"TW&T House Rules" Topic

I just thought I would get opinions on some TW&T house rules that I have been using lately (not the most popular rules anymore, but I think they still offer something other games do not).

Anyway, I have switched from 28mm individually based models to 15mm "Flames of War" stands (1" bases for 2-3 man teams, and 2" bases for 4-5 man groups). The advantage of team basing is that it is much quicker (fewer pieces to move) and looks great. I came up with a list of basing conventions to mimic national doctrines, but in essence a typical squad is made up of a 2-man NCO stand (including one rifleman), a 3-man LMG stand and a 5-man rifleman team.

Small Targets: To make the small stands (like the NCO or the LMG) a little more durable, I've been toying with a right column shift on the firepower table for enemy attackers (much like firing while pinned). It's worked well so far.

Rally: I liked the old rule in IABSM that you roll the Big Man's quality die to rally a unit, so I brought that back. It costs 3 Tactical Initiative to rally an accompanied unit (the average result between the median quality dice, 1d4 and 1d6).

Commendations: This is an idea I stole from Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin. A number of Big Men (maybe around 1 in 3) get a special bonus (+1 or rarely +2) in one or more areas, as defined below:

Assault: +1 or +2 dice in close combat.
Command: +1" or +2" to command distance and +1 or +2 to Tactical Initiative Tally.
Morale: +1 or +2 on rally rolls.
Stealth: +1 or +2 blinds allocation and +1 or +2 to Spotting.

Most Big Men would have no commendations, of course. Otto Skorzeny, on the other hand, might be Assault +2, Stealth +2 and Command +1. This is just a way to differentiate more between Big Men for scenario purposes.

Here is another that I'm going to try out soon: new indirect fire rules. The rules in TW&T are fine, but one may prefer the indirect fire rules to be more like the direct fire rules. In that case, try these out!

Indirect Fire Support: When a Forward Observer or Big Man card is turned and he is not currently suppressed, he may plot and communicate a fire plan to the indirect fire support assets available for the mission (at the cost of one Tactical Initiative for a Big Man spotter). The spotter may take no other action while coordinating the fire. If the target is a pre-registered coordinate, shuffle an indirect fire support card into the deck after the tea break and resolve a barrage when the card is next turned. Otherwise, roll 2d6 on the direct fire to-hit table (9.1.1), with a default base difficulty of Not Bad (8) (the umpire should feel free to modify this for scenario-specific reasons, e.g. if the support assets are being shared with other formations). Modify the target number by the following factors:

Things that make it harder:

Target obscured by smoke
Friendly troops near target
Spotter is green
Spotter is a Big Man
Poor lines of communication (Soviets)
Spotter is under fire
Spotter is pinned (+2 to the score)
Poor artillery doctrine (Germans, French)
Attached (high level) support asset

Things that make it easier:

Major reference point nearby (large building)
Spotter is a veteran
Organic support asset
Spotter is the commander
Spotter is a Forward Observer
Superior artillery doctrine (American)

If you score a hit, shuffle the indirect fire support card into the deck after the tea break and set the artillery timer (usually 1 for Americans, 2 for British and 3 for everyone else). If the spotting attempt is a miss, shuffle the indirect fire support card into the deck and set the timer as normal, but add the amount you missed the roll by to the total. Every time the indirect fire support is turned, reduce the timer by 1. While the timer is higher than zero, the spotter may take no other actions, other than to cancel the ordnance (see below). When the timer is reduced to zero, immediately resolve the artillery barrage: roll 2d6 and scatter the centerpoint of the barrage in the direction of the higher die to the lower and for a distance equal to the sum of the dice (doubles indicating a direct hit). Area effect and damage is resolved as described in 8.2 and 8.3.

The barrage will continue on that new centerpoint every time the indirect fire support card is turned until the fire mission is spent or the bombardment is cancelled by the spotter (the spotter must use all of his actions as well as one Tactical Initiative, in the case of a Big Man). If the spotter is taken out of action before the artillery timer is resolved, the attack is automatically cancelled. If the spotter is taken out after the barrage begins, it will continue until a higher-ranking Big Man cancels the attack or the fire mission runs out of ammunition.

Note: If you have an umpire, you can simply inform him of the target point. Otherwise, measure the length and width of the table and secretly jot down the coordinates of the strike (left to right, then far end to nearest, from the player's perspective). It is important to measure the entire length and width of the table, even measuring across the middle of the table, so as to not give away your intended target.

OK you are right about TW&T. I still think they are best platoon level rules I have come across in 40 years of wargaming.

I am going to have to give your changes a more detailed look. However on first read they look OK, I am intrigued by the IDF rules.

Fatman

Nice, it's good to find another TW&T fan! I think anyone that likes IABSM will like TW&T, but most people haven't given it a try unfortunately.

The IDF rules above abstract the ranging/corrective fire that happens before the barrage. It is assumed that a bad roll by the spotter means the initial coordinates needed a lot of correction to get the fire plan on target. Thus it is really a question of time… Will the fire support be requested in a timely manner, or will it come too late? The original rules for IDF are fine, but I felt they abstracted the critical resource of timeliness too much… Indirect fire support was just too responsive (even though it was also very inaccurate). If a game round is 20 seconds, you shouldn't be able to get artillery support that quickly.

That brings up another point… I forgot to mention that I am also tweaking the ground and time scale slightly. Since 15mm models are quite a bit smaller than the default intended scale, I've increased the ground scale to 1"=10 ft and the time scale to 1 round = 30 seconds. No real difference for game mechanics, of course.