolving melee does not count as activation, so if it would have been concluded, surviving unit could give activation a try. As it was not resolved, I suppose this means they both activated now, as they are still brawling.]

In the other unresolved melee, both teams activated as well, gaps were closed and each team rolled a single die, looking for a +3, owed to their daggers. In this case, the defender was the only one that hit and now both units are activated.

The initiative was rolled to see how the rest of the turn would play out and attackers have won it.

I tried to activate sole survivor of middle rifles unit, so he could at least throw grenades before he dies. He activated, scored one hit, but failed to kill any of the defenders, well protected by their trenches.

The other attacker's rifle team, standing by the wire failed to activate and was put on guard.

[THE PROBLEM: The problem here is, what happens with extra cover, the unit did not move, but I want to keep away from book keeping, so now only the terrain will count. It also opens another option: Should a unit that fails activation be given a choice to be on guard (scan the horizon to fire at enemy) or take cover (gain extra concealment and cover). Units caught inactivated in the open would surely prefer extra cover than a lousy try at hitting well entrenched enemy.
After the game I introduced a "take cover" action as discussed above, while "crawl" action is the same, but has 3" movement and non-cumulative cover.]

Defender's rifles in fire trench were put on Guard as they failed their activation.

Attacker's unit that still didnt move on the board activated. I was not sure what to do with them. There's an opening, so I wanted to assault and had to consider how to tackle difficult terrain. I decided it would take 1" of movement every time they crossed a difficult terrain. As they start in a shell hole, that is -1" for climbing out of it. Possibly -1 for jumping in trench, but I think not - climbing OUT is the problem, not jumping in. So, as they were 7" from the enemy, they could assault.

One made it in trench, 2 are on the lip. Given these are miniatures on bases, I think its fair that those on the edge of trench count as in b-t-b for purpose of melee.

This means that attackers get 3 dice and defenders only one. If attackers would attack head on (assuming there was no wire), each side would get at least 3 dice (both units would be parallel). To simplify, the melee counts as being fought in the trench, so there is no pros or cons for any of the sides in this regard.

They both use bayonets, attackers scoring 2 hits and defenders none. As defenders now engaged in melee, they are not considered to be on guard anymore.

Defender's 2 bombers fail to activate and are put on guard. Defenders rifles in supervision trench activate and assault into melee between two bombers units.

[THE PROBLEM: Defender's rifles just assaulted across 2 corners, as did bombers before. This sounds pretty bad, as assault move is long and table is quickly covered.
It would be worth wondering why isn't assault same as running action (6"), justified that second part of action is done by fighting (and in walk action, by firing). This is another of Joe's suggestions that I might quite like and I changed it after this game.
Another thing that I did was introduce a LOS as a necessity to the assault. This means attacker's can't just run around trenches, but have to move carefully around the corners, which slows game on small tables down a bit, making it more playable. This opens another set of problems, like assaulting into deep trenches from above ground (which is bad for those in trenches), but that can be fixed by proper wording.]

Anyway, I decided to let them assault into an engaged melee, which is something I have not yet tackled. I have not prepared anything for this instances, so this is what I did:

As assaulted unit is already fighting, it does not expect to be hit by another unit, so it counts as "suppressed" - it has to throw an activation (=morale) die right away to see if overwhelming melee forces them to surrender.
The assaulted bombers passed, so another round of melee is fought. Bombers can't use pistols, but they have +1 to hit on their close combat weapons, which isn't enough and defenders rifles score the only hit.

[After the game, the rules were written a lot like played in this game, as it seems to be quite logical]

All units have now activated and the turn ended.

TURN 3:

Again, the melees were resolved before the turn started.

I went through multiple unit combat first, as it was the most complicated.

[THE PROBLEM:
This is what usually happens:
Units throw for morale, if both activate they fight; if none does, you reroll until one does. The one that fails to activate surrenders.

But now I have one unit fighting two (not to mention the one unit only has one survivor left!). The attacker has 1 unit that activates on 3+, the defender has two, activating on 3+ and 4+. I was thinking about having the defender roll 1 die for both of his units (but which one then, and why so?) and add +1 to the roll for any unit he has more than the attacking player.
Second option, each unit rolls its own (3 for bombers, 4 for rifles) but unless both fail, they do not surrender. This sounds good and viable and I've put it in the rules.
The problem is now, the one that fails - does it still fight (even if it failed) or it simply stands there, but it does not surrender, because friendly unit continues the fight.
At the moment, I believe it can not just stand there watching, so as long as one passes, both fight. While this is an 'Activation' role, it's actually a role for morale.]

So, I rolled for activation and defenders both passed, while attacker didn't and thus surrendered. I really need to sit down through this however, but I think the general idea is good, as to avoid any unnecessary complication.

