Steve The bazooka would not get aimed as he moved first, infantry can have an aimed shot, but if he nips out, pops off a quickie and then ducks back (or attempts to!) then it's hardly marksmanship level. If he nipped out, then aimed, then fired, not northing to duck back he would get aimed. I may have mislead when I earlier suggested that snap shot was a minus 2. Of course snap shot is two worse than an aimed shot, aimed effectively makes your shot easier (+1 in traditional parlance) while un-aimed, i.e. "snap", makes it one level harder. In fact whilst firing starts with "not bad" firing only remains at that level if other factors bring it back to there, if no other factors come to bear, i.e. it is a perfectly normal shot, no smoke, no fire on the firer not nothing, then the shot will always be easy for aimed, or hard for snap. My +2 reference was based on the fact that most first shots are aimed, so I calculate for that, then if the next shot is snapped off I just add two. Make sense? Big Men. Yup, if Barkmann had been on board he could activate his own tank on the turn of his card, not all of his "troop" to use British parlance. The US Captain could certainly activate his entire Platoon on the run of his card if they weren't in action, his rank allows him to do so. In battle, however, he could only influence the section he is with. Looking at your direct "Have I got it right" questions. 1. Yup 2. Yes, although we've agreed on the 4" shout. Seems that he would be able to say "You chaps, follow me" and then join them in their move. If he was outside shouting range it must be that he spends this turn moving to the unit, then can command them next time his card comes up. 3. Big Men, of whatever rank, may do the same things, which are what you suggest the officer can do. The spotting thing has to be "real", i.e. of Sgt Smith of Captain Smythe are in fixed positions with access to a telephone then they can spot for artillery. If they're in a ditch with no communications then they can't. 4. Yup. Although an AT officer can command a gun section or battery, in which case he may move amongst his guns doing the Napoleon bit. I agree on support weapons. Generally the order would be, sit there and shoot over there, they'd only stop that when someone came over and said "right, move over there and shoot those buggers now". Tanks MGs. Aha. No. MG fire from tanks becomes like normal MG fire, it only happens once with all of your dice. So a stationary tank firing its hull MG would role two dice for its whole turn's fire. It rolls less than an infantry MG as its visibility is bloody awful, it is assumed to be spraying an area rather than delivering accurate fire. Yes to the assumed shot and minuses. The difference between firing from a safe position and firing when under fire is huge, and should be reflected. The game attempts to be about reality, although the systems are very much of the "game" genre. Don't worry about digging in. These games only last twenty minutes game time, so tell him he got there earlier and has already dug in, you just saved him the job! Yes, the PIAT is a great weapon for blasting holes in boccage, church towers, anywhere really, why waste in on tanks! Prolonging of AT guns, happened last night, 1D6. To relay the gun and get ready for action takes 2D6 (so they can always loose off a snap shot. I am in two minds about the 17pdrs, I'd probably say no, but you can make your own mind up on that. Richard -- In Toofatlardies@..., "combatcolours" <combatcolours@h...> wrote: Hi Richard, Thanks for your quick response.
Actually the Panther got the extra fire card because in fact we
didn't have a AT gun model for the game :P ,and I did figure it would be a 'pillbox' on the defensive and added the 'Lack of Petrol' card
to make sure! That card worked out well, after mauling my tanks Mike was considering redeploying to get after Johann's tanks who
were 'stuck in the mud' with all those Tea Breaks. Well the Petrol
card popped up and he rolled a '6', nothing left but to survey the
death and destruction he caused.
With the bazooka man example we figured that there could be a 'bad roll' with the second movement dice, that's why we like the
possibilities in the initiative dice. The only 'Great shot' was
against my HMG that didn't have enough movement to get to cover,
leaving him wide open to a German rifle section, ouch! In your reply you mention that the Bazooka would only get a snap-fire, is this
because he, as a infantry AT, moved first? Do infantry AT only get
their 'aimed' first shot if stationary? We let the Shermans who moved get their aimed first shot since we noticed that the 'firer moved
this turn' negated the plus for the aimed shot,noting from the 2
pounder example that 'aimed' is a plus one level,[ from 'hard'
to 'not bad'];So even though moving messes up your aimed shot it
still keeps the 'aimed first shot' rule in place.. Also we allowed
infantry not to use all their movement rolled, is this correct?
