WWII Game with Morschauser Rules

Closing out my week off from work this weekend, I had a solo WWII game today using the modern era rules from Joseph Morschauser's How to Play Wargames in Miniature. Despite their simplicity (or perhaps because of it) they gave an excellent game. The simplicity of the mechanics allowed for calculation of maneuvers in an almost chess-like manner. While not to everyone's taste, I rather enjoy that type of calculation.

I threw in a few simple house rules for wrecked vehicles – other vehicles can't move through them and they block LOS/LOF. I also tossed in some restrictions for overrun attacks (called "running down" in the rules). I decided overruns could only take place if the target infantry was in open terrain or on a road, and only if the overrunning vehicle's entire move took place in open terrain and/or road, and only if the overrunning vehicle could cross the target infantry base completely without contacting any other enemy units (the latter allowing for defense in depth).

 Middle of the battle. Plumes of smoke (I know they should be black, not white) rise from wrecked vehicles, blocking LOS. The German infantry at top left take advantage of the house rule prohibiting overruns vs. infantry deployed in depth.

The game moved quickly and smoothly and was extremely entertaining. I set up a plain old meeting engagement, with symmetrical forces – nine rifle squads, four tanks, and one scout car on each side. The Germans got the first move, but the Americans had choice of table edge. Consequently, the Americans made it to the large town near the center of the table before their opponents. First contact occurred at the edge of town, when a Sherman survived a shot from a Pz IV, then destroyed the German tank in the following American turn.

 Overall course of the battle.

Except for a couple of tanks on each side that pushed straight up the middle, the battle took on a classic "hurricane" pattern, with the weight of each side's advance on its own right flank, hitting the enemy left. Each army, on its respective strong side, pushed back the enemy, but the Americans got the better of it, dropping the German force to less than 50% strength before the Germans were able to do the same to them.

In the end, the Americans lost two AFVs and four rifle squads (six units total) and held the field. The Germans lost three AFVs and six rifle squads (nine units total), and withdrew.

I'm looking forward to playing some more with Morschauser's rules.

Banholz: 1 December 1944

The Army reports have little to say about the assault on Banholz. The American attacking force loses its impetus in the earliest moments of the push forward, and never regains it. The fight turns into an immobile slog, with infantry on both sides simply exchanging fire, gradually whittling each other down. While the American armor gets the better of the German panzers, the Americans suffer from significant mechanical difficulties which prevent the U.S. armor from making any real contribution to the attack. The American company commander, Captain Norman Fowler, is killed in action, as are all three of his subordinate platoon commanders. So deadlocked is the position throughout that there is little to report. What follows therefore is simply a list of the difficulties that beset the immobilized American force.

An overview of the battlefield

Deck 1, Turns 1-4

Preliminary U.S. artillery has virtually no effect.

An exchange of infantry fire begins in the center of the lines due west of Banholz, pinning units who then rally and are pinned again repeatedly. This continues through the rest of the battle and bears no further commentary.

The two Shermans run into ditches.

The crew of one M10 Wolverine is stunned by enemy fire.

From about the second turn, half to two-thirds of the US infantry remain pinned, while half to two-thirds of the US vehicles remain immobilized for the remainder of the fight. No further significant maneuvering occurs after the initial engagement.

End of Turn 1

Deck 2, Turns 1-4

The American M8 goes up in flames from German infantry AT fire.

The Americans get reinforced by an understrength rifle platoon (two squads) and an additional M8 scout car. These reinforcements are unbearably slow moving up, and will only reach sight of the enemy at the very end of the battle.

One Sherman drags itself out of the ditch and slides right back into it, again temporarily out of action.

Lieutenant Dowler (first platoon) is killed by a shell fragment.

A machine gun burst kills Lieutenant Pickard (third platoon).

An M10 Wolverine and a Sherman engaged with the two Panzers manage to send one PzIV up in flames.

Deck 3, Turns 1-3

One US squad gets pinned down in a minefield.

One of the Shermans gets hit by a panzerfaust attack and explodes.

Captain Fowler (company commander) is killed by a sniper.

Lieutenant Benedetto (second platoon) is killed by a mortar round.

The Sherman and the Wolverine bounce a total of six shots off the Pz IV's hull. [Game comment: each armor save has a 33% chance of succeeding. The chance of the Panzer making six armor saves in a row, as it does, is .0013 or just over 1 in 1000]. Finally three more hits destroy the enemy tank.

