""Hail Of Fire" simple 3-page rules! Looking for feedback!" Topic

I posted a few months ago about a project I had started, reworking concepts from "Flames Of War" and the 1-pager "Fubar" into a new company-level WWII themed game. You can catch up on the lengthy discussion here if interested: TMP link

Anyway, I've continued to work on it, implemented feedback, and re-conceived some of my core approaches into a project I'm much more excited about and that is truer to my initial vision. It's still very much a work in progress, however, and I am very interested in a second round of feedback on this new version.

You can download the pdf here: link

Please reply with any questions, comments, and feedback. I truly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Nice looking game. I'll have to give them a read when I get a chance.

Same here, will see how it reads (no one to play against tho, so can't test it that way).

What is the aspect in your game that is different from others? (Not an hostile question, an honest one!).

Phil, my main design point was to pack as much evocative tactical flavor and as many weighty decision points as possible into only a few pages. Like most other games (and most other art in general) its pieces are recognizable (mostly from Flames of War and Fubar, as mentioned) but the way in which both systems (and other influences) are pruned and fused has created a very different experience than either. As with any of my designs, my foremost goal is to evoke a theme, as efficiently as possible. :)

Hope that answers your question. Please feel free to ask any others :)

I applaud your goal sir! I like em simple and you seem to have done that. I like 'em short as well. You got everything on a few pages. So this to me is a winner.

I'll try to get a couple of games in soon.

John

It is so short and well organised that I was able to read before commenting. It looks like a great set of rules. I am more interested in mechanisms than anything else and there are some great ones

I have a couple of comments. Some of the answers might be apparent if I had read more carefully ….

- you have some rolls where you need to roll low, and some where you need to roll high. I think it will improve game play if all are high or low. Most people equate high with good
- do you actually state all dice are d6 ? I may have missed that
- can artillery be off table ? That seems to me to be the most likely scenario in this size of a game. Could also add aircraft attack with that same mechanism :)
- with the distances, you could perhaps give a table that shows the values for different figure scales.
- the victory conditions with the chits is interesting. You might want to give some guidance on how the win (lose) number (30) could be related to the size of the battle

Thanks for publishing

John

It clearly a game with little reference to the real world. Little that I can add on that basis. Would be improved if you gave it a ground scale sort of x inch = y yards in the real world. Artillery have a short and long danger zone which you appear to have ignored.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm incredibly appreciative to anyone who takes the time to look at my project.

Joker, when you have time to put models on the table, please let me know your thoughts.

Webster, let me address your points individually…

1. All rolls in the game are high. Some of the language can be confusing in that modifiers adjust target numbers rather than dice rolls, so -1 modifier is good when trying to roll high, unless your the target… then it's bad… Anyway, additional editing will be necessary and go a long way with that.
2. I do. First paragraph.
3. This isn't currently stated. I'm still deciding how I want to approach the writing, but the idea would be you can do either. Off board means your guns will be safely far away (except for counter battery perhaps? probably too many rules) but you'll have far fewer teams with which to spot, and of course no opportunity to direct fire. I'll try to implement this into the next version. Also wanted to take moment to let everyone know that the 3 sections that will hopefully finish this set are aircraft (as you mentioned) transports, and recon. If there's any interest, then I'll continue tinkering at more scenarios and army lists for a separate downloads.
4. I suggest in the first paragraph that rules are designed with 15mm models or smaller in mind. I wouldn't change the ranges if playing smaller as the aesthetic is nicer and more realistic, but feel free if you want to play on a smaller area.
5.True, the current 30 points is designed for a company plus support on each side. You might want to raise or lower the number depending on the size of forces, but for most games the generic value should work well.

UshCha, your absolutely right about my game having little reference to the real world :) As mentioned, I'm more interested in evoking flavor and providing interesting decisions than representing what one person decides is "realistic" or not. I went on a quest a few years ago to find the ultimate realistic combat game, and eventually realized it was a lost cause as no game is realistic. Ever since then, my concern was elegance, intuitiveness, and evoking a theme and flavor as simply as possible. So yes, if it's important for you that a game account for artillery's short and long danger zones, your right that I have not provided a very good experience, but considering the level of theme and depth I hope I'm able to fit into only 3 pages, I'm not sure what I'd want to remove in order to fit in more complicated artillery rules.