Now that you state that BIG MEN should be placed in their
appropriate 'service' branch, I can now see where we went wrong! :P
Indeed, if the Panther had BIG MAN Barkmann on board then he would activate the tanks initiative dice on his card, he wouldn't be able
to order infantry, yell at them,yes , but not order them.
The American Captain was used to move an entire platoon not being
shot at, but we must make sure he is within 4" of the sections to do this, correct?
Sgts weren't a problem since each was assigned to a section.
So let me see if I've got my ducks in a row:
1] Any infantry section will only activate on a Big Man's card if he is part of the section OR within 4",[and line of sight].
2] a Big Man must be in contact when his card comes up to perform
#1. The Big Man cannot use initiative to 'walk up and join and then
activate them. He would have to wait for his next card to activate
the unit.
3] Big Men,[officers], can either spot, move, activate[in contact] , observe artillery rounds, take away wounds[in contact], but only one of these per card. Sgts can move,activate [in contact], and take away wounds[in contact].
4]To activate tanks/ AT guns the Big Man must be assigned to them at the beginning of the game.
Support weapons: in the game we allowed Big men to move into
contact and activate the weapons for movement. From the above we
would now move a Big Man into contact,[taking personal command] and
then await his next card to move the weapon? We did like the fact
that Big Men were needed to move/redeploy the weapons as in real life. Fully understand the response about blocking line of fire; this
should make the games a little more tactical!
BOW MG's and other tank MG's: If I understand correctly each MG
gets their own initiative dice to only fire with. So if a tank is
stationary then the bow MG would fire 3 times with 2d6 each shot.
This will make the tanks a little nastier. Also, even though the
movement negates the MG fire dice, you still assume that it shot at
the target to give them minuses for their fire, I like that alot!
Shame about 'digging in', I have a friend who plays Paras and used to love digging in and fortifying towns! Oh well,i'll placate him
with the PIAT with the 90mm HE! :P
Also beside actual scenario driven positions I might let sides roll to see which of their troops dug-in before the start of less
formal 'pick-up' games.
One other item that was brought up but I forgot to mention is crews prolonging their AT guns.Would you allow the crew to perhaps move the gun 1d6,[terrain modifiers applying], and using up all their
initiative to do this? Of course I'm talking of wheeled weapons and
not the 88 and other big artillery. The reason for this is that our
troops usually have pretty "light" AT guns, PAK 35, the para pak 75
etc. and often no tow except mule and man historically.
Or should we consider them like the support weapons with the Big Man having to move them? And perhaps the larger PAKS, 6 and 17 pounders
using the above with a d4? I'd be interested on your thoughts.
Hope the Scotts were victorious over the Hitler Jugend and thanks again for your time. -Steve
In Toofatlardies@..., "Richard Clarke"
<richardclarkerli@y...> wrote:
Steve
Did you get things right? Well, you had fun, so yes.
Don't worry about your yanks failing, you will certainly find that the Brits you are painting will pull them out of the proverbial.
They turn up late and can't even capture a hedge;-D
As a whole I would say you picked a good first time scenario, and
just concentrating on the basics of fire and movement is probably an
ideal primer. Nice to see that you were happy to add an idea or two
of your own, the extra AT card for the Panthers is something that
I have never done for tanks, although if it had been
jagdpanzers/hetzers/tank killers I would have done it as a matter of
course. As your panthers were clearly on the defensive then I think
you made a good decision.
Regarding the extra US Armour Move card I would agree with you, this
is an infantry attack with tanks operating in a close support
role, so you did right not to include one. That has to be scenario driven
it depends who is supporting who, which can often be a moot
point.
Glad you liked the initiative dice, I feel they make the system
easy
to use, and you don't get this bollocks about "can I move and
fire" or I've only used two thirds of my move, can I fire at one third
effect", it's all incorporated in the initiative dice.