End of Game

Aftermath:

Seeing their attack has petered out, the Americans pull back. The Americans suffer one Sherman destroyed, one M8 destroyed, and the loss of three rifle squads. The Germans suffer two Panzer IVs destroyed, and the loss of two rifle squads. Though the losses are fairly even, not a single G.I. even comes close to setting foot inside the town. The fight is a solid German victory.

Fox Company, effectively decapitated by the loss of its four commanding officers, is pulled out of the Hurtgen entirely. The unit is shortly thereafter disbanded, and its men reintegrated into other units shipping out to Belgium and Luxembourg as the snow begins to fall, to fight in yet another desperate campaign.


Game Notes:

I've got to say this was a terribly anti-climactic conclusion to the Hurtgen mini-campaign. The Germans drew more action cards than the Americans every turn of the game, except the final turn. In several cases the disparity in action cards drawn was extreme (11-4, 10-4, 11-5). The Americans could simply not overcome this deficiency, which was coupled with brutal random events – four officers killed outright, one tank blown up by a panzerfaust, and no fewer than four "mechanical breakdown" results keeping US tanks out of action, and a seemingly utter inability of US pinned and immobilized units to make successful recovery rolls. The US force – significantly greater in numbers – just lay there like a beached whale, passively taking fire for much of the game. So much so that writing a report (other than the list of things that went wrong provided above) was practically impossible, just because nothing actually happened the whole game but a stagnant, immobile firefight that reduced the game to a pure dice-rolling contest. You can easily see that the photo at the end of turn one and the photo at the end of the game are not significantly different from each other.

Then again, that's pretty much how the Hurtgen forest campaign played out in real life too...

Hoffmeister: 13 November 1944

The sun is rising as Lt. Benedetto takes one last sip from his silver hip flask and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. His watch says 0745. "Okay, Sergeant, let's get them moving."

Deck 1, Turn 1

One of the men in Benedetto's platoon steps on a mine, then the platoon comes under a crossfire from two German platoons who have swiftly moved into the woods just in front of them. Benedetto's return fire is virtually ineffective. In the blink of an eye second platoon is down to two squads. Meanwhile third platoon moves up on second's right flank, and first platoon with the armor support enters the town of Oberndorf.

Deck 1, Turn 2

The sherman takes a wrong turn in Oberndorf and finds its path blocked in a narrow set of alleyways. The crew immediately try to back out and get back onto one of the main streets. Meanwhile a sniper opens fire from an upper-storey window and kills Captain Thorpe with a bullet to the chest. A medic rushes over to him, but too late. The withering German crossfire finishes off second platoon. Benedetto and a few survivors manage to fall back to the safety of the bridge. Meanwhile, Pickard's third platoon open fire on the Germans across the road and manage to cut them down to half strength.

Deck 1, Turn 3 - 4

The infantry on both sides continue to exchange fire, and Pickard's platoon does heavy damage to the German center. Dowler succeeds in getting his men back on their feet and first platoon reaches the north edge of Oberndorf.

Deck 2, Turn 1

The sherman still fails to extricate itself from the back alleys of Oberndorf. Meanwhile Dowler's first platoon advances on the American right, while Pickard's third platoon and the Germans in the center chop away at each other. Both forces are down to about 50 % of their original strength.

Deck 2, Turn 2

Pickard's platoon gets whittled down still further, but Dowler's platoon does some damage to the Germans facing them, completely annihilating the German left flank. If only the sherman could get free of Oberndorf, then Hoffmeister would be completely open to the Americans.

Deck 2, Turn 3

An overstrength platoon of German reinforcements marches down the road from the north toward Hoffmeister. Meanwhile, German fire from the woods facing Picard's depleted third platoon is ineffective. Pickard however, manages to keep the German platoon pinned in place. The sherman manages to extricate itself from Oberndorf, and races north along the road toward Hoffmeister, with Dowler's men dashing across the east-west road, right alongside.

Deck 2, Turn 4

A panzerfaust team takes a shot at the sherman as it rolls up the road, then pulls out in the face of close range MG fire from the tank. The sherman then rumbles forward into Hoffmeister with Dowler's first platoon immediately behind. The German reinforcements, hearing the tank roll into the town ahead of them, take cover in the trees northwest of Hoffmeister. Meanwhile the exchange of fire in the west near the bridge is relatively ineffective, as both sides have very little fight left in them.

Deck 2, Turn 5

Dowler's men join the tank in Hoffmeister, and with a final ineffective exchange of fire, the remnants of the German force pull back off the battlefield. Though it cost them dearly, the American are victorious.