I'm not understanding how providing a ground scale improves the game. Can you please explain when you have time?

Thanks everyone!

3 pages.
Keep it simple.
I would be inclined to keep artillery off table.
For ww2 you could just ignore counter battery. Perhaps have a reload or something mechanism so rocket units don't fire for a while and they're reloading + relocating in that time.

Just whizzing through the rules, my first thought is that exactly how the players decide who goes first is totally glossed over. Maybe they ought to roll off for encounter games, attacker starts for attack defence/ambush.

@cheesesailor Nice looking game-looking forward to trying it out. Thanks

AONeill, thanks for the feedback. I'm going to try to implement as efficiently as possible both possibilities for deploying artillery. I totally buy into the idea of telescoping ground scale for wargames, and while I'm not officially employing it, for most things that abstraction makes the most sense to me. I'm going to toss out the idea of counter battery for the time being. In my recent testing it seems unnecessary.

Also, "first player" is discussed in the "Setting Up" section toward the end of the rules. Defender starts Dug-In and on Overwatch, and Attacker gets the first initiative. It suggests the Attacker is the player with more vehicle teams in his force.

So I've had a lot more interest from friends of mine to playtest and have received great feedback in the last week or so. I've been considering a few small, but very key changes that I think address some of the balance issues I'm finding.

Specifically, in the current rules, tanks are king. Specifically, they're incredibly mobile (can cross the board in 2 or 3 initiatives) and infantry doesn't have enough effective integrated AT to hold them back. Even with a 2+ save in hard cover, a platoon of tanks can often force 6 saves, so eventually people are going to die and leave the objective open for the tanks to take.

Mobility seems like a fairly easy fix. Changed standard 12" move to 10", and also added the single sentence, "Vehicle Teams given the "Run" order may not move through any Difficult or Very Difficult Terrain, nor move backwards." In my playtests the last couple days, this seems to have addressed the speed issue to my satisfaction.

Secondly, and perhaps more controversially, I changed the Infantry save in Hard Cover from a 2+ to Auto Success. Infantry teams (and gun teams that are gone to ground) are invulnerable to fire. However suppression is still applied as normal. Everything I've read implies that troops behind hard cover are near impossible to kill anyway, so this certainly lines up with that logic. The result is that while tanks can be very effective at pouring on suppression to a dug in enemy, they eventually have to move into an assault in order to move that enemy off an objective, and if that enemy is in terrain, they might get bogged down before the fight even starts, and then destroyed when the enemy counter assaults. Probably better to send in infantry to clean out the suppressed foe.

I've only tried one game with this change, but so far I think I really like it, and it's very simple. Any thoughts?

I've also included some corrections and rules that were missing. And I'm pretty sure I'm removing the "fire missions" rules, as the more I play the less necessary it seems.

Thanks!

P.S. Thanks for checking it out, War Panda! Let me know what you think!

..aaand printing. I am impressed, lightweigt rules with reaction fire and this easy overwatch is automatically interesting. Also, take realistic comments with grain of salt. No game without FOW is realistic 10%.

Thanks, Sismis!

I've added even further clarifications and corrections as of this morning, making the last version quite outdated, and so I've decided to upload the new version. This version also has the invulnerable infantry rule in it, which I still need to play more, so that might not stay forever. Please let me know what you guys think!

Heres the link again: retroboom.com

Cheesesailor77. Groundscale is important. The classic I see is on a board a Guy looks at a model house and says I should be able to see that man in that room. You look at the groundscale and see the house is 100m away. You take the man to the window of the room and show him a house 100 yds away. It is then evident that seeing a man in a room 100yds away is no simple task. You have to understand the limitations of a model, one is to understand the groundscale. This also should indicate to the gamer how many tacticaly significant features he needs to make the terrain representative. In the terrain we fight you should have at least 3 hedges within the range of a Light machine gun. If you have none then you model will not represent the real world it is purporting to model. Again if its just a game then that is OK. Its difficult to understand bocarge unless you have about 10 hedgerows per LMG range in all directions.

