I just got back from this year's Havoc convention in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, where I got a chance to play (among other games) Mongoose's new WW2 rule set. This was probably the best game I played at the convention this year (although I have to admit, some of the more promising games were simply spoiled by grumpy players). I'm guessing not many people have got a chance to play it yet, so I'll give a quick run through…
This seems to be Mongoose's attempt to break into the Flames of War market. The game is the same scope (in a three vs three game, each player had his own company), scale (15mm) and basic ideology (easy, tournament-oriented rules with a point value system). Our GM, of course, ran the game as a scenario and it worked perfectly for that. Unlike Flames of War, the models were all individually based. One would think this would be tough for a 15mm game, but the rules made it quite easy.
The actual game mechanics were also different, of course. It almost played like a beer and pretzel game, and halfway through the first turn, everyone knew exactly what they were doing (the GM only had to look up one thing in the rules the entire time – how tough buildings were, more on that later). The turn system was "I go, you go" and the models were "what you see is what you get" (so each soldier carried a different weapon). When shooting, you rolled a d6 for each rifleman in a squad and subtracted any cover modifiers (-1 for light cover, -2 for heavy cover – these didn't stack with each other). For each die, if you make the target's "Target" number (say 4+), you score a hit and the target must make a save (say 6+ for infantry) on 1d6. Failure means the model is out of the game (dead, fleeing etc). Then you count up how many dice you rolled against the unit (dropping all natural "1's" first), and if this matches or exceeds the number of models in the target squad, they are Suppressed. If it is double or more, they are double suppressed. Some weapons roll multiple dice (like the light MG42) and have rules like double suppression (count the rolled dice twice for suppression). This worked very well, and meant you could do cool things like hose a half-track with machine gun fire to suppress it, even though your fire didn't have a great chance of knocking out the vehicle.
Vehicles worked much the same, except they all had 2 hit points (the Panther G's in the game had 3) and much better saves (3+ for the Panther's, for instance) and higher target numbers (8+ for the Shermans). Vehicles often also used a d10 to shoot, instead of a d6, usually with some bonus modifiers (Panther's gun was 1d10+4).
One of the best features in the shooting rules was that, in addition to the "Target" number, every unit had a greater "Kill" number (say 4+ and 6+ for infantry). If the attack roll beat the Kill number, the target was automatically destroyed with no save. This was a lot of fun with tanks, which normally could take several hits and keep going, but one really good hit would automatically smoke the tank (this is the only way four of our Panthers were destroyed, thanks to Sherman Fireflies). Also, vehicles had lower target and kill numbers to the side and rear (of course).
During your turn, each tank or squad had two actions; either move twice, shoot twice, move and shoot or shoot and move. Movement was abstracted (tanks didn't have to spend movement turning and twisting, they just moved 8" away). It was simple and reminded me of Stargrunt. It also allowed you to "shoot and scoot" and do any other devious tactics you could think of. Suppressed units had to spend their first action unsuppressing (and thus only got one action). Double suppressed units had to spend both actions unsuppressing.
There was a neat reaction mechanic that we didn't make much use of. Whenever an enemy moves within 10" of your infantry (or whenever your infantry get shot at), that infantry squad gets a single reaction (move, shoot etc) for the turn. The other team found it much easier to shell the buildings with our defending infantry, which would have allowed our infantry to duck out the back door, but my team was completely against the idea of "running away". Result after several turns of fire; one levelled row of buildings and one dead infantry platoon! The reaction mechanic would have definitely shined in urban infantry battles, where shooting at infantry might cause them to duck back, and moving in front of machineguns would just leave you suppressed in the middle of a street (and without that vital -2 modifier for cover). Since you could break up squads into smaller groups (thanks to individual basing), this reaction rule promised for some very interesting infantry firefights.
There was also some pretty simple rules for artillery (two actions from the forward observer to call it in, placing a marker on the table for all to see and avoid, next turn an artillery strike is scattered 1d6" from the marker and has a 6" circumference of doom). We found artillery more often suppressed than killed outright (unless the targets were in the open), which seemed pretty fair.
The rulebook itself was mostly army lists, and covered a great deal of combatants from 1944 to 1945. Equipment seemed to be well represented, from what I saw in the game.
If anything, my one criticism would be that anti-tank guns are far too vulnerable. I'm almost thinking the GM didn't have these rules quite right, because field guns were just as vulnerable as infantry (the gun itself was so easily destroyed). We pretty much lost every field gun that was shot at. One cool point, however, was that unmanned field guns could be re-crewed by any nearby infantry.
All in all, very good game. Simple, easy and fast, I am beginning to like these beer and pretzel type games much more than the finicky super-numerate rulesets. There seemed to be little to no modifiers to remember (anyone who knows me will know that is a big plus in my book) and the lack of serious movement restrictions meant that you could have a lot of fun rolling your Panther's down narrow city streets and between hedgerows (in games like Battlefront WW2, I dread the movement phase due to the facing issues). It really reminded me of the game ethic set down by games like Stargrunt. While I don't think it will knock out any of the competition, I still would rather play this new game more than any of the competition, so that's saying something.
assembles and paints 
