Friday, November 29, 2024

Mech War with simultaneous movement

Recently we changed our M2M house rules from IGOUGO to simultaneous movement using Comand counters.  Today we tried out a similar system for our Mech War WWII rules. 
We used the saem scenario as last Tuesday but with the sides on opposite sides of the table.

Chis cammands the Brits on the far side, Jim the Germans on the near side.
The Germans siezed the village with infnatry & MkIVs, but the british off-table artilley immediately ranged in on it.  A MkIV was knocked out & another bailed up whiel the infnatry in the houses were decimated before the survivors ran back behind the houses.
On the far flank the Germans siezed the cetral ridge with infantry & 5 Panthers.  The Brits declined to take on the Pussies & moved their right flank armour towards the centre.  But the Panthers still found brey firing long range fover the bockage from the ridge.
In the centre the Tigers won a long range duel with 17 pdrs on the ridge in the Brit rear.
On the near flank the Germans siezed the hill with infantry while the Brits advanced to support their attack on the village.    
In the centre the MkIVs set themselves in the bockage & took on the Cromwells.  The Brits sent infantry around the flank of the German infantry on the road.  The Tigers moved onto the hill behoind the village to open fire on teh British left flank tanks.  Teh Panthers ahve moved down off the ridge to threaten the British right flank.
The Pantehr have got around the British right, the Tigers have sniped away from their hill while the Mk IVs in the bockage beat up the Cromwells in the centre.  The Brits concede the battle.

The experiment in simultaneous movement worked even better than expected.  All my reservations about using the system, in WWII turned out to be unfounded after I spent some time devising systems to address the issues I was worried about.  The same set of 6 order chits we use in M2M also work here, but the command system is actually simpler as there are no formation changes so fewer options needed.  This battle was fought using a 1 page addendum, but we liked it so much I'm working on writing the changes into the rule book.  There are a few minor tweeks required here & there but mainly simplifications.  Eg: There is no need foran ambush rules as stationary troops fire before moving ones. 



 

No comments: