"All Americans, Part 10 (Near Naples, 4 October 1943)" Topic

All,

I'm back, albeit in a limited capacity. Three weeks into this, wife and baby are doing well, but we're all tired and there's not much time for wargaming. Having said that, I've been on the lookout for something to do small, quick games, and I may have found an answer in the new skirmish rules "Five Men in Normandy." I've had them for a couple weeks now, and last night I resolved to wake up early (whilst the wife and three kids were hopefully still sleeping) and sneak upstairs to get in a game or three, which is exactly what I did.

I played the rules twice as written, then tweaked a couple things: one to speed the game up a bit, and another to make the morale system act a little more to my liking. The first two games were okay, and the third not only went great (a sound trouncing of the Germans!), but felt right. So, what was I doing? I resurrected my "All Americans" campaign; not a full-blown deal, but something I already had lying around, ready to go, in order to allow me to playtest the rules.

Overview of the field. As normal, I will be playing this in 10mm (all Pendraken), and the board is 2' x 2'. The objective house is at center top, surrounded by craters from the arty barrage, and 2nd Squad will be entering from the bottom baseline. Starting positions, with Everson and two riflemen at bottom right, Keepers, Alston (SMG), and two riflemen on a 'left-hook' at bottom left, three Germans near the house, and the German Lt and two more troops entering at top left.

The game is afoot! Right out the gate I rolled a 6 for 'firefight,' but no one has LOS to the enemy, so it's treated as a 'scurry,' where everyone gets to move without attracting reactive fire (plus there's no reactive fire on the first turn anyway). Keepers and Alston dart left, while Longwood and Girardo move up into the woods, getting a look at the German house.

Meanwhile, Cpl Everson, Cahill, and India move into the trees in the SE (bottom right) corner, also getting a look at the German house.

Then things start to go to … The Kraut Sergeant darts across the road (no reaction fire because my three guys in the woods moved last turn) and sprays the woods: he doesn't hit anyone, but he pins Cpl Everson (yellow bead), and PFC India runs! Yes, that's why there are only two Americans in the woods…

Things are going back and forth on both flanks, and just when I think I've got the advantage, the damned Americans roll a 'scurry' (another 1). Cpl Everson (far right) rallies, while Cahill mounts the knoll at center, just opposite the German rifleman that moved into the woods at top left. I'm not getting any reactive fire in the game because only guys that didn't activate during their turn can fire ("guard fire"), but I keep rolling 1's ('scurry'), so everyone is activating…

Finally my activation dice is something other than a '1'! Alston (bottom center left) opens up with his Tommy Gun and hits nothing, so Keepers fires at the same target and gets a knockdown (black bead). The knockdown will likely recover on his next activation if I can't get someone up there to touch him, which puts him out of the fight. Most of the time you can only activate a couple guys, so it's a tough call whether to activate a man that's been knocked down (to try to make him recover), or use a guy that's in good health.

Then the German Sgt moves up and sprays his MP-40 in Cahill's general direction, which is good enough to make him decide to head for the hills! That's twice the German Sgt has pulled off that little feat…

This is followed by the German Sgt's buddy moving up to Cahill's recently abandoned position and taking a shot at Cpl Everson, still in the woods. Everson goes down like a sack of potatoes… The Americans now have ZERO men on the right flank.

Longwood tosses a grenade at the German in the shellhole, and gets it close enough to score a knockdown. Then Cpl Keepers decides to charge forward into the woods and finish off the other German rifleman that had suffered a knockdown. As he's moving up the German Lt fires his pistol at Keepers, but misses. The German rifleman is kaput (top center, with Keepers standing over the body, German Lt just to his right; Longwood is at bottom left, and you can see the white puff from his grenade).

Thing are starting to look up, right? Negative… The opposing forces trade fire for a bit, then Longwood goes down. Then…

The Germans had an SMG gunner in the house that hadn't acted in awhile, but now he decided to join the party. He moved up (top right) next to the rifleman that just recovered from the knockdown (in the shellhole) and fired at Cpl Keepers, putting him out of the fight!

I hope this thing makes sense; I cut it up a lot, so to see how it ends, and all the narrative and pics I cut out, please visit the blog at:
link

V/R,
Jack

Nice and all on 2' x2', I love these systems that give so much game in a small space.

Glad to see you back! One question I forgot to ask on your blog is how long does each game take to play, roughly?

Excellent stuff! Very interested in what you think of the rules too

Fellas,

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it. And it's funny, I just realized I posted this to "Modern Batreps" instead of "WWII Batreps;" guess I got so used to moderns with all the "In Country" reports.

Kyote – You know I had Alston rescue our dear Cpl Keepers just for you. I couldn't have him left bleeding on the battlefield, you'd never let me hear the end of it!

Norm – Yes, with my severe lack of time, this is really working out. Congratulations on getting your rules finished, playtested, and posted. Unfortunately I haven't yet had time to give them a good read through, but I know you put a lot of work into them and suspect I need to take a good look at using them for some larger scale (company/battalion-sized) actions in my limited space.

Shaun – I played three games; I couldn't honestly tell you how long the first two were as I was still learning/getting comfortable with the rules. I did play the three games in about three hours, and the last one (which I modified a bit to speed things up) took me about 30 minutes to set up and play.

Panda – The rules are quick and fun, which is just what the doctor ordered. I did modify the 'morale' system a bit, making it 'crunchier,' but I offset this by speeding up the activation process a bit:
1: Scurry
2-5: Activate as many men as the die roll score
6: Firefight

This speeds things up, but also makes it easier to shake off knockdowns and morale effects, which I changed to:
On a 2-5, there is no effect on the soldier being shot at.
On a 1, he 'falls' down one morale level.
On a 6, he 'falls' down three morale levels.
The morale levels are:
-Normal (i.e., no problems, he can do whatever he wants)
-Hit the deck (soldier drops prone, must spend an action to get back in the fight, i.e., stand up, but okay otherwise)
-Pinned (soldier drops prone, can't move until rallied* but can shoot)
-Suppressed (soldier drops prone, can't move or shoot until rallied*)
-Fall back (soldier runs away from enemy to nearest cover which blocks LOS, if there is none he runs off map. Then he's treated as prone and suppressed)
*When you rally a soldier you are simply rolling a D6, as above (1-drop one level, 2 to 5-okay, 6-drop three levels), so he's probably be okay, but he could get worse. Even when he rallies, he can't otherwise act that turn.

V/R,
Jack