Sounds like you had Ernst Barkmann in those Panthers! But yes, I
make snap shots two levels harder, it has to be significant or there
ain't any point in aiming. Also glad you liked the crew morale
for damaged tanks. I haven't got the stats with me, but I have just been
reading about operation Epsom. One unit went in to action and
lost about fifteen tanks in half an hour. How may crew men were
lost? Three, with half a dozen wounded. Most tanks were abandoned due
to a
technical issue rather than blown to smithereens. Indeed the Tiger tank at Bovington tank museum in the UK was abandoned by its crew
when its turret jammed. As such the tank could have continued to
function in an SP gun role, and in most sets of rules it would have,
but in reality the crew would feel unhappy about this, and would
quickly bail out.
Regarding your bazooka man. Yes he steps out with his first
dice, yes he snap fires with his second, yes he moves back to cover
with his third. But again we have an issue here where the man is
making a
perfect manoeuvre, which he wouldn't in real life. So, what we
actually do is we roll to move out, and he moves that full distance in inches. Two he fires, three he rolls again to move back. The
problem being that if he rolls a 4 with his first dice, and a 1 with
his third, then he ain't back in cover. Whoops! C'est la
guerre, as
our cheese eating friends say.
Big Men. No wonder you liked it, your lot were damnably close to
supermen! I do think that in certain situations you overused them.
Let me clarify.
Big men on their own can do several things. They can move (as is go
from one place to another) in which case they use the number of dice
appropriate for their troop type, generally 3 (a maximum for movement
anyway). They can spot, in which case they get one go and can do
nowt else. They can act as artillery spotters, in which case they automatically do their stuff and nothing else.
Big men with a unit, or within 4" if we go with the shouting bit, can
get that specific single squad to take its turn now rather than later
when its card comes out (if it does). There is some flexibility for
more senior Big Men to do this with multiple squads when not in
the battle line, but as a generality we are looking here at when
under fire. If the unit is firing the Bog Man does add his dice, with any
+ or - to the firing, as this fire is considered to be better co-
ordinated.
Big Men do NOT jump on vehicles, tell them to blast those chaps, then
jump off, run across the road, rally a unit, put on a funny hat, call
in an air strike and then provide co-ordinates to a battery for close
support. HOWEVER, in your early games they can if it makes it
more fun. I have to admit that in the early stages of working through the
mechanisms we were using the Charlie Don't Surf rules as a vehicle.
We had a US Cavalry Platoon commanded by Lieutenant Rock Gonads
and Sergeant Biff Stone, two of the silliest names we could think
of. We
did let them do just what you guys did on Sunday, and it was highly amusing watching these two All-American superheroes zapping
Charlie in a fashion very much in the vein of the Air Cav chap in Apocalypse
Now. Fun as it was, it wasn't very real, so we set the
limitation described above. I now specify which Big Men are infantry, tank, AT
or whatever. If you get a Big Man abandoning a damaged tank it
is entirely reasonable for him to take command of another tank, this
happened often in real life. Think about his rank here,
however. A
sergeant is not going to turf out anyone more senior than him.
Your use of dice for movement in two lots of bad terrain was fine. This is one of those areas where I don't have an opinion, you
need to
decide just how bad the terrain is that you are representing. One man's copse is another man's shrubbery. Any yes, you are correct
that there are other officers and NCOs in the sections who are
not represented but are indeed there. They just ain't large enough
characters to be "big men".
Can you officers shout? If you can, they can. However I would limit
this to within 4" with 15mm figures, 6" with 20mm/25mm. I hear what
you are saying about assuming that the officer saw the movement
in the woods, and for your early games feel free to leave spotting out.
One thing to remember when you do introduce spotting, is that
it's not just about noticing some bugger's over there, it's about
identifying if its friend or foe, and then correctly estimating
the range and relaying that information to your men. Your sections
can use their dice to spot as well as your big men.
Your question regarding blocking of firing by friendly unit. The
point you make about all actions being simultaneous is not
entirely correct. Turns have no set length in IABSN, I reckon that a
minute is about correct, although in some historical scenarios I tend to
stretch this to two minutes for staggered arrival times. If you have
units A and B next to each other and you want to use A to
suppress an
enemy to the front and then B to charge in with the bayonet then it would work as follows in practice.