[Game notes: Lt. Benedetto hit the bottle before going into action. This did not help the Americans at all, as his platoon had a severe penalty to their dice rolls. Consequently Benedetto's platoon got wiped out very quickly. The random events were still quite unkind, but manageable [barely] with the numerical advantage for the GIs. Even so, it was a near run thing, and had the Americans not secured the town as they did right at the end of the second deck (which allowed me to call the game there), they would certainly have lost -- a third deck would have killed them. As it is, the GI's took a lot of casualties securing their objective.]

Gratz: 4 November 1944

"Forget about sending in scouts Lieutenant!" Captain Thorpe is screaming into the radio at his subordinate. "I want you to get your platoon into Gratz now. Second and third platoons will be right behind you. Battalion thinks the Germans may be moving in as we speak, and by God we're not going to let them get into that town first! You get it moving Lieutenant or I'll personally come up there and put my boot in your ass!"

Lieutenant Grover slams down the handset and grinds his teeth together. "Goddammit..." he mutters. "He's got us charging straight in there with no idea what's in front of us." The lieutenant presses his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Let's get them moving, sergeant."

Deck 1, Turn 1

Grover's platoon advances east toward Gratz, coming under light mortar fire, but no one is hit. They make contact just outside of town with a German rifle platoon. Benedetto, sober today, moves second platoon into the woods on Grover's left flank. while Pickard advances third platoon into the same woods on the American far left. Germans appear in the trees across the road. Grover's men, after an initial exchange of fire, deploy in Gratz. Though the Americans are successful in pinning down some of the enemy, a sniper rifle rings out and Grover himself goes down, shot through the head.

Deck 1, Turn 2

First platoon, now in Gratz but leaderless, takes fire from the Germans, losing one squad, but eliminating one enemy squad as well. The remaining American platoons deploy into the woods north of the town, and the Germans do the same across the north-south road.

Deck 1, Turn 3

A squad from first platoon sets off a booby-trap, no doubt left behind by the German sniper team before they withdrew from Gratz. Adding insult to injury, the Germans east of the town lay down additional heavy fire on the already stunned squad. First platoon has been whittled down to just a dozen or so men. Benedetto's platoon in the center also takes heavy fire. Things are looking grim for the GIs and their spirits sink momentarily as a German tank can be heard rumbling closer from the village of Schierholz to the east. Just as they begin to despair however, the GIs' morale rises again as they hear a Sherman coming up from the rear.

[Game note: this was just dumb luck. I created a scenario rule that allowed armored reinforcement to arrive on any roll [move, fire, recover] of double sixes. The end of the turn saw double sixes rolled on BOTH of the last two fire rolls – the first tank turned out to be German, the second American.]

Deck 1, Turn 4

The last remnants of first platoon wither away under German fire inside Gratz. Meanwhile, Pickard's third platoon finally gets into position on the American left, while the Sherman advances to become what is now the American right. With the help of the tank, the two remaining American rifle platoons manage to pin most of the German troops in the trees across the road.

Deck 1, Turn 5

The Sherman has mechanical difficulty and creaks to a halt. The German Panzer IV slowly grinds forward. Fire from the American infantry begins to take a toll on the Germans in the woods, knocking out two squads and pinning all the rest. The only German infantry in good order is the platoon advancing into Gratz from the east. After what seems like an eternity of vulnerability, the Sherman's crew get their vehicle running again.

[Game note: now at the end of the first deck, I could call the game and retreat; my force is down 4-3, a minor loss, and not the end of the world. However, seeing as how half the German infantry is pinned, and all of my units are in good order, I decide to take a gamble, thinking maybe I could pull this out – bad idea].

Deck 2, Turn 1

"Sonofabitch!" Pickard can see a dust cloud rising in the distance in the outskirts of Schierholz. Another Panzer followed by an entire platoon of German infantry! He grabs the handset from his radio man. "Fall back! Fall back! We can't hold this position!"

"Goddammit!" Hollers Thorpe into his own radio. "You hold your position Lieutenant!"

The GI's keep firing, taking out two German squads in the woods. The tanks on both sides fail to find their marks, and the German infantry in Gratz manages to destroy an American squad on the US right.