I would be vary of the invulnerable infantry. Gone to ground units are far from invulnerable, and gain cover only with objects, foxholes and prepared entrenchments. There are cases, like Siegfried line and likes, Monte Cassino, japanese island fortresses and Red October factory in Stalingrad with heavy metal casting furnaces which does make infantry indestructible, but I would make it scenario specific. It could lead to gamey effects. Besides, if you want to spend a valuable turn trying your 1/6th chance of blowing infantry vs targeting other units.. well be my guest :)

Just for clarification, in case I wasn't clear, in the proposed rules infantry would have to be in or behind Hard Cover to achieve an auto save against fire. I brought up "gone to ground" because gun teams that don't move or shoot use infantry saves, which in Hard Cover, would mean they would also auto save.

I do need to play more before I know for sure whether it works how I want or not. I've considered allowing weapons with the AT trait to still inflict wounds, would cut down on casualties but still allow for the possibility, but that would require more text, and I'm not sure right now if the distinction is even necessary at all.

For more discussion on the topic of modeling suppression and cover, totally check out these super interesting threads:

TMP link

TMP link

I was thinking about artillery fire. You can say that they were invulnerable to direct fire, that is sure. Sorry :)

Thank you thank you, I can see the thread I started is still having an impact…

It really is a interesting read, Ark3nubis. Thanks for starting the conversation.

Hey guys, I have a question. I'm trying to complete what I believe are the final 3 sections of the core rules, Transports, Air support, and Recon, and would like to get some of your advice. I've just finished the transport section, about 3 short paragraphs (long in such a short ruleset) which should hopefully cover most situations that will come up in a game (will have to playtest and see) and might be able to word a bit better as I continue to review it.

I'm less sure, what to do with Aircraft and Recon. I'm tempted to continue to use Flames as my main source of inspiration, but I'm thinking that I may be wasting an opportunity to instead implement something simpler and cleaner (and just as evocative) that I'm not seeing yet. Do you have any suggestions of either what you'd like either of these to feel like in the game, or interesting mechanism ideas?

Thanks!

You could use the old wrg style supernumerary mechanics rather than a auto save.
I don't like making something invulnerable.
Make a 1+ save a 1 followed by 1-2 on another roll.
0+ could then be 1 followed by 1-3 on another roll.
Or something like that.

AONeill, I may have to do that, however conceptually I'm against it. Anything with such a small chance of success I don't believe even needs to be suggested in the rules. By simply making certain teams invulnerable, I'm making it clear, don't waste your time standing and shooting after these guys are all suppressed, go in and get 'em out! By giving people the chance to take out the same teams, it's still not worth continuing to shoot at them, but some people won't find out until trying it in a few games, at which point they'll stop doing it and the extra rolls become inelegant. Do you disagree?

In addition to looking for suggestions on Aircraft and Recon ideas, I have another request; Where else can I share these rules online for further exposure/feedback? In addition to this thread, I have a post in the design section of boardgamegeek, but I'm at a loss for other venues to talk to wargamers and designers.

As always, thanks again for the help and feedback! :)

I've added very simple, but hopefully effective, transport rules to the latest version, as well as correcting a couple grammatical errors. Please let me know what you think. :)

link

Thanks!

-B

Hey guys, I've still been plugging away at improving the set, adding to and taking away, implementing feedback, changing and clarifying.

One change, relating to the previous conversation, is the refinement of the "invulnerable infantry" save, now requiring infantry and guns be "gone to ground" while in hard cover, or requiring a 7+ to hit. This turns out to work better (and is better received) than the blanket "Hard cover=invulnerability" we had before. There are also a ton of other changes, including additional clarifying the assault and artillery sections, a "QRS" of sorts, more maneuverability for units out of contact, and some sample stats for soviet vehicles. You can download it for free here: link

I have a few questions I'm hoping you guys can share your thoughts on. First has to do with my struggle with how to handle op fire. Originally the rules were generic and vague basically allowing for units to fire at enemy units moving through their field of fire. But this seemed fiddly and the procedure sometimes unclear. In order to make it more specific, I changed it to allowing enemy to check line of site, etc when enemy completed half it's move and again at the end of it's move. While this was more clear, it was not only more abstract and gamey, but was super slow, requiring every team basically be moved twice, usually with the opponent saying "nah, not gunna shoot". I've since changed it only allowing op fire at the end of a move order, which is simpler, much faster and preferable, but still often doesn't feel ideal. I've also been playtesting recently with random movement distances, which seems to complement the current system well. Do you guys have any opinions about how op fire is handled in a game of this scale?