As melee was not fought, both defender's unit can give it a try at activation this turn.

Second melee I resolved was between attacker's bombers (started as 2 man) and defending rifles. Both units activated and only the bomber scored the hit.

Lastly, the fight between two rifle units ended with a casualty on each side.

The initiative was then rolled for and attackers won.

[THE PROBLEM: Similar to an earlier case - does being "On Guard" move to the next turn? That is worth thinking about, it and "take cover" actions (that can also be a result of failed activation) should persist until next try at activation - or until 'on guard' is activated by reacting fire. This sounds viable, so a unit that failed to activate on turn 1 can enjoy the bonus defence from 'take cover' until it tries to activate on turn 2 and can be tactically left to be activated last.]

Larger attacker's rifles unit cut some passages in the wire, that were then taken advantage of by the smaller (sole survivor) rifleman.

Defender's bombers in the bomb pit failed to activate and were put on guard - after the attacker has already moved, which shows why initiative is very important.

On the north, defender's bombers activated and sprinted towards the front line and rifles failed to activate. Turn ended.

At this point, I decided to stop playing as I ran out of time and I pretty much got the idea of how game could work with smaller miniatures and found some more grey areas.

In 3 turns, Defenders managed to get one prisoner and 7 kills (50% of Attacker's starting force), while attackers managed to kill 5 of the defenders, less than a third.

POST GAME THOUGHTS:

There is not much to say, I think the smaller units are the way to go. Trenches are really narrow and should be numerous, so having more smaller units is better than one long snake. If we assume miniatures in melee would never fail their activations, a fight between 2 equally strong 4 man units could last up to 4 turns, while 8 man units would be fighting for 8 turns.

Even now melee is almost tediously slow if both units activate, so I might wish to enable fighters to hit anything in 1" (so first two in line), to speed it up a bit. But I am not sure if I want melee to be fast, as the longer it takes, more chance there is for other troops to do their objectives or come to aid. Another option would be the melee is fought over and over again in a single action until someone wins, but that would leave players with not chance to tip odds in their favour by having another unit join the fight.

I am really trying hard not to have the game too complicated, with as little to consider as possible, but making it too simple would essentially water it down to a generic set, while I want it to portray the WW1 trench fighting.

One other thing I find bad is my table - I made way too many deep trenches that should not be as numerous and I might find myself planning a game that is far more confined that an ordinary game would be. I will try playing on the other half of the board next time, that's mostly covered in shell holes to see how it would fare if everyone could see everyone else.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

WW1 Skirmish Rules: Playtest 2

Hi guys,

I'm really fired up about this project (could be the speed with which I set up my board he he), so there's little reason not to play another test game! It was actually played a few days ago, right after I've implemented changes from the last game.

This time, I decided to make things a bit different, a combined arms assault force is to raid the enemy trenches, destroy the defender's machine gun and then make a hasty retreat!

The size of forces was rolled with same idea (D6+4 for infantry, D3+2 for support weapons) and I decided to include some new weapons to see how they would fare.

Attackers:
Assault squad - 8 bombers (SAF)
Assault squad - 8 bombers (SAF)

*They can not use rifles, but are armed with pistols and truncheons/knives. Last game I played it wrongly, these are the only troops that can throw grenades before the assault!

LMG Squad - 5 crew (East German)
Rifle Grenade Squad - 4 crew (East German)

THE PROBLEM: LMG I have to work on. Instead of being an "automatic rifle", it is same as HMG, except it has 3/4 ROF and does not have minimum range. That is not good and when writing the rules I imagined it more as of another rifleman. That would either mean I need to greatly cut its power, or put them in their own teams, where - again - only the LMG could fire, while the rest of the team is there to feed the machine gun. That might look like an awful lot of spare figures for "no" gain, but I kind of like where this is going.

THE PROBLEM: Same goes for Rifle grenades, how many per squad? Largest squad size for them would be 6 (using support weapons roll), so maybe limit them to every second person. But that's a lot of book keeping all of the sudden. I played it this time that only 2 can have them, the rest are spare men.
In general, I think I started the game too simple - with most of teams having same weapons. This should change (in modern fire teams, for example, each miniature has its own kind of weapon!), so even asassault teams would perhaps only have 2 bombers, as opposed to everyone throwing all the time etc.

Defenders:

HMG Squad (also objective) - 5 crew (Rebels)
Infantry Squad - 5 rifles
Infantry Squad - 10 rifles
Infantry Squad - 7 rifles











SET UP:

Defender's HMG Squad starts in its emplacement, 10 rifles are reserve, 7 and 5 in dug-outs.

Attackers I deployed up to 12" from their table edge. Rifle grenades are pretty much in place, while LMG squad will move up shell holes to support the advance of the bombers.

GAME:

Turn 1:

Attackers won the initiative.

