"IABSM battle report" Topic

Hey everyone,

Updated my blog with the last of 3 games of IABSM.

Please feel free to have a look.

link

Lovely table, minis, the works.

What do you think made the game so slow? Do you think it would speed up as you become more familiar with the rules? Nice looking table.

Movement rolls of 1 and 2 certainly do not help.

Were the attackers on a time table? If not then they could fire back rather then move when they run into opposition.

Spiffy minis and terrain, it really adds to any game to have nice setups like yours.

Very nice looking game. Good report. It's the first IABSM game report I've read so it was interesting to find it was so slow.

Are you using the latest version of IABSM or the older rules of 10 years past?

-It took 2 Friday nights to complete from 7pm till 10:30 each time, so that is 7 hours to complete the game. It was probably slower because even though by now I had a fair grasp on the rules, I had to teach 2 others… that and rolling 1s and 2s for movement for 4 straight turns really slowed the game down on the British side.

As for me, slow games are fine. It gives me more time to think about my moves and ponder the enemies move. I'm going to keep playing this rule set, as its my favorite WW2 set so far.

- There was no time table for getting the objective, as we could not predict the movement speed ahead of time. It also did not help the speed of play when both British players took to the forests for much of their movement. It took them allot of time to get through, but the did not lose a single infantry figure until the last 3 turns of the game, so it worked out for them. I was trying to get David to like the game as he really likes FoW, I think he liked it, but the fact that we could not finish the game in an evening sort of kept FoW his favorite for now.

Don't get me wrong.. IABSM is a GREAT set of rules, I just need to find ways of speeding it up a tad. If everyone knew the rules, rolled 3's and 4's and I did not have so many wooded and broken terrain pieces on the table, I think we could have finished it much faster.

Thanks all !

Love those roads. Can you say who makes them?

Bede19025 – The roads are Flames of war roads. I got them when they were 30% off back a while ago. My Wife then stuck on the static grass.

Thanks!

Looks like a very good game on a very nice table.

One thing that may help is I noticed you weren't using blinds. Any reason why?
I find they help a lot as they get more dice which you can spend on moving, don't suffer as much from terrain penalties so can move farther and they all move together so no hanging back as platoon hasn't moved this turn etc.

They also keep the opposition guessing as to where you are going.

David

Kiltboy – Good question. In the games I played before with several people I found that spotting an enemy was fairly easy. It did not seem to be hard to spot an enemy at such close range, so as I had a small 5x3 table, I decided not to use it. I also found that although having an extra dummy blind was neat, it did not really add anything to the game on such a small table. 3 actions per squad, 3 squads per platoon and several platoons on the table meant that on turn 1,2 or 3 all units would be spotted.

I was teaching a Flames of War player the game mechanics, and I wanted him to feel a bit more at home by having the models on the table at the beginning. In further games I will introduce the blinds system and hopefully that will expand the experience.

I also took liberties with the Armour in the rules (I think). I did not want a game with tons of tanks on the table, so I gave the Germans only 1 tank and 1 halftrack. These two units had their own card in the deck, while the British had only 1 armor card for all 5 tanks. And to make it a little more fun for those playing I allowed them to divide the tanks between them. Its probably not allowed in the rules, but who wants to play a WW2 game without pushing some Shermans around ?

I can understand wanting to have the minis on the table, especially that setup.

But all that lovely terrain would have made spotting a bit more difficult. Especially on a meeting engagement with both sides the distance of the table apart. Do I stop and spot or move closer and spot next time. How close is my opponent to the objective and do I risk it?

I was in a convention game set in the desert of 1941 and I was a little close in before my lorried platoon was spotted. They were promptly shot up as they were still in the transport but quickly rallied and got stuck in to some Italilan infantry that were nearby. Apparently I was agressive with my infantry but I thought that's what infantry was for.

David

Blinds are not just about hidden movement, they also move faster than spotted troops which gets your forces into action faster than if you have them on the table. Using them would speed up your game quite a bit.

@LVLAURN
Use of the blinds is a very important part of IABSM. Not only do they give you increased movement and help keep the platoons together but the dummies also can act as recon units by moving ahead and spotting, they also force your opponent to use his spotting actions to try and spot them. Learning to use blinds to their upmost can really add to the game.

As you and your opponents get more familiar with the rules you'll find that the game moves much quicker.

Our games usually run from 5 to 6 hours but that is with multiple infantry companies plus support per side and a break for lunch.