Another thing is National rules. I assumed I'd include 2 or 3 national rules for the big 4, mostly taking from FoW or CoC. However I'm not sure which would be most important, and I've talked to a number of people who don't like the idea of national rules to begin with. Thoughts?

Lastly, I've included in the last few versions additional rules in the basic scenario for hidden deployment, essentially allowing infantry to be deployed anywhere on the table mid game, within certain restrictions. I generally really like how this plays, although it may need to be finessed more. I've heard critical feedback from playtesters upon reading it who don't like the abstraction, but so far most agree it leads to interesting decisions in game, and keeps everyone in the fight. I'm very interested to hear thoughts/suggestions on this.

Of course any other questions/feedback is appreciated as well. I've thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and playing regularly with friends, and appreciate the support and interest I've received from this community.

Thanks!

-B

Crossfire allows the op fire player to choose at what point he opens up on an enemy unit which is moving through his LoS. This makes sense to me. But if he misses he goes 'no fire' and can't op fire again that turn. This adds a bit of risk and reward to attempting op fire and provoking it in the first place.

Just had a look at these Cheesesailor …really good work !
I Like the Hidden Unit rules a lot.
…will put this on the table soonest and give it a run !

Congrats ! ..Good work !

Capt Jimmi, thanks for checking them out! I really appreciate it. Please, give me your feedback when you get it on the table.

Frothers, I love Crossfire's system. The problem I'm encountering is that instead of resolving one stand's order at a time (as in crossfire), I'm resolving a unit of many stands order at a time, and it's feeling very cumbersome.

When your opponent says "stop, I want to shoot", what exactly does that mean? Is he shooting at just the one stand I was moving at that moment, or the whole unit which I had ordered but hadn't yet physically touched? Worst yet, after we've checked line of sight and range and figured out which stands would be valid targets, which teams are shooting, allocating hits, blah blah blah… "How much movement did this guy have left? I think this was was farther back, no wait I think he started here, no that this this guy… crap."

In crossfire most of those issues just don't exist as everything is one stand and no measurements, but in mine it was feeling like a real problem. I'm currently playing that op fire can only happen at the end of a move, and I've also been playing with random move distances (d6 for infantry, d3 for guns, 2d6 for most tanks). The random (and generally shorter) distances and end /opfire sequence seem to compliment each other well for a very simple reasonable approach. Again though, any suggestions on how to implement a more fluid and flexible approach are always appreciated.

Thanks again!

I see no problem in op fire. Opponent is moving stands in front of your unit on overwatch. When you decide which unit to fire on, for simplicity let him end movement and resolve fire.
If you miss unit would probably end up where it is. If it is a casualty it doesn't matter as it goes off the table.

Unit can shoot once one stand as it is not that easy to react and target, that's why it would appear later during movement, not in the beginning. I would allow unlimited reaction times in limited area only for machine gun units and likes.

"When your opponent says "stop, I want to shoot", what exactly does that mean? Is he shooting at just the one stand I was moving at that moment, or the whole unit which I had ordered but hadn't yet physically touched?"

You announce what stands are moving as a group, but they are moved across the table one at a time for convenience. But once the move is announced you're committed to moving them all. Even if that means the first group was moved into LoS of an enemy but pinned, the second one's coming anyway. You don't get to stop a group move based on the fact that something went wrong, it's all supposed to be simultaneous. The Op Fire group gets to shoot at every stand that was indicated as moving as they move, regardless of the first result(s).

Hey guys, I've uploaded the latest version to my site, featuring a couple simple, but very significant changes!

link

I finally gave up on trying to mold the Fire Points system from Fubar to my specific needs. I loved the simplicity of all weapons basically having a range and one general firepower number, but it was made for a different scale of interaction, and I was annoyed with the number of rules exceptions I felt I needed to include, contradicting the reason I had adopted it in the first place. I had given it a little thought over the last couple weeks, wanting to adjust to a more traditional rate of fire system, but without requiring any additional rolls or math for AT/armor hits. I finally pulled the trigger and implemented the change, and it seems to work much much better to my mind, much simpler and less fiddly than before.