Deck 2, Turn 2

Things go to hell in a handbasket for the Americans. A mortar barrage leaves every squad in Pickard's third platoon pinned, and the exchange of infantry weapons fire leaves Benedetto's platoon down to a single pinned squad as well. The Germans in Gratz attack the Sherman with panzerfausts, and momentarily stun the crew. Yet another German vehicle rolls into the town of Schierholz joining up with the other troops assembling there. The only good news for the Americans is that their tank quickly recovers from the panzerfaust attack. However, it seems now only a matter of time before the German troops in Schierholz make the final push to drive the U.S. force from the field.

Deck 2, Turn 3

There is a lull in the action, as a few desultory shots are fired by the remaining engaged good order troops on both sides. The Americans take advantage of the lull to pull their troops out, falling back through Broeckerhoff, leaving Gratz in German hands.

[Game notes: Deck 2 ended here, and I wised up and opted to get out while I still could. In terms of casualty victory points, the game was tied, 5-5, as both sides had taken even losses. But the Germans took Gratz and that gives them the victory here. In reality though, the "numerical" VP score doesn't come close to reflecting the horrible position I was in when deck 2 ended. All my infantry was pinned, practically all the German forces were in good order, and the German reinforcements were going to be overwhelming, outnumberng me about 2:1 in infantry and 3:1 in vehicles. Sticking around would have been sheer suicide.

Playtesting notes: As for the solo Paper Tiger variant rules I drew up, the random events rules were pretty brutal. They come up four times per deck, and are all bad events undermining the solo player. In other words, they represent four "free shots" against the player's forces on each run through the deck. That may be a bit much. The random events just pounded me the whole game. With the random event rule as written, I'm not sure the player has any chance at all of winning a game, and my target is for a game that gives the player a roughly 50-50 chance to win or lose. For the next game I may tweak the rules so that random events don't pop up quite so often – maybe a random event occurs only when the enemy draws an ace. This way, instead of being guaranteed four bad events per run through the deck, I could get anywhere from zero to four such events, with an average of two per pass through the deck, depending on who draws the aces.]

Coming soon: After the battle.

Action at Darville: PAPER TIGERS Battle Report

Here's another game with Paper Tigers, this time using my now enlarged 3' x 6' tabletop and including my first vehicle (the Puma). There are also a few new terrain pieces (an Italeri bridge and some "Battlefield in a Box" river sections) as well as a new temporary basing for my squads (magnetic tape on the bottoms of the minis, so they'll hold to 2" x 2" metal bases). The basing is temporary because I don't know yet if I want to go with a set of rules with squad basing, like Paper Tigers, or a set with individual basing, like FUBAR.

Setting the Scene: June 1944

As the allies try to press inland, a platoon of G.I.s are ordered to cross the small Boissière river into the town of Darville to screen the flank of an eastward American advance south of the stream. They are to hold the village and its bridge over the Boissière against any German spoiling attack aimed at the northern flank of the main U.S. advance.

The Germans, expecting an American attack but unsure where and when, are sending out reconnaissance units to probe the U.S. positions, and snatch up any key towns or bridges undefended or only lightly held by the enemy. One such probing attack, executed by a German platoon supported by a Puma armored car, is launched from the village of Menton toward Darville, in the hopes of snatching the bridge over the Boissière.

The Firefight:

Turns 1-3: The Germans have trouble keeping organized and they advance slowly into the woods northeast of Darville. As the Puma rolls into view of the Americans, the G.I.s reposition themselves further into the town, in the hopes of drawing the enemy AFV to close quarters and negating its firepower advantage. The Puma opens fire as they do, initially to little effect.

Turns 4-6: The German and American infantry on the east side of Darville engage in a violent firefight, taking maximum advantage of cover and courage [Game note: both sides made an improbably large number of cover saves and recovery rolls for damaged units], before the G.I.s finally manage to wipe out one of the German squads. Meanwhile, the Puma succeeds in catching one of the withdrawing American squads in the center of town and keeps them pinned down continuously by pouring in unrelenting fire.

Turn 7: Finally the Puma destroys the U.S. squad in the center of Darville, clearing the way into the rear lines of defense nearer the bridge. However, on the east side of town, another German squad is pinned by accurate fire, and the decision is made to withdraw, since the infantry has stalled and the Puma commander has no intention of fighting the American infantry deep in the town at close quarters all by himself [Game note: the turn deck ran out, bringing about the "mechanical" end of the game; the stalled attack is the "narrative" justification for the end of the fight reflecting the situation on the board at game end].

