This game arose from an outstanding obligation getting near (at least) to completion: a couple of years ago, fellow shows presenter Chris (A) bought some 15mm PP kit in a bring and buy … in the box there was also a pair of ugly, unrecognisable gloss green guns. But the gun shields suggested they were WWII German 105s.
I took them on, disassembled them, cleaned, reshaped and filed the components up. I stuck the bits together this week … and in the game, Chris successfully defended them against a Russian patrol and took them home.
I have no ‘before and after’ pics – so after will have to suffice ..
a passing resemblance
The ‘finish’ is deliberately bland so that Chris can complete to match his Germans, of course. In itself, that is part of a devious plan … what with Ancients, CWB and Black Powder, it is quite a while since we saw Chris’s Germans – perhaps this ploy will at least ensure he opens up the appropriate boxes … :O) …
I am sure they are now highly desirable, as I have stuck them on Flames of War bases ….
This was just a regular Friday night 4-hander amongst uncompetitive types. Reinforcements arrived according to a schedule I had written out in advance of the game. There was only a single objective – take or retain the guns. ‘Count Down’ was entirely discretionary … it was an evening game, and when we are done, we’re done. The game report reads …
‘ … The guns were defended by a single jeep platoon from my Aufklarungsschwadroon, plus CC, who were reinforced progressively by their Armoured Cars, the Panzerpioneer ‘heavy’ platoon, and finally some light tanks.
The Russians were advancing with two platoons on foot (‘one up/one back’), plus CC, who were progressively reinforced – once contact was made – by a gun platoon, a Maxim platoon, and finally some armour.
The Battle for the Guns
With Rifle platoon A, Ian went immediately into the attack, turning the ‘bloody wheatfield’ into a heap of casualties from both sides, but passed several break tests whilst more troops came up.
Shamefully, he ‘successfully’ mortared a square with the German’s medic in it confirming all our worst expectations of war on the Eastern Front.
The Germans reinforce
The Armoured Car patrol arrived as requested on the German left, running into Will’s platoon. Once the Russians sorted themselves out … bringing up their gun platoon – and taking out an 8-rad with an Anti-tank Rifle (!), the patrol dropped back to a safer ‘stand-off’ distance.
The Russians reinforce
By this stage, the Germans were forming up a nasty looking defence line slightly behind the objective (sort of ‘shield and sword’-like), and as the heavier Soviet gear was arriving, the front line action had lessened .. we deemed a bigger battle in the offing, but the window created for Chris to take away his guns ...’
Things we learned and changes we considered …
Motivations … there was some discussions of the ‘Northants’ motivation tweak (roll for motivation and APs together, allocating the dice after they are rolled … this increases the chance of being motivated, of course – an important tweak, especially in multi-player games where some of our regulars do not like their troops standing idle for too long …)… The aspect under question was ‘choosing to fail’ (so a player might, rolling a ‘5’ and a ‘1’ – which in most cases would be sufficient to motivate on the ‘5’ with ‘1’ AP – choose to allocate the ‘1’ to motivation and thereby fail … the reasoning, of course, being that 1AP is not worth having so a voluntary fail plus a re-roll is preferable …)…
So a choice emerged … (a) no voluntary fails (you choose which die is which, but must allocate a pass to motivation if it is possible) or (b) you choose, pure and simple.
My sympathies lie with option (a) as the only real negative of enhanced motivation is the high number of APs it often produces. This is particularly the case with e.g. Mortar or ‘HMG’ platoon, where the PC generally has surplus motivation rolls available to him (so choosing to fail carries no real penalty). On the other hand, it is certainly a flaw in the game that motivated troops who roll a ‘1’ for APs are no better off than those who fail motivation and just get the residual 1 AP for unmotivated troops (indeed, sometimes worse … as ‘raw’ and/or ‘pinned’ can often get a score of 0 with motivated APs. And I have no idea what that anomaly is meant to simulate ..)..
My instinct is that although – as a linear mechanism, at least – the APs modifiers should count, the net minimum motivated troops should get is 2 (thereby being better off than unmotivated, and getting enough e.g. for foot AT to shoot their weapons or for mortar crew with enemy in an adjacent square to pick up their rifles and get a shot off …)…
So my proposal would be that if rolling motivation and APs together, a player cannot voluntarily fail motivation … however, after modifiers, the AP calculation for motivated troops has a minimum of 2.
Soviet Artillery
On table HE … we had some big guns in play (well, 105s), and further opportunity to use the HE variant. In PBI 2006, guns fire HE like AP but at foot bases (generally a 9 to hit) with an average 50/50 chance to hit another base (then the bases save in the usual way but with slightly different modifiers). The chance to kill a base in average circumstances levels out at 5/24 but with a maximum of 2 bases hit. We have always found this cumbersome, given that the game already has a HE shooting mechanism: Mortars shoot looking for 6s on a square (1 die for Light Mortars, 2 dice for Medium Mortars) … getting a hit on any bases in the square (normal saves) … the average chance for a Medium Mortar to kill a base in a 2 base square is 1/6 (slightly better than the 5/24 for the gun, really, as a third base in the square would also be hit automatically by the Mortar’s collateral but never by the gun …).
As a consequence, locally, we have abandoned the standard HE rules in the book, and allow guns with HE round to fire as if mortars. Infantry Support guns, like the German IG 18 or the Soviet ‘Model 1927 Regimental gun’, get 2 dice, like M Mortars (as do tank guns of similar calibre) … smaller Anti-Tank guns with HE rounds (such as the Soviet 45mm) get 1 die, like L Mortars.
In this game, we did find the inability of the ‘even bigger’ guns to hit anything a little counter-intuitive … by either mechanism. Inspired by the ‘off table’ artillery’s hits on 5 or 6 (after deviation, of course) we decided that even bigger guns firing over open sights should hit on a 5 or a 6. So ‘dual purpose’, field and howitzers of gun effect 8 or more fire with 2 dice, achieving hits on 5s and 6s (on any foot bases or artillery in the square similarly to mortars – and with the same ‘pinned’ effect from a third hit etc.) …
even bigger guns?
I painted the SU 122 conversion’s ‘intermediate stage’ (it needs grab rails, bolt-on equipment, extra rivets etc. but I find it useful to put a coat of paint on at this stage to see what flaws will potentially show up on the final model so they can be corrected or masked in the final detailing …)…
I think a big buster like this would get the better hitting power of the enhanced HE rounds …
P.B.Eye-Candy 