Att Bombers1 (in sap) activate and sprint down the sap.
Att Bomber2 (with rifle-grenades) activate and sprint towards defender's D outpost.

Def MG reacted on their movement with fire. From last game, I decided all the fire is done against the end position of the unit that moved. MG can only fire at the bombers that didn't make it to the sap and took cover in a shell hole. They scored 2 hits, but didn't kill anyone.

Att Rifle Grenades fail to activate.

Def MG fails to activate.
Def 7 rifles activate and sprint out of dug-out to offer the MG some protection.

Att Rifle Grenades react and fire their rifles at Def 7, killing one.

Def 5 rifles activate and run towards fire trenches.

Att LMG team fails to activate.

Turn 2:
Defender's reserves aren't coming yet.

Defenders win the initiative (with a roll of 2!)

Def MG activates and opens fire on bombers, killing one.
Def 7 rifles activate and open fire on the same bombers, with little effect.
Def 5 rifles fail to activate.

Att Rifle Grenades activate and open fire at the machine-gun. So, that means 2 grenades (3 dice each), that ignore concealment (blast radious), but not cover (trenches are dug too well for grenades to have impact on cover, but larger field artillery would be destroying cover). They scored 3 hits, killing the gunner (but a spare man gets removed, as he would simply take gunner's place).

Att LMG fails to activate.
Att Bombers2 activate and push forward down the trench. As they moved down a very deep communication trench, their grenading was not accurate (I decided throwing grenade out of LOS is at -2 penalty).
Att Bombers1 activate and push out of the sap towards enemy trench, while bombing the enemy. Here, I wasn't sure how to establish LOS, Bombers are on ground, but defenders are deep in trenches. As Bombers aren't just next to trench, I played it as if they can't see anyone (I think that's fair and very simple, too). They threw bucket load of grenades, managed to get one hit but didn't kill anyone (because of -2 to hit when blindly throwing grenades!).

Bombers1 rushing the trench

THE PROBLEM: I think I really need some sort of penalty for climbing out of 2+ meters deep trenches. The simplest way I can think of is a restriction to "Walk" (so can't run out of trench), but I would not restrict firing, as to keep things very simple. Defenders sprinted out of their deep dug outs into the land, but I won't be doing that anymore I think.

Turn 3:
Defender's reserves are still nowhere to be found.

Defenders win initiative (again with a roll of 2!)

Def MG activates and unleashes fury at Bombers2, scoring 5 hits and suppressing them. Guys had no chance in the shallow hole and lost 4 of their men.
Def 5 rifles failed to activate, which is really unfortunate, seeing they could destroy the Bombers.



THE PROBLEM: MG fired across the barbed wire (granting +1 concealment) and into shell hole (granting +1 concealment). Should this be cumulative? I am not sure on this one. It could quickly get out of hand, but  it could also help in crossing the no-mans-land. I did not add it this time, but will probably do so next time.

Att Rifle Grenades activated, fired at the MG but again done little because of the safety the MG emplacement provides.
Att LMG Squad activates, moves into position and the crew fires its rifles at Def 7 rifles, killing one.




THE PROBLEM: The LMG in this instance is a support weapon, so can't fire on the go. That's really unfortunate, but given its firepower, probably quite fair. I will sit down and think about having 2 separate classes for MG08/15 and Lewis guns and alike. They are very, very different, but I also enjoy the simplicity of having them all treated the same.
Another reason for two classes is that this would then give at least a slight flavour to fielding different nations.

Att Bombers2 activate, but can not charge the MG, because there's an intact wire infront of the emplacement (What a great idea it was, putting that there!), so they move down the trench, still throwing grenades in general direction of the MG crew.
That is 7 grenades (21 dice, there's a lot of dice in my game!), that managed to score 4 hits, but failed to kill anyone!
Att Bombers1 were activated when they were suppressed.

Bombers2 advance towards the machine gun

Turn 4:

At this point, I remembered I have a rule that failed activation within 6" of an Enemy makes unit Surrender. This is now changed to 6" AND in LOS, because trenches are very close to each other and it would be sad to lose a whole unit of bombers to MG crew just because they'd fail to activate!

Still no reserves for the defending side.

After two ties, Defending team wins the initiative again!


Def MG fails to activate.


Att Bombers2 activate, but to try out their fancy CCB equipment, they assault the MG without prior bombing.

THE PROBLEM: The assault was a bit of a moot-point, some parts of Bombers assaulted the crew from out of LOS (thus putting them at a distinct advantage), but some did not, so I ignored that. I believe the bonus should only count when whole units are jumped like that, even if one man stands in the open, he could warn the rest of the incoming assault.