Unit B comes up first! Bloody typical, but it's a damned fact
that nothing works as planned. So you have a choice. B charges forward,
then A's fire is blocked (presuming that I cannot see the
target), or
you change that to use B to fire and A can then charge in if they get
a go. You have to keep your plans loose and general in the game in order to get them to work. If A hasn't had a chance to fire
first that means that they've got their heads down, or their vision is
obscured by smoke, or whatever. Having said all of that if you felt
that unit B only partially blocked the target then you did
exactly the right thing in dropping to a longer range chart.
I agree completely about co-axial MGs, no they can't both fire.
I would also give the hull MG its own firing dice (but firing only, not
spotting), as I would with turreted MGs on the big early war
Soviet/British tanks (not to mention the German Propaganda tank,
of which I have a lovely one by SDD, now marketed by Stronghold
Miniatures of Scotland, who have done sterling service (no Scots pun
intended)). Yes the MG fire is damnably ineffective if the tank
is moving, it was. However even if no hits are being registered it can
fire, this reduces the chance of anything hitting it (the enemy
is under fire, therefore his ability to aim is reduced).
Digging in. Hmmmmm. I personally don't like digging in during
the game, as mentioned the turns are very short, and this is the
front line. Whilst ones natural desire for self preservation would see you
desirous of a trench, when you know the enemy is a hundred yards away
you ain't going to get the gardening equipment out, you're going
to lie down and keep quiet! Nevertheless I quite happily start the game
with one side or t'other in positions, so you can use your toys
there. Having said that you can simply ignore me and do what you
like, and if you did so then no digging in should give more than
minimal scrape cover. Not that I said that, 'cos I don't think
you should do it.
Glad you enjoyed your game. I am trying to finish the Winter War
booklet next, and the desert war is being worked on - admittedly with
some problems (apologies to those who I promised this one next to).
One of our playtest group is looking at Japs as we speak, I'll
see him tonight and ask him. I will sort out Russian armour for you
as soon as I can. Charlie Don't Surf is on the back burner as I'm
trying to get one projects done at a time. Interestingly this
game DOES have medics, in fact they are key to the Vietnam game
experience. If anyone wants a free email set of the draft for these
to play around with then just let me know, they are copywrite and the
system is very much as in IABSM so don't publish the bloody
things yourself. We won't sue, Nick'll come round and sit on your
house.
Cheers
Richard
--- In Toofatlardies@..., "combatcolours"
<combatcolours@h...> wrote:
First off, thanks to Richard Clarke and Nick Skinner for
writing IABSM which my group thoroughly enjoyed playing last Sunday.
We played on a 6'X4' table with 2 American platoons of 3
sections
of 8 men each, supported by 2 HMG's and 2 platoons of Shermans,
[ 1
with 3 tanks and another with 4 including one with a dozer
blade],
vs. 2 German platoons, one with 3 sections of 8 men and one
understrength with 2 sections of 8; each section had a
panzerfaust
and both were supported by 3 tripod MMG's and a Panther. The terrain
was boccage with ripe high fields, the hedgerows blocked line
of sight until the unit went up next to it. Since this was a
playtest
to
try out the moving and shooting mechanics we did not use
Air/Artillery or the spotting rules, preferring to get used to the
open kriegspiel of the shooting before tackling the even freeer
spotting!
AS this was just a playtest there were no objectives or
victory conditions save beating up each other's troops. :P
The Following are thoughts on different sections of the rules
in
regards to the game:
1] THE CARDS: I gave both sides MMG EXTRA FIRE cards and I
gave the
Germans a EXTRA AT FIRE card for the Panther but balanced it
with a
OUT OF PETROL card. Everyone was fine with the cards, as I've
mentioned before we've played Storm Of Steel which uses a
similar card deck to activate units. The real fun was the TEABREAK card which
caused all kind of bedlam. The second platoon of Shermans
stopped moving for 5 turns due to the TEABREAK card popping up! In hindsight
I should have put a EXTRA US ARMOUR MOVE card in, but then I figured
the attack was not a tank assault,needing the movement, but a
infantry assault with tank support; whose luck wasn't in the cards! :P
2] INITIATIVE DICE: The gamers really liked using the dice;
especially when their unit's card came up to reserve them to
fire later in the turn ...guess what the Germans in the hedgerows
were doing! We had a player, Johann,new to WW2 gaming who took a
little
while to get used to doing different actions with the dice but
by the
end he was a real pro. The procedures that Richard posted
earlier for
firing AT guns,aiming, relaying etc.with the initiative dice worked
well ; Mike , the Panther commander quickly worked out
the 'HITTING
THE TARGET' procedure and the importance of 'aiming' and then rolled
like it didn't matter, 10-11's against my poor Shermans.