Aftermath:

Time worked against the Germans in this game. They needed to kill US squads quickly, make a hole, and push through to the bridge in a hurry. Unfortunately they got really bad card draws, severely limiting their actions early on, while the Americans got tons of cards, which allowed them to burn through the deck rapidly (the game ends when the deck is empty). At the same time, firing was quite ineffective all around (compared to previous games of Paper Tigers I've played) as both sides made a surprising number of cover saves negating otherwise effective attacks and, when units did get damaged, they repeatedly made successful recovery rolls before they could be hit again and eliminated. Again, because the Germans needed to quickly blast open a path to the bridge, this worked more against the Germans than the Americans. On the other hand, it was quite fun to watch such a heroic stand by the G.I.s who survived far more punishment than they should have been able to, effectively blunting the German attack before it could even pass the outskirts of Darville. The U.S. platoon commander and his men ought to be up for commendations.

Paper Tigers Battle Report

In my quest to find a set of WWII skirmish rules, I decided to take one more look around the Free Wargames Rules site, and came upon Paper Tigers, by Paper Tiger Armaments. The rules are not new, and I had seen them before, but had never tried them. So I decided to give them a spin. Since I was just testing out the rules with this game, I didn't create any scenario or back-story, but just set up some terrain, plunked down three squads for the Germans and three for the Americans (PT uses groups of 3-5 minis to represent squads), and let them have at it. The game uses a playing card mechanic for activation order, firing and movement. You assign a limited number of playing cards (unseen) to your units, which determine both the order and number of actions, and the probability of success in moving or shooting. Units can take two hits, becoming "damaged" after the first one (a generic term used in the rules for any unit pinned, suppressed, stunned, etc.) and destroyed after the second. I added one house rule (in mid-game, since it seemed to make sense), and that is if a unit can move into contact with a "damaged" enemy, the "damaged" unit is immediately eliminated.

Turns 1-2: The opposing platoons moved into positions under cover, with squads on both sides occupying patches of woods.

Turn 3: The US third squad on the American right flank lays down fire on the German first squad facing them, suppressing ("damaging") their target. The German third squad does the same to the American first squad on the opposite flank. The Germans then charge the suppressed ("damaged") American unit. Meanwhile, the US third squad maintains a withering fire that causes the German first squad to melt away (destroyed). The suppressed American first squad is unable to recover as the Germans come on.

Turn 4: The German third squad rushes the woods where the American first squad put their hands in the air and give up (destroyed). The German second squad shifts from the center in an attempt to flank the Americans on what is now the US left. The American third squad turns and moves toward the center to counter this maneuver. The US second squad takes a gamble and rushes out to gain a better position on the German unit trying to flank them – with luck they'll be able to fire on the Germans in the open (the US second squad still has a card remaining this turn, while the Germans do not). The German third squad, having secured their prisoners, swing back to the center in an effort to help their comrades by putting additional pressure on the US second squad's flank. The US second squad opens fire, but fails to hit the Germans in the open. Exposed on open ground themselves, this poor marksmanship will come back to haunt the Americans.

Turn 5: Tragically, the US second squad is caught in a deadly crossfire from the two German units, and is ripped to shreds (destroyed). Helpless to stop the slaughter, the US third squad pulls back to the village rather than take on two enemy squads all alone.

Turn 6: The US squad reaches the safety of the houses. Meanwhile one German squad takes up a position in the woods to fire on the GI's while the other sweeps out to try and enter the village from the rear.

The German fire momentarily pins (damages) the US unit, but they quickly recover, and the fight ends with the Americans withdrawing from the town to safety, and with the victorious Germans holding the field.

The overall flow of the battle looked like this:

Having played this game (and a couple others) here are my impressions of Paper Tigers:

First, from a mundane, pragmatic angle, the basic unit is a single vehicle, a single gun, or an infantry squad, the latter represented with only 3-5 models. This is excellent for me right now considering the very small size of my collection. In effect, each of my two current squads suddenly becomes a platoon under these rules, and with the addition of a few guns and vehicles, I could play the full array of Platoon Forward scenarios with little more than the original number of models I had planned to use just for the smaller "patrol" scenarios.

Second, while the rules are quite simple (which I like), there is some meaningful decision-making going on, which is also important. I found the ratio of "weight of decisions" to "lightness of rules" very favorable.

Third, while designed for player vs. player games, they are very solitaire-friendly – in fact there is a section at the end of the rules that details how to go about playing the game solo, and it works quite well.

Finally, in my play through, I found that there was enough of a luck element to keep things upredictable (especially in solo play), while at the same time not making the game a total coin toss.

All in all, I really enjoyed these rules, and to top it all off – they're free.