The rules are a bit “loose” in many areas, which after Flames of War I found a little frustrating- and there is a clear need for houserules. One of the young players wanted (and did) fire his tanks main guns at our tanks and his machine guns at at our infantry- nothing seemed to prevent it happening so we allowed it but after FoW it didn’t sit right with me- and we will need to house rule this.
I doubled the number of guns and artillery proved bloody and decisive- we will wind it back to 2 gun batteries, although 3 guns looks "proper" to me- so may consider 3 guns but only 3 hits per gun as a compromise.
Recon: My recce carriers were fun but blew up reasonably quickly- where was my recce move to get out of trouble? Actually I can see it as being a ruleset where I can bolt on bits of FoW that I like and still play fast.
We used 2 hits to knock out a gun team, HMG or mortar, but for artillery teams I will increase his to 4 hits (under the rules a gun team has a crew of 5 so a battery has 10 figures- which makes them bigger than a company which Imo is a little silly!)
I played it as a company level engagement and used FoW platoons to represent each platoon and it gave a good look but combat was bloody and we quickly ran out of infantry! As a result I have had a rethink and will reorganise it and use companies rather than platoons in future. However, using FoW stands gave a better look to the game that the 8 figures= 1 platoon (company) under the rules.
- 7x rifle teams
- 1x light mortar
- 1x ATR
I doubled the number of AT guns, MMGs and mortars and this worked well- but reduced the “crew” to 2 per stand. If I carry on this way then I think I’ll drop the additional range in attempt for medium mortars though as we will be using units of 2 rather than 1.
Overall, it was success. Assaults weren’t as effective as FoW- but that may have been due to a lack of experience and the lack of info in many areas was annoying and needs house rules to figure out (firing vehicles MGs and main guns at different targets). Also where to take range measurements from with infantry platoons was an issue but I’ve since found out that you take it from the “centre of the unit.” With smaller units though it shouldn't be such an issue.
The guys enjoyed it and maybe they’d like to play a few more games in 15mm- it gave looked right and support was not overpowering the way it is in FoW so I definitely think we’ll try a few more games.
Hidden units and Objectives
I really think that the FoW objective rules would work well- rather than simply try to break the enemies force so will introduce those next time. We also used hidden deployment- we placed counters where the enemy was and allowed units to spot before moving- only once spotted did we reveal what was placed where. We also had a few dummy units. Not knowing what you ere going to run into worked well.
Organisation
One thing I learned last night is that we didn’t have enough infantry- so I’m going to reorganise things and run the game at the company level. Ideally each side will run 2-3 companies of infantry + the support company . Each FoW stand will count as two infantry.
A British Rifle Company will look like this:
| A | Company | FoW Stands | Pts |
| 1x | Commander | 1 | 3 |
| 1x | ATR | 1 | 5 |
| 1x | 2" Mortar | 1 | 5 |
|
|
|
|
|
| 1st | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
| 2nd | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
| 3rd | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
|
|
| 15 | 49 |
German DAK Shutzen Company
|
| 1st Compnay | FoW Stands | Pts |
| 1x | Commander | 1 | 3 |
| 1st | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
| 2nd | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
| 3rd | Platoon | 4 | 12 |
|
|
| 13 | 42 |
What this means though is that I don’t have enough infantry!
The counters represent units that haven't been spotted.
Surprise! I think we've spotted a platoon of enemy armour!
My infantry advance on the village.
Valentines move to support the attack on the other flank.
My infantry near the village.
The Germans repel the assaults and two platoons are badly mauled so we sound the retreat (i.e ran out of time).
I did enjoy the less cluttered battlefield and think that with more infantry it should give a good game so we'll try another game soon. Stephen has ordered RF II and so hopefully some of the glaring holes in the rules are taken care of- a good fun ruleset but definitely not for tournament games!
Craig
Overall, Craig, do you think this is a worthwhile WW2 game over FOW (using your FOW 'bolt-ons' of course) or is this just something to get more of your locals playing WW2 with you?
ReplyDeleteI quite the like the idea of having some hidden units.
Cheers
The historics players hate FoW so if I can get them into 15mm this way well and good. In may ways RF feels better than FoW in that is a game where the focus is on the infantry not the supports so much, I still have issues but if gives a fast paced game (roll one die per platoon rather than 2-3 per team/stand) etc. When Flames first came out we still played quite a lot of RF and had issues with Flames but Dale hated RF so we eventually started playing more and more FoW and eventually RF dropped off the radar as we grew accustomed to FoW and its quirks.
ReplyDeleteHowever our ancients/historics gamers are doing RF in 1/300th which IMO defeats the purpose of that scale which is for large tank actions with literally dozens (or hundreds) of tanks on table! They hope to add some infantry soon but in 1/300th I really don't see much point except to hold ground while the tanks zoom around. However, if it does mean we get a bit more interest in WWII well and good and personally I'm trying to get them to buy into 15mm gaming as that is the standard for WWII these days and seems pointless to start another scale when so many people have 15mm forces we can use.
Took Firestorm MG to the club to show Dale and have one of our 40kers keen to join us for the comp and some wants to learn (asked about how effective a kingtiger company would be :)and our new Scottish import (who lived in Holland near one of the towns involved in MG- the town has a memorial to the Welsh Guards in it) is also now keen to give FoW a crack at the "Event."
Next week Kent should be back and we will contne our Axis of attack game.
The hidden deployment worked well- but wouldn't work for large Stelk Coys in FoW.
It has got me inspired to gt my 8th army forces out for some gaming!
Craig