THE PROBLEM: MG failed to activate and was so on guard. This means, it would be able to fire its pistol (gunner) and rifles (the rest) as a reaction to the movement. I threw the dice and it would wipe out three bombers. I don't think that is quite fair, and two things can be done: Reaction only counts for movement (not assaults) or - preferred reaction - the fire is done at -2 because of the surprise and urgency of the Assault. This is how I played it.

The reaction fire of MG crew failed to achieve anything (but keep in mind any hit would result in a dead man now!) and the close combat began.
Small fire arms (pistols, revolvers, but also shotguns and SMGs) give no bonus to hit in melee, but they roll to hit first (opposed to simultaneously as knives, bayonets etc). The drawback is, they only do that on first round (this is justified with brawlers being too entangled for fire arms to give any distinct advantage afterwards). This wiped out MG crew, destroying it.

THE PROBLEM: Melee was very successful for bombers, but would leave them in the open, where they attacked from the ground down. This is unjustified, so after melee is done, winners will be given 1" of free move to consolidate their position - jump in the trench or cover.

Att Bombers1 activated and decided to assault Def 5 rifles. (that's an unnecessary move, as MG was destroyed, but hey - can test melee again!). Their grenade salvo was uneffective, but the scored 2 hits with their pistols. This left only one defender to fight back (because the rest are not in contact!), who scored a hit.

THE PROBLEM: Melee will need much, much more testing to decide when do fighters move in contact, who all can hit (just those in base-to base?) and so on. I will probably be doing that next, without playing a game.

Att LMG crew opens fire at Def 7 rifles, but does nothing.
Att Rifle Grenades do the same, scoring a kill.

Def 7 rifles fail to activate.

Turn 5:

Melee that was not resolved before is fought again as both sides activated. This time, bombers are using their knives and truncheons, giving them some advantage over bayonet armed defenders. Bombers scored one hit, while the defenders were unable to hit anyone.


Defender's reserves arrive (counts as activation, too) and move to the back-line fire trench. They opened fire at Att LMG, killing one of the crewmen!

Attackers won the initiative.

THE PROBLEM: Reserves arrived and could open fire before attackers could react, even if they won the initiative. This should perhaps be changed so that reserves are rolled for as an activation. But that, I am afraid, would lead to forgetting about reserves, plus when battle is raging the arriving reinforcements surely enjoy some degree of surprise.

Att Bombers2 activate and instead of retreating (as per scenario idea), they go assault some more (for the sake of testing, of course!). They must have been really tired, as they scored no hits with their pistols! The defenders were better at this game and scored two hits on the attackers.

Bombers apparently fired their pistols with their eyes closed!

Att  LMG failed to activate.
Att Rifle Grenades did activate, also scored 3 hits but failed to kill any of Def 10 rifles!

Turn 6:

The fight between Def 5 rifles and Bombers1 continued as both units activated again. Also, Defenders were again better in the fight (there must be some martial arts in these units!), killing 2 and losing 1 of their own.

A never ending street fight in the front line trench!

Fight between Bombers2 and Def7 was less eventful, as the former failed to activate and gave up!

Defenders then won the initiative again and victorious Def 7 rifles activated, just to fail to do any damage to the att LMG.
Def 10 rifles failed to activate.

Att Rifle grenades activated again, killing one in Def 7's team, but Att LMG failed to activate again.


At this point I quit playing, but I gave the melee between sole survivors of Bombers1 and Def5 another try. They both activated again, but neither scored a hit!

It did show that 'elite' Assault troops are still just men and can be beaten, which I am very satisfied with, so there are no super heroes here.

POST GAME CONSIDERATIONS:

This really took a turn for the worst as far as the attackers go! There were less problems than in the first game, so the progress is visible, but there is a lot to be done with the weapons and scenarios. In this particular scenario idea, the attackers ought to retreat as soon as their mission was done and defenders would have to somehow score points for prisoners taken and damage inflicted, to lessen the extent of victory of the attackers.

The main change that I see necessary is to slightly limit the dice used - I don't mind using buckets and I don't know why people do. I am awful with numbers and probabilities, so I do it all by the "feels", and I get a strange feeling of satisfaction when 20+ dice "burst" around the defenders for no effect!

The need for some sorts of unit organisation is apparent, so in bombers' group only two would throw at a time, except before the assault where everyone should be able to throw a salvo (it's what the Germans did and I'd expect everyone else as well).

While I'm glad the trenches offer extraordinary protection, it should be easier to suppress the enemy, I do not see this happening nearly often enough. I suppose explosives (grenades included) should count double (1 hit = 2 hits for suppression), which would also make rifle grenades actually useful. The strength of MG is clearly lower once the attackers are working down the trench, which is exactly what I'd want of it.

I will write up very generic teams (bombers, crew served weapons, ordinary rifles etc) that could be used for all the nations, and I would be looking up for differences at some later time, for now it really does not matter.

As usual, thanks for reading!
Mathyoo