The second main change is a consolidation of the activation modifiers for suppression. I finally made the decision that the game was too punishing to suppressed units, making it very difficult (or impossible) to activate and additionally ending your initiative. After units become 50% suppressed, players usually abandon them completely, focusing entirely on other units, which was definitely not my intention. Now there's simply a +1 penalty for having at least 50% of the unit suppressed. This works much more closely to my intention and is even simpler to understand and remember.

I also officially implemented the diced movement I've been playing with for the last few weeks, as well as continuing to clean up loose ends as always. Take a look and please tell me what you think.

I'll be GMing a couple HoF games at Conquest Avalon this weekend, so if you're around, please stop by and roll some dice!

I was at Conquest Avalon over the weekend and was playing an air combat game I'd already agreed to sign up for (I know all of the guys) while Brandon was set up and playing next to our table.

His collection of buildings, terrain, vehicles and guns is impressive and well painted, just as the pictures on his website. His terrain and buildings are very well done and the table had a detailed but clean look to it.

It looked like there were 3-4 people playing the scenario. As a GM he ran the game real well keeping the game going and the players involved. He really knows the rules and seemed to be able to communicate it to the players. After reading his set of rules I can say from my experience that the sequence that gives a player a choice of move-move, move-fire, fire-move, etc works very well at a convention for new people as we've played a similar but simpler set of rules for years.

I don't know what feedback the players gave him but if you are looking for a simple set of rules that do pretty well at simulating the differences in decisions and weapons systems you should give it a try, especially at a convention to attract new people. I'm forwarding his set to our GM to look at for our games at conventions in the SF Bay area.

Thanks
Wolfhag

Thanks Steve! Yes, I was incredibly pleased with how the demo games went this last weekend. Everyone seemed to really enjoy them. I had one gentleman who seemed particularly apprehensive at first, but once he saw the overarching result, he agreed it produced a fun game, very quickly, and produced broadly the historical effect he was anticipating. I was surprised that only one player really wrestled with the validity of the "Hidden" deployment rules, as I figured it would be more, but he agreed that it produced a simple and enjoyable game he was very interested in playing again, even if he thought it wasn't realistic.

People also were generous in the feedback they could come up with having only played once and I'm attempting to implement it currently, mostly pertaining to certain rerolls and changing specific stats. Overall I had a blast demoing the game to new players for the first time for me, and was pleased that everyone was so supportive. :) Wish I had the opportunity more often!

These rules look interesting and I may well give them a go. One thing I noticed though is that you have (along with many other WW2 rules) seriously limited the range of a 60mm mortar at 20" – i.e just over rifle range. The American M2 60mm mortar had an effective range of nearly 2000 yards – almost 6 time the effective range of a rifle! I would therefore suggest significantly increasing the stated range for a 60mm mortar to at least 48" or possibly even infinity like the 81mm.

MajorB, thanks for the insight! Most of my reference as far as equipment is from ASL and other games. I'll increase the 60mm range in the next version and see how it works out. :D

I've just downloaded it the other day and gave it a quick read thru. I'm interested in company-level rules right now and have to say I like what you've done here in only a few short pages!
I'm particularly trying to come up with Solo rules for myself and was wondering if your game would lend itself to that purpose. I'll fiddle with it and try to report on any success. It might be a while though.
Oh, and thanx for offering it FREE! You've done your hobby a generous service.

Thanks, Warhawk! :D Give it ago and please contact me with your thoughts. It's still very much a work in progress. I've made some additions/correction in a version to put up online, but I haven't had a chance to playtest all of them in the last couple weeks :/ Hopefully I can get a game in soon and post the new version in the next week.

As for solo gaming, there aren't any mechanisms there specifically for that, but as there's no hidden info (besides chit total) and the initiative system applies a bit of fog of war, it's also not the worst candidate, for those willing to play both sides. Let me know what you find! Thanks again!

