"Disposable Heroes II" Topic

Has any of the kick starters received their copies of the second edition?

It looked like a very nice publication from the pictures I saw on Facebook?

Lots of happy customers?

When can the general population get their copies and from where?

Not yet.

When it is available it will be from Brigade Games. I believe they bought the rights to the new set.

I've not gotten mine yet, but I am not too worried about it getting here eventually.

They are back from the printers and being packed up. So pretty soon I'd think.

I got my second edition from Iron Ivan about 10 years ago!

So did I Capt. Best rules ever.

Thanks guys. I hope the new system gives you ten more years of gaming! I'm really excited for the release and am proud of the system. I hope you guys enjoy it too.

Keith

Thanks for the praise for DH1. We believe you will love the new 2nd edition. What some are referring to as the second edition from many, many years ago was a second printing with a new color cover.

Brigade Games and Rattrap Productions purchased Iron Ivan about 16 months ago. Our intent was to publish a new version of Disposable Heroes WW2 rules. Rich and I contracted Keith Stine to finish writing the 2nd edition. The Kickstarter funded the project to bring it to print.

Since the first mail drop for the DH2 KS was today, unless Rich installed a transporter and used it when I wasn't looking, no one has them in their hands yet except us.

Preorders –

If you want to preorder and be next on the list, preorder here, but the order will not ship until we clear the KS backers first. Some prices will go up once we are done with the KS shipments.

Note that this link is to our second webstore where we have all of our PDFs.

link

Best regards,

Lon

Best rules ever! Will have to buy the new set pretty soon.

Will you have the rules at Cold Wars next week?

Just got mine yesterday. The production value looks great. Haven't gone through the rules yet but the organization and layout are leaps and bounds better than V1.

Got mine today. Got the rules, an Army book I picked and all three token sets, terrific deal! They did message us a few days ago that once they finish testing out the system they will also be delivering our PDFs.

Also just thumbed through the rules and really like what I see. I especially like the full index in the back, nicely done!

From start to finish a class act. Great communications, delivered what was promised and a quality product.

Excellent job guys!

Who do we contact about picking up our kickstarter books at Cold Wars?

never mind, literally just found mine in the mail…

Has anyone played this yet? any reports?

I ran my first game of DH2 two weeks ago. It played well, and was better with flow, and gaming than DH.

I want to use it for Viet Nam Gaming, with the DH book for Nam.

I found I needed a couple of clarifications, as I am a long standing DH player, and not used to the subtle differences, I fell back on some of the old rule routines. However, the developer responded to questions quickly in the Iron Ivan Yahoo Group, for which I found commendable.

I reread the discussions in the Kickstarter on the rules and examples, which helped clarify any issues.

I am hooked. Keith Stine has truly improved upon the game.

I ran a reinforced British Platoon with 4 squads, HMG, two PIAT teams with armor support (3 tanks), 2 off board 3" mortars, and 50mm mortar team with the command team, attacking a French town with a canal set during the German retreat after Normandy in late August.

Defending where 3 Panzer grenadier squads, one HMG team, with a Stug III G/H supporting. One PG squad in was in reserve.

The Germans were able to bring in the reserve squad as the British attack did not develop well. The German HMG wreaked havoc on the center as the British tried to advance through town, and kept suppressing anyone who advanced, while the reserve squad supported the defense of the right flank, and chewed up a whole squad, and close assaulted the survivors. The British tanks slowly advanced with the infantry up front, in fear of panzerfausts… The Germans backed out of the buildings when the tanks approached, or attempted to acquire, and then reentered another location.

Highlights..

The British with a Firefly got lucky and acquired and hit a moving German Stug III through smoke and terrain obscuring, hit it, with a resulting brew up. Keith Stine is right when he wrote the changes in armor rules are more streamlined, and decisive, but even a little luck does help.

In return a German Panzershriek team made advanced three inches, and made a kill shot on the Firefly at just under the 24" maximum range. This made the other Shermans reluctant to advance. That with the HMG suppressing several teams, over and over stalled the British enough for the Germans to hang on.

I know many in here aren't fans of FB, but I filmed a couple games live: solo and with my son: (also join the group)
link

My buddies and me put together in the Kickstarter for the club pack of 5 sets of rules and got the early bird bundle of rules, pdf, 3 sets of tokens and I also got a free printed supplement. Rules arrived a couple of weeks ago, but I only just managed my first games last weekend. A couple of the lads had a game the week before, so I benefitted from their experience and the chance to get some clarifications from Keith on the Yahoo group.

