Hi It is good to hear the views of other people who are using the rules. We also found that the rules were very easy to pick up, which surprised me, as when I read them I thought they would be complicated. I think that because some of the mechanics were new to me that I presumed they would be more difficult than they actually were. We played with only one gamer per side, and me as umpire, so keeping people interested was not a problem, but Steves comments are encouraging for future larger games. Mike --- In Toofatlardies@..., "combatcolours" <combatcolours@h...> wrote: Hi, just this last Sunday we had a large armor battle to see how
well the 'I Ain't Been Shot,Mum!'rules could be stretched with number of players/units;Americans love to stretch and twist rules to the
breaking point!:P. We had six players and myself as
umpire/ringmaster. This was our third playtest on a 6'x8' table with 3 US Sherman platoons,of 4 tanks each,[2 of the plt.'s had a '76mm
each], and 1 US Infantry platoon with heavy MG and Bazooka support.
The US also had 2 Big Men, a captain and a sargeant. The Germans had a understrength 'garrison' platoon in a farm village,2 sections and 2 HMG's, a Panzer GRenadier platoon in 251 halftracks and the elite [4 initiative dice]rating as a reserve spoiler, a panther, and sorted ad- hoc group of armor under 1 card,[ a Stug IV,2 Pz Iv's]. The Germans had 3 Big Men, a Captain who joined the Panzer Grenadiers, a Lt. who stayed with the garrison and the third, a Sgt., who commanded the
Panther, shades of Barkmann?
The terrain was a varied mixture of field,woods, hedges, Boccage,
buildings, rock outcroppings etc., to get the players familiar with
the different terrain/penalties in the rules, plus to give the Yanks some cover as they advanced!
We used spotting rules but didn't use the 'blinds', just common
sense to say when someone should be able to spot. My main concern was to get some of the players who were just at the first playtest up to speed with those who played both the first and second games.
There were no special cards, just the big men, platoons, panther, german armor, Bazooka, US HMG's, German HMG's, and everyone's
favorite- 'tea break'.Once again this was to keep everything simple.
There were no problems with moving the larger forces and the game moved very smoothly. We started at 1pm and finished at 6pm with some wanting to continue, and everybody suprised that it was that late!
One of the strengths I've noticed about IABSM is that with the card
activation system a player can be moving figs at any moment at the
draw of a card. So he remains interested in the game unlike other
systems where you can literally not do anything for hours. We had 2
new players, Blake and Ryan, both teens and pushing WW2/historical
troops for the first time. Both got the hang of it easily and Blake, who commanded the garrison,[usually the 'kiss of death' for a player wanting to 'play'in other rules..'No,just sit there, hold the town], really got into waiting for his card to 'spot' the enemy, and
adjusting his forces as the battle developed towards him.
The really cool bit about watching people play is that with the
initiative dice system players can pick up the mechanics in a turn or two and then start thinking tactically about how to use their
dice.It's very refreshing in a WW2 game to be able to move your
troops,reconsider,redeploy and have fun doing it.
Of course it's up to the cards as to whether you get to do stuff
when you want to. As the cards were being pulled from the deck you
could often hear chanting..'German Armor,German Armor!' and cries
of "it's about time!' as the 2nd US ARmor Plt. card is pulled...sort of like wargaming in Vegas!
The Tank shooting went well, everyone has pretty much mastered
the 'to hit' procedure. In this game we finnally had several of the
tanks with damage instead of massive destruction on the first hit,as in reality Shermans burn. Ryan had some problems with one of his
Shermans that recieved immobilization hits, turret jam hits and yet
he would make all his required rolls, the tankers refusing to abandon their tank![ No negative waves here :P].
My one favorite incident in the game was when Ryan's Shermans
tried to do an end run at the village by using a field ,situated
along the edge of the table. Ryan burned all his lead tank's
initiative dice to get to the field's edge, the village in front of
him. The Stug which was conveniently parked alongside a barn to
support Blake's garrison, had been patiently waiting several turns
for a Sherman to poke it's nose out of the field. The chant
began..'German armor, German Armor!, the card was pulled and the
German players smiled. The Stug fired it's first'aimed shot',
bounce,then 2 snap fires,bounce-bounce, in American baseball
parlance -3 strikes,your out! But then Blakes 'garrison' card was
pulled, he looked up...'what can I do?' Well, your guys have
Panzerfausts! 'But I'm out of range.'..'Well you can move out of the trench into range and fire.'...and so the 'duel began.
Blake rolled his first 2 initiative dice : a '1' and a '2', 3
inches! 2 inches short from effective panzerfaust range! ..'So I
guess I can't use my third dice to fire?''Can I use it to get them
back', and with a roll of '4' they were safe back in the trench.
I'm sure this was played out for real on many a battlefield...'Hey Karl, I bet I can knock out that tank!...Hans,Hans! get back here you fool! You'll be killed!..Yea, maybe your right Karl.But remember,
years from now we're going to tell our grandkids that we blew it
up!'. :P
All in all a great game, the rules are a treat to play! and now for the questions:
1. Lance moved up a US Infantry squad into 'close assault' with
the Panther,base to base contact. Since there's no mention of Tanks
in the close assault section I opted for the Infantry AT option:
Infantry section AT [2d6] vs the Panther's armour dice. Correct?
2. Panzer Grenadiers and Halftracks: Mike skillfully used his dice to move his formation into a good position, his troops dismounted.
The question came up as to what to do with the 251 halftracks. Some
rulesets just leave them behind, which historically was often the
case since they were quite rare and would not be wasted needlessly.
Other rules are more aggressive allowing the halftracks to continue
to fight after the troops have dismounted. I opted for this: since
Mike wanted to use their forward mounted MG's as a base of fire as
the panzer Grenadiers deployed that would be ok. But I would not
allow them to assault empty,[a bogus gaming tactic], and if they
wanted to move: to either fall back or adjust the position, they
would have to burn initiative dice from their 'parent' section. Sound reasonable?
Thanks again to Richard and all the Too Fat Lardies Rules boys!
-Steve
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