Most shots were aimed but there were some SNAP SHOTS which
I believe I did wrong, we only made the shot harder by '1' where
in one
of Richard's recent postings,[which I forgot to bring along],
he mentioned the SNAP SHOT was '-2', 2 levels harder?
The Shermans were toasted pretty quickly by the Panther,
Mike was
rolling hot, even when I managed once to roll 4 '5-6'
saves/nullifications, Mike would beat it by 3,BOOM! :P One Sherman
did recieve a 2 hit 'Main gun out of Action' result so we got
to use
the Damage to AFV's section/morale. There was approval for the fact
that crews needed to do things ,[good rolls], to keep their
tank operational and not bail out. The Dozer Sherman got a extra
dice to
it's armour dice/number to account for the blade in front.
2A] INITIATIVE MOVEMENT: The AFV Boccage crossing procedure
from previous posts worked well and we decided that infantry would
treat
the boccage as 'heavy terrain' [-3 pips per dice], and that
seemed
right for everyone. We discussed the posts where I asked about
whether a unit could move-spot/fire-move with it's 3 initiative dice.
We decided that was fine for recce units spotting and perhaps a
bazooka man waiting behind a corner for the oncoming tank,[step
out
onto the street-fire-move back to cover]. In the beginning we
let players roll one dice at a time ,being cautious as they entered each
terrain feature. Johann moved one infantry section like this: troops
in field, roll 1 d6 minus 1 pip for terrain - leaves field then
decides to cross Boccage hedge in front of him, rolls last 2
dice with minus 3 pips per dice and just gets up to the hedge. By
the end
of the game we were doing the movements like this: Johann would roll
all 3 dice at once with a minus 4 pips per dice for field and hedge
penalties. Our reasoning for this was thus: even though there
are BIG
MEN, each squad/section would have a NCO pushing them along,although
not represented in the game. He wouldn't be saying...'let's
cross this field, then maybe that hedge', he would be saying 'we got orders
to move out past that hedge!'So we have the player roll the
number
of
dice he would need to complete the 'order' taking all the
terrain penalties the section would meet along the way and putting them into
that roll; if the squad doesn't make it then that just adds to
the
lack of cohesion and fog of war in the game...the squad didn't
get
to
where I wanted it to!..and that's why you have the BIG MEN.
3] BIG MEN : Probably the coolest part of the game! The
Germans had
a Captain, Lieutenant and Sgt., the Yanks has a Captain and Sgt.
The Germans were really able to use their BIG MEN to great
advantage. I had my Shermans coming up the road,[sigh], when Mike's
LT. card came up. He asked if he could use him to activate the
Panther? Sure, why not![ I'm a generous opponent!:P]. He used
one of
the Lt's initiative dice to move up to the tank and a second to order
the tank to fire at the on coming Sherman's. Mike used the panther's
first initiative dice to fire and KO'd the lead Sherman, he
then decided to save the other 2 for when the Panther's card would
come
up.The Lt. then used his last initiative dice to climb down and move
to the infantry section near the tank.
Lance commanded the larger German platoon and had placed one
section and a MMG on the roadside of a hedgerow looking out
over the
fields and then the second section behind the opposite facing hedge,a
double defensive line, with the captain in between on the
roadway. When the Captain's card came up, Lance used it to move the
MMG to
a
better position at the far end of the hedge. Even though the figure
was 3-4 inches away from the support weapon we decided that the
captain would be able to yell his order to the MMG crew and
point to
the new position on the hedgerow; the support team then used
the captain's initiative dice to move there. Later Johann moved a section
thru some woods in front of the MMG's new position , using the wood's
to block the German's view and get some bonus cover,[did I
mention
that this was Johann's first WW2 game!].The Captain's card
popped up
again and Lance asked if he could use him to get the MMG to
fire. As
I mentioned we weren't using the spotting rules but since it
was a
BIG MAN, we figured he would notice 'movement' in the woods
thru his
binoculars. Since the MMG team was now 6" away from the Captain and
he wanted to 'direct the MMG's fire', Lance first rolled 2 initiative
dice to get the Captain there and the last to order it to fire
on that woodline. The MMG then used it's fire dice. When the
German Support card popped up later, the MMG team was 'out of bullets!'