I finally got time to play a game and had a great time! I am unable to send a PM so will spam comments here :)

1. 3+ save on open for infantry seems quite good
2. there are same saves on indirect and direct fire. Maybe 1 higher for HE/indirect fire, 2 for high caliber (105+)
3. indirect fire template size depending on caliber (but I was playing with 15mm so it was funny 6" for a mortar :)
4. adding HE ammo for armored units to clear out pockets of resistance. right now they were just standing and shooting without much effect
5. maybe close assault for inf vs armor
6. generally I know infantry were hard to take down but in a company sized game it should go more quickly
7. suppression: HMG only 1 FP. I would put at least 2.. it should suppress whole team with one hit. Same even for LMG. They were made for suppression, so making them less lethal and more suppress powered would make sense. Other team would fire and maneuver to try to bring it down
8. reaction fire limit to front only for all units. Also maybe them having single range distance to simplify things
9. AT/AP mine fields and engineers for deploying/clearing. Something simple like rolling 1 for kill or 2 for a mobility kill
10. AT guns instead of high FP, having modifier on save. 57mm -1 to save, 75mm 0, 90mm +1, thus taking into account penetration value. Thus 57mm would be very hard to make a penetration

And two questions:
- when does reaction fire takes (only during assault)?
- what happens if I have one suppresion point to place and all Teams already have one?

I have played without leader rules, but had great fun nonetheless. Firefights were nailbiting, morale effective and believable way to shorten battle. Overall, very well thought out rules, and I will continue to use them. Thank you for providing them ;)

Thanks, sismis! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself!

First and foremost, as I just mentioned HoF is very much a work in progress. So feel free to tweak and change things as you like and let me know how it works out.

If you find the time, I'd love it if you can take a moment to further explain some of your notes posted here. I'll try to comment on each briefly.

1. I agree. mY philosophy is that infantry is much easier to suppress than to kill, hence why each "hit" counts toward suppression, yet they then get a save that starts at 3+ but gets better from there depending how well protected they are.

2. Yes, currently the saves are the same always, for simplicity. Can you explain further what you mean by 1 and 2 higher?

3. Again for simplicity, much easier to have a simple tool rather than have to make multiple or measure out the dimensions each time. Also importantly, myself and many of the people I know already own the FoW artillery template, which of course, happens to be 6x6. What would your suggestions be for dimensions?

4. The rules assume that Tank commanders fire AT rounds at tanks and HE rounds at infantry. The rules reflect my philosophy that infantry under specific conditions are very hard to dig out and require going in for close assault. I've also found it more fun and more tactically interesting, as in earlier versions of the rules, tanks went where and did as they pleased and infantry became irrelevant. More recent version have been much more balanced and enjoyable to me.

5. I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Are you asking if infantry may assault armor? because they absolutely can, and if tanks make themselves vulnerable to it, can be very effective.

6. If you find time to comment on this further I'd love to here how this played out for you and your thoughts on tweaking it. Again, my general philosophy is that infantry moving in the open are toast, behind hard cover are really hard to kill, and if behind something hard and not shoot back, are nigh impossible to remove without going in. Suppress, then close assault.

7. HMGs only get 1 FP (same as a rifle), but a RoF of 6 rather than a rifle team's 2. My philosophy being that their bullets are generally just as lethal, it's the RoF that makes them what they are. And as described above, infantry are hard to kill but fairly easy to suppress, and you'll certainly be landing more suppression points with rof 6 than 2. Does that make sense?

8. As it is now, gun teams and vehicles may only reaction fire forward where infantry teams may fire in any direction which has been working well. Did you find this making infantry too effective?

9. Definitely the kind of thing I'd like to include, though in a separate optional document. It's very important to me to keep the base rules simple and short. If you decide to play with minefields or other extras, please email me your rules and I'll try to include them in an optional supplement. :D

10. Please describe this further. If I understand correctly, I feel like FP covers this concept already, without introducing an additional stat or rules.

-Reaction fire may happen after any movement.
-If every team in a unit is already suppress, additional suppressions are discarded.

You can also email me through my website or post on the boards there if that works better for you. Thanks again for your comments and please let me know if you have more questions, etc.

I've also posted a new version up on the site, with a couple changes for those interested. I hope to post sample force orgs this week as well, for those who want something quick and simple and SOMEWHAT balanced, and aren't interested in real historical orders.

