"Combat Patrol game" Topic

I ran a Combat Patrol game for my local group. They liked it. I put up a post on my blog, Wargaming From an Armchair.
link

I think this set of rules by Buck Surdu will make playing skirmish games more a matter of playing the game rather than looking at rules and charts. It works extremely well. It plays quickly, and gives a good result.

Hi

Nice review Bill, But it still begs the question when are going to come to a CMH Meeting?

Bill Daniel

Bill:

That was a nice writeup. I'm glad you enjoyed the game and that the others in your group picked it up quickly.

From your writeup, you may want to check a couple of things:

– wounded figures become stunned, but after they un-stun they can activate normally (unless their unit is pinned)
– reaction fire is in the basic rules.

Thanks again for sharing your experience and the photos.

Buck

Buck, I always find I miss stuff. I usually go back and reread the rules the day after I run a game. I was wondering. Have you done just tank on tank battles with this? It looks like it would work great.

Bought it yesterday, looking forward to giving it a go.

Bill:

Yes, I find that I have to play a set of rules a few times to get everything right. Often there are subtle nuances to a set of rules that are not obvious at first. I also try to play a set of rules a few times before making house rules. Often I find after a couple of plays that I start to understand the authors' intent and find the house rules are not necessary. For instance, I found Muskets and Tomahawks hard to get my arms around the first time I read them, but when we put some figures on the table, I found that I like the game.

As to your question about purely tank vs. tank fights, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. I haven't tried it myself. If you do, let us all know how it went.

Buck

Bought it yesterday, looking forward to giving it a go.

Vigilant, thanks for your support. I hope you enjoy the rules.

Great to see new people enjoying this great gaming concept. We had it on our Trade Stand at Hammerhead and will have it at Salute. Most people who came up had not heard of it before but were very impressed when I showed them the cards and talked them through the shooting sequence.

wargamesbuildings.co.uk/Combat-Patrol

Chris,

Love the game but what almost turned me off is the GAMER definition. Sounded very gimmicky to me. As you state the shooting sequence is the game's strongest point. The activation system is good as well.

Cheers

Joe

Hi Joe,
You've got to remember that Buck is ex Army and they love a mnemonic for training purposes and I've heard a lot worse, however solid system which can be expanded into pretty much any period where firearms are used.
Cheers,
Chris

Chris,
Don't get me wrong, I love the game. Just giving my opinion on why people might not warm to it at first until they have seen the sequence.
I had 3 years in the Army and 24 in the Air Force so am well versed in mnemonics!

Cheers

Joe

I play and like several of Buck's rules, so I was eager to try Combat Patrol. A friend graciously loaned me two decks of cards so I only had to buy the rules. Three of us worked through each step until we were comfortable with the sequence and with reading the cards. We did some fire team vs. fire team combats in different kinds of cover and at different ranges until we thought we had it down well enough to try the scenario in the basic rules. We had to go into the Advanced and Optional rules frequently to resolve unanswered questions, and still ended up with three pages of handwritten questions. In the end, we just threw them away. I'm sorry to report that we won't be playing Combat Patrol again. We, the three of us, all like our "T's crossed" and "I's dotted" a bit more than what we found in CP's rules.

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy the game. Have you watched any of the videos posted on the Web page to try to answer some of your questions? Most folks have found the videos quite informative. The rules are quite unique, and I have found the videos help get people past the very different mechanics.

You shouldn't have needed the optional or advanced rules to play the introductory scenario. If you'd care to send me your questions or post them on the rules' Yahoo group, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Buck

I'll watch the videos again. Now that I've played a game, perhaps they will be more meaningful. The list of questions went out with the trash last week, but one I remember, regarding Pinned units. What, if any, effect does being Pinned have on a Pinned unit that gets charged and has to fight hand-to-hand?

"beerguy:"

Being pinned is a unit activation status, not a state of each individual in the unit. Bottom line: pinned has no effect on melee. This was not a hole, per se, but a conscious design decision.

Explanation:

A small number of morale results on an Action Deck card call for a unit to become pinned. This is an ACTIVATION effect on the unit, not an effect on individual figures. Pinned units activate on black cards only, and not red cards. Until a unit rallies, by activating on a black 6, the unit remains pinned. Pinned units, on average, activate half as frequently as non-pinned units, generally making the units about half as effective (i.e., it moves half as far, fires half as often, etc.) You can think of being pinned as something that affects the leadership of the unit rather than something that affects the individuals within the unit.

By the time a unit receives a pinned result it has taken effective fire from this enemy -- accruing morale markers. This means that individual figures are wounded and / or stunned. (Remember that even when cover protects a figure from being wounded, the figure is still stunned.) Being stunned and/or wounded effects the figure's ability to conduct melee.

There are four articles on The Wargames Website and Cigar Box Battles about the three-year design process of Combat Patrol. You may find them interesting as a way to grok the philosophy of the rules. I tried to resist the temptation to add lots and lots of modifiers in order to keep the game simple, but not simplistic. In generally if a condition or situation has less than a 5% effect on an activity, I don't include it in my games (which is the subject of a longer conversation). I feel that a stunned modifier on melee was redundant.

I hope this helps.

Buck

Bought the rules last week they have not arrived yet. I did download the quick start rules, and they look very interesting.

Buck,

I have received my copy of the rules and read the quick start rules before getting the full rule book. I have a couple of questions.

1. I assume that ordering "Recover from Stun" automatically heals the figure for the next activation. If the unit is re-stunned during the same turn it would have to order recover again?

2. I have not found any rules that cover the "Rally" order. When and how does this order apply?

So far so good, plan to play my first game on 17 May.

Bob

If a Melee results in a tie, both units back up 2", but do both receive a casualty card?