We didn't have much luck using the BIG MEN to take off
wounds, the
GErmans regularly rolled 'DEAD' while the Yanks rolled 'Near Miss';
the German belt buckle does say 'God is With Us':(.
4] FIRING: We thought the Fire Effect chart worked well, everyone
had no problem adjusting to the 'Great-Poor columns.Although
this gaming bunch was very easy going about 'talking out' the shot
so we
were in agreement, that's why we had so much fun rationalising
the
BIG MEN'S actions. I can see that other 'intense' gamers might
have
problems accepting it but then that's why there's Command
Decision
and Battleground!
We did have a question about troops blocking others from firing.
Since this is a card driven activation of unit's we felt that
in certain situations units could fire thru other friendly units
since
their movement is sort of simultaneous in the turn, at least we
think :p. Especially the American Infantry and tanks that are
advancing that turn. We decided to let them fire but at the
greater
range band and 'poor'. If the unit's are part of an established line,
like lance's sections mentioned above, then no; Tanks would be
shooting at 'nearly bloody impossible'.Is this OK, or bull?
We also had the Shermans using their main guns to fire
direct HE
at the German infantry. This worked well with a little
scrambling to
find the appropriate sections to use. We did this since the tank's
MG's,[closed armour mg's],are ineffective in the assault, the
movement dice cancelling out the mg's dice. But no complaints
since
we think it's a very accurate representation of the real thing!
We do have a question though about firing the tank's bow and co- axial
mg's. First I usually don't allow the co-axial to fire if the
main
gun is being fired since it's the gunner operating both! We do
want
to know if it's alright to allow the bow mg to fire on the same dice
as the main gun since it's a different crewman firing it? Or do
you
want us to use a extra initiative dice to shoot the bow mg?
This is
also of interest to me since I game Barbarossa with all those
multi-
turreted Soviet tanks!
The game ended up as a bloodbath for the Americans. No tears
for
me since I'm building a British force for the Normandy Campaign next
year! As always Germans in the Boccage are a hard nut to crack !
There were two suggestions for 'additions' to the ruleset.
First,
would it be possible to have sections 'dig-in' or fortify a building?
In other games I've allowed this, plus I have really nifty
foxhole
markers. Lance brought this up after his one section remained
in a
field for quite a few turns guarding the flank. Our proposal is this:
as long as there are no enemy infantry units in close range and your
section has not been shot at then they can use all their
initiative
dice to 'dig-in' making them harder to hit.
The second proposal is to add medics; once again we've got
cool figs
of these. They would get their own card like BIG MEN but only
be able
to take away wounds with a d4. They would have to be in base contact
with the section to do this. This would also be more of a scenario
driven option.
Once again everyone had a great time! Johann is hooked and
has e-
mailed me about what troops he should get; he likes British and Finns-
he was quite excited about the future Winter War supplement.
Lance
has Japanese to face my Chindits,[a project to be continued
after the
Normandy anniversary games], so he wants to know"...when they going
to do Japs!". I'm interested in the Winter War because of my
Barbarossa Russians ; could we please,pretty please, have a T-
35, KV
I & II's, and a T-34 besides the T-26's and 28's in the supplement
list, With the German vehicles in the 'Sieg im Westen'
supplement I
would be set! We all are quite interested in 'Charlie Don't
surf' as
well and are looking forward to it's release.
I'll be awaiting feedback and suggestions about what we did, right
and wrong.And Ill be bugging Richard and the forum for awhile
as we
now add Spotting and other goodies! There is a regional
convention
in St. Louis in November. It's held over a weekend with 100-200
people playing mostly historical games. I asked the gang if I should
run IABSM and they said yes! I then asked whether I should set
up a
game for Saturday or Sunday and Mike replied," Why not both."
That pretty much sums up what we thought of "I Ain't Been
Shot, Mum!" Thanks again, Steve
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