-B

I will just state that session was very satisfying, just 'feels' alright despite personal preferences and is well worth the time invested ;) There weren't any problems which couldn't be fixed by tweaking rules to ones liking, that is another thing I liked. I will comment to close the questions and continue to PM so thread will be free of thought flows. Of course, there is a great probability that I have played completely wrong so feel free to toss a grenade in my direction :)

I was playing with US side with 3 teams (each 4 figures), 2 shermans vs German 2 teams, PzIV, Pak40, mortar on both sides. Now thinking back, it was 2hr game, actually good length since I was mostly flipping through rules as it was very first game.

1&2: What I meant with good infantry save is that turns passed with firefights and low casualties (save on 3+ in cover). This is ok, but I was expecting things to become more deadly on open terrain (thus thinking about save 4+), with mortar shelling still on 3+, and even MG fire from Sherman cannot alone suppress single team with RoF2 and FP2. So I was thinking for a rule for arty in weapons section: to increase save vs mortars by +1, and vs high caliber +2. For example hard cover save 3+/4+ respectively.

To quote link
(1) …Results showed that troops prone in the open would suffer 100 percent casualties. Those in open fighting positions without overhead cover would suffer 30 percent casualties. Troops dug-in with overhead cover would expect fewer than 10 percent casualties, mostly by direct hits.
Since you first need 3+ to hit, even with 4+ hard cover save would equal 33% of elimination.

3. I have no idea for dimensions, sorry :) I did not scale down sizes for 15mm as ranges were quite good. But 6x6 ended quite big for mortar :)

4. Currently tank needs to hit 3+ and target to fail save 3+ in soft cover = 22%. 11% for hard cover. Assault guns were designed to bring down units in cover. If tanks roam around freely.. well.. that is what they do if you forgot AT guns :) Actual problem is that games don't have Fog of War and you can chase enemy infantry wherever they go as you can plainly see them. Actual tanks didnt know who was in that bush over there. I would just give more bazooas to infantry and make tankers more scared. That is linked to 5th comment, I need to try out assault more.

6. I agree completely. However I was thinking about playing with more units, and in order to advance across the battlefield in a reasonable evening time infantry should be a *little* more easier to remove (on both sides) to speed up the game. Again, this is just personal preference to play with, say, 10 tanks and company/two/3. I am just thinking out loud here, to increase saves by 1 or something (think- game mode: easy on computer games). I was not intending to play this ruleset as squad skirmish.

7. when you say it like this, perfectly :)
8. it is more realistic, and I was hoping it was designed to happen anytime. Works perfectly!
9. deal. For a beginning I was thinking something about rolling d6 for each passing unit, with 1 as kill or 2 for a mobility kill/supression if infantry.

10. 57mm has RoF 2, and Tiger can fail flank save twice on 4+. Does he rolls twice on damage table? Because he has, what, 30% to roll one 6 and be destroyed by 57mm. So I was thinking to elegantly put modifier in notes by weapons. Tiger's save is still 3+/4+, but by 57mm states it makes save better, thus Tiger's save will be 2+/3+. 90mm would worsen save, and it will end up 4+/5+. 76mm should be neutral. RoF was more crude. But simpler, true. I don't know, it's late…

Again, It is fun, and I intend to play some more! And I have started building some terrain for this and will hopefully play soon… and get some coherent thoughts this time.
Thank you,
Zoran

Hey Zoran! Thanks for getting back to me on this stuff. It's super encouraging to have people show interest and give feedback. I have some more questions now!

First of all, the forces you were playing with, are you using individually based figures? When you say, "PzIV, Pak40, mortar" do you mean a single tank, single gun, single mortar? That wouldn't be a problem necessarily, but my assumption was that forces would be made up of units of several tanks and several guns. It sounds like you were playing more at a reinforced Platoon level, rather than the intended reinforced company level. Again, I'm not sure off the top of my head whether that's a problem, but I've never tried to play it that way. Here's an example force I might normally play with:

- Company Command team w/ Panzerfaust

3x – Grenadier Platoon
- Platoon Leader team w/ Panzerfaust
- 6x LMG team

1x – AT Platoon
- Platoon Leader team w/ Panzerfaust
- 3x Pak40 team

1x – Mortar Platoon
- Platoon Leader team w/ Panzerfaust
- 3x 8cm Mortar team

1x – Panzer Platoon
- Platoon Leader PzIV team
- 2x PzIV team

Just an example, but pretty standard and something I've definitely played with more than once.