First I want to record that the new rules look really smart compared to v1. A lot has gone into producing a first class presentation.

Second, there are several new mechanisms in v2 compared to v1 and these need to be absorbed if you are used to the old faithfuls. In some ways it might be better if you don't know v1 in depth, as many of the old bits are just not there. Keith has streamlined other parts too. Many of the new bits are carried over from Disposable Heroes: Point Blank, the squad level rules also by Iron Ivan.

The Kickstarter and yahoo plus the various videos online serve well to introduce the rules and I'm not going to repeat their content. I Just wanted to confirm my very early findings after playing one game and observing another first hand.

I do like the new version, but inevitably we were comparing them to v1 which we've played for over ten years now. Some aspects will need to be relearned. If something from v1 is not in the rules, don't assume it's still there but you just haven't found it yet.

Some examples are listed by Keith in his design notes at the end, such as aircraft and landing craft. Others points not present are
- Replacing casualties from another unit
- "Dragging in" a second unit into close combat

Some more observations.
The first fire mechanism really is "all hell broke loose". It can destroy a unit in one activation, especially if it is used by a HMG.
Rifle teams are finally used as they should be tactically, to manoeuvre and close with the enemy rather than as yet another fire team.
Apart from first fire, firing is less bloody than v1. Units instead tend to accumulate suppressions until they are either removed by rallying or they melt away to skulk somewhere until the HQ kicks them in the b**t.
Close combat can happen more often, but you need to keep your platoon HQ close to the attacking teams to use the higher guts in their tests as they advance to close

I would advise anyone interested to look up the Iron Ivan Yahoo group, for questions, and support for DH2.

We had our first test game last night and I love the new rules. I especially like how tanks and such have been streamlined and now feels like part of the same rule set. One thing I did not like is how a rifle section only gets one die roll. We were playing a North Africa game and my Brits have six rifles and a corporal with a Thompson in that squad section. So over a range of 15 inches the six rifles only roll one die. Whereas the other section of the squad with the Bren gun gets three dice plus a single die for the extra team member with an Enfield. In other word the one extra man with the Bren team had the same fire power as an entire section with six rifles?????

I understand Keith's desire to see the rifle sections be more of a maneuver element and push for the assault for the sake of realism but I feel this is going to make a lot of people I game with balk. What was wrong with only having half the rifle section being able to fire? I think that now that you have the Incapacitate/Suppress roll(I/S) this cuts way down on the lethality of the former game. Thoughts? I've looked at the Yahoo Group and I do not think I am reading this wrong but would like to hear from the author and others who have played more games with the new rules. I want to like this rule system and hope to run it at conventions but feel the one fire power for a rifle section will have some folks screaming.

Kallman: definitely a concern I can see. Though rifle sections might only be rolling 1D10 to fire, that is per Tactical Point. A rifle section that shoots all three Tactical Points during its Activation will be rolling 3D10. While that's not a whole lot, it's still some fire and it forces Guts checks.

I think it scales better as firepower compared to what it used to where rifle sections were putting out more fire than some LMGs! The intention was to normalize all weapons across a more even spectrum. So rifles produce 3D10 in an Activation, an Garands and carbine 6D10, most SMGs and many LMGs 9D10. It's easier to add up and use and its more consistent and coherent across weapons types.

Hope that helps.

Keith

Yes Keith that helps. I had not considered that during an activation that you might have a section of rifles use all three tactical points to fire thus causing multiple suppression markers. If I have read correctly a unit with five suppression markers is removed as being no longer combat effective.

Yes, a unit that receives more than five is removed. A unit with five can still rally. Also, this is where falling back and removing suppression markers becomes useful (1 marker per 3" fall back, still subject to snap fire).

Okay you just cleared up another issue we were unsure about regarding falling back. So the suppression markers comes off automatically for each 3 inch move of falling back. For some reason we thought you had to use a tactical point and also roll a guts check. Not sure why we thought that but it was our first game and a hasty reading of the rules.

Yep, you got it. It's a free action and requires no Guts check to do. You can do this either during the enemy Activation in response to fire (after their fire and your guts checks are resolved) or on your own Activation to get a unit out of a bad spot. Unlike old DH, fall backs are not compulsory and they have become much more fluid and useful.