"Gruntz test games -Q&C" Topic

Happy days, I have gotten to play my first wargame in almost 6 months yesterday! Went over to my brothers house and brought a shoebox full of my smaller shacks and scatter terrain, a tablet loaded up with my Gruntz rule PDF, dice and rulers and a handful of my infantry. Played two test games but left me with a couple of questions plus a huge smile.

First I wanted to say up front I love the rules and I was very surprised that I did. I say that not disparagingly against the rules but against me. I have picked up most of the options out there for 15mm scifi and none of my test games felt fun, for a gamut or reasons. – This is a truly personal preference here, not a debate over the merits of other game systems. I hope you get miles of enjoyment out of your fave systems.

I had fun, it was simply fun for me. Even with my beginners curve of rules research it was never a drag to ponder them and move on.

Honestly, from the onset, I was more interested in seeing how games of specialists vs specialists worked as a mock skirmish game rather than a squad based game. I usually don't find mass combat games fun but I left thinking how just a couple APC's, light tanks, plus a mech or two would be fun to add into the mix. It has been a long time since I have felt that way in this hobby and it was a thankful blast of fresh air.

I play Call of Duty: Ghost on the 360 (I use the same name here and there – if you don't take it serious and don't mind a hardcore focused riot shielder hit me up)

When painting my submission for the Titanium Dropship competition I wanted to channel a bit of the COD Vibe.

I mention that as our mindset of playing Gruntz was very much inspired by Call of Duty So when in doubt we ruled COD rules set the precedence in interpretation.

The first game was a simple one squad – no squad attachments + commander vs the same. played on a 3x3 area with scatter terrain. We beat each other down he won by one shot.

Second game was a Power Armour Specialist and a pack(trio) of dogs vs two squads with squad attachments and a commander. We made a quick and dirty d6 mission objective chart. He had to kill my commander, I had to recover a object and get it off my table edge. The call of duty bit was added here – as anyone who plays the game knows the Guard Dog is the most deadly thing in the game. To that effect I stated by dog pack as such

They proceeded to maul through one unit and on to the next while my brother focused fire on the PA suit hoping to whittle it down.

For the record we didn't bother to pay any attention to points in that game.

Mistakes I found we did in hindsight:
1. We allowed Squad Attachment weapons to fire in concentrated fire. It allowed us to visualize a group giving covering fire to the lone rocket launcher armed trooper trying to hit my power armour suit. Not sure if I care to adjust it to follow the rules or not, as we enjoyed the cinematic visual over game balance.
2. Treated the commander as if he had 2 wounds rather than using the damage points chart. IDK why we got confused on that.
3. Missed the rule about how points over the soak value can add damage to Specialists. My PA took 5 hits from rockets each only inflicting one damage when we played. Think my brother should have won that game.
4: AP rounds we used vs specialists and reduced soak by the AP value. Make it easier to hit through the harder Power Armor

Questions

Shooting:
We called each shot prior to shooting per squad member and rolled for each individually. If two were shooting at the same person and the first waxed the target we treated the second as a missed shot. Now if we moved to massed shooting and rolling mass dice do you just pull hits from the front of the group, and how does it mix with hitting squad attachments and the mix. This confused us so we just went with pick and shoot.

Waxed squad members:
I snipe a single member of a squad taking them from 6 to five members on turn one. On turn two my squad shoots 2 members. When testing for suppression do they drop 2 or 3 points on their mental statistic? – Do they add past turns attrition to the unit or only adjust off the current shooting round?

Further on this if squad A shoots and does one damage and squad B shoots and does one damage in the same turn would it be -1 to mental both times or -1 the fist shot and -2 the second?

Perkz:
Bullet time – I have a squad of dogs charging a unit and they pass the test to snap shot. When they shoot does the +2 guard protect the dogs from the whole units ranged attack or the first member of unit shooting?
This ties in with the group vs individual shot rolling. what defines a "single ranged attack" when you mass roll for a whole squad at a time vs single rolling one by one?

Condition Brown:
Did I miss it somewhere or does the commander have no way to rally fleeing troops? I see that he can remove suppression but nothing for condition brown.

Thanks for taking the time to read my meandering and mistakes over trying a new game.
DZT

Glad to hear you liked gruntz, it's one of my favorite 15mm rulesets atm!
Now, to answer your questions;
(Disclaimer:I'm by no means an expert on these rules)

1. The way the supression is described in the example on pg.24 it says the test is from a single source of incoming damage e.g. one squad. So I believe that you test for current losses only and doesn't cary over from previous turns.

The second example is a bit trickier, we usually play it with a -1 to each shot, since its from different squads, but you could argue that as the losses mount up, it's harder to maintain morale. It's up to the flavor of game you are after I suppose!

In regard to the "Bullet time" perk; I'd say that since you target units individually rather than as a group in Gruntz, each doggie would get a +2 to guard for the first shot against them during the same round.

Even though you can roll all the attacks for a squad at once, you are technically rolling X seperate attack rolls, where x is the number of individual models attacking.

So this also answers your next question: A single ranged attack is the 2d6 rolled for a individual model, unless you make a concentrated fire action, then all the models participating will count as a single attack.

The reason a commander can't rally a unit in condition brown is because it automatically ends when they have activated once under condition brown. (pg.21 desciption of condition brown: Model or unit is on the run after failing a mental check. Gruntz squads automatically recover from Condition Brown after one activation in the condition.)

I hope this clears up some of your questions :)

Alex

This may help.

gruntz15.proboards.com

Alex,

Thanks for the response!

I saw the condition brown rule it just seem odd that unit in range of the commander didn't get anything to help test against it.

cool, I really like this entry in the comp, love that mix of dogs, troops and battle suit, and tied together with a great paint scheme, it instantly jumps out at you and captures the imagination.