#3: Is the confusion based on the thinking that the template represents the blast radius of the mortar? If so, let me clarify that the template represents the area designated for barrage, and shells are being dropped all over that 6x6 area. rather than the template representing the explosion from a mortar round. Does that make sense? In 15mm, I wouldn't think 6x6 wouldn't be too large at all.

#10: Actually, to your point, the 57mm is currently even MORE effective than that, considering that when hit, the tank rolls a save for each point of FirePower the weapon has. So 2 hits from the 57mm means 4 saves for the Tiger, a 4+ on his flank. If he fails those, the shooter gets to roll on the Vehicle Damage Table, with a 6 to destroy (so 4 chances at a six if hit twice and failed every save). However it's still not very likely, but certainly possible. A concealed tank is a 5+ to-hit if regular, 6+ if Veteran, not counting long range or the shooter having moved. Also, armor ratings go up one when over 20 inches away. My personal feeling is if the tiger finds himself in close range of a platoon of 57mm guns, on his flank and unconcealed… He's asking for it. Legend has it the very first Tiger 1 disabled in battle was taken out by a 57mm gun. ;) I'd suggest playing it more with the current values, just to confirm your hypothesis, but feel free to play however you like, and then please send me feedback about how it goes so I can have that info when modifying future versions :) I can credit you as a contributor as well.

No problem, just think of me as a typical short attention span passer-by, attracted by cool terrain setup with Woow! Tanks!, barely aware of OOB's :)

I am using individually based figures with a single tank, mortar, HMG. It was just small force to try the rules and finish within an evening.

#3: It does clearly says a barrage, no mistake there, but it was pinning down my poor guys most of the game and killed first Sherman so got me worried. You might say it was working as intended, except poor Sherman..

#10: Well, that Sherman triggered that thought – to put a note by certain weapons. For example 57mm (or mortar shell) increases save of armored target by +1. So this Tiger would increase it's flank armor from 4+ to 5+ for this gun.

I guess I reaction too fast but wanted to comment as a positive gameplay experience and got carried away in thoughts, sorry :). Maybe I wanted to create a foothold and to retain simple aspect of rules and put some of the rare specials under weapons section.

I will try with your forces next time, by unmodified rules. If I found 6x LMG's :)

Aha! I was about to correct you by reiterating that only weapons with the AT trait could harm the Sherman, but them wisely decided to double check myself before doing so, and found that indeed I have the 81mm mortar boasting the AT trait. ;) This was a left over from a previous version where it seemed to make more sense, but with the change I missed that AT needed to be removed from the 81mm as well. So ignore that and the next version will have that corrected.

Also your finding tanks a little underpowered makes a little more sense given the scale you were playing. Generally speaking, a tank will usually be acting in a group of 3-5 tanks. And even though you were playing with individual troop models, you were treating them as team stands in terms of stats. So if I understand you had a full strength platoon of rifles holding of a very under strength platoon of tanks, which in many circumstances will easily go in the troops favor.

Again totally play with whatever stats/changes you see fit, I'm flattered you've decided to use my set as a baseline :) As a personal favor though I'd ask you to try playing with the "official" rules a couple more tries as you find time, simply because the playtest info is so valuable to me :) thanks again for that!

Cheesesailor77: I should have stated when I wrote you here that I already have some rules I use. I've been playing them for 30 years or so (I even did some play testing for them) and I wanted to see if your rules could be useful in my attempt to play them solo.

That said, I'm using the variable action roll that gives units either one or two actions. Good for solo as you never know to what degree of success you'll have untill you actually activate the units and execute their orders. Thus, a combined attack using multiple units can come off very poorly if some of the rolls are failed! One platoon advances while the other three just sit there, for example.

It also effects overwatch, as instead of two shots, a unit may only get one. This makes it more worth the gamble to move across a watched fire lane.

I also threw in a die roll for movement distance when moving units. If they fail their activation AND roll their movement distance poorly, they will just crawl that turn, while their friends are scooting right along!

This all makes formations strung out and thus less effective. Or not. The variability is perfect for solo play.

Thanx, and Game On.