Sunday, February 24, 2013

Tomorrow's War: Maisoncelles II

Last saturday night we played our latest game for Tomorrow's War. We used an historical WW2 scenario (originally written for FOW if I am not mistaken) and adapted this to TW. 

Below you see the table. Left center is the village of Maisoncelles, for TW purposes situated in the Republic of Arden on the planet Glory but originally placed in France in 1944. From the lower left corner DPRG troops and armour (originally British with Sherman tanks) advances on and past the village. They will encounter entrenched elements of the United States Marine Corps (originally SS Panzer Grenadiers with two Panthers and an 88mm FLAK gun) that  have taken position in the woods and fields top left and center and are reinforced with a heavy AT gun (right top center) on the hill on the right and two Perkins Grav Tanks. The USMC armour is somewhat surprised by the DPRG advance since they are performing maintenance and neither tank is ready for action. They will be operational on a roll of 5-6 on a D6. 


Below you see US Marines taking cover in the woods in the center of the table. Two squads formed up the vanguard, one defended the AT gun and one was held in reserve on the right flank. 


Here the AT gun is placed behind cover and defended by Marines. Placed on a hill it occupied the ideal defensive firebase and used this to devastating effect. 



The DPRG opted to advance their infantry on the right flank and center and intended to follow up with a punch throught the woods in the center, taking cover from the woods up until the last possible moment before engaging the AT gun.


Here DPRG tanks cross the road into the last remaining woods that separate them from the AT gun. In the meantime one of my Perkins tanks managed to start and advanced at top speed to outflank the DPRG armour. In the foreground one of my front squads just before they gave way and retreated before the DPRG tanks.


Here DPRG troops advance beyond the woods and village. They took heavy casualties from my front squads and HE rounds from the AT gun. One of my front squads dallied too long and got wiped out by the advancing DPRG armour. Lacking AT weapons, they should have stayed out of harm's way anyhow, but taking potshots at the DPRG infantry proved too tempting...



Here the DPRG tanks met their Nemesis. The AT gun started firing as soon as they cleared the woods, resulting in heavily damaged and knocked-out tanks. I don't think the gun lost a single Reaction test or missed a single shot.

 
Burning DPRG tanks at the edge of the fields. DPRG infantry had been stopped dead in their tracks by now.


I didn't get it all my way however. My one functional tank got hit by a lucky shot from a DPRG tanker without getting off a single shot (mainly due to me completely forgetting to make reaction tests for it as soon as the DPRG tanks cleared the woods....)


The final stage. Burning DPRG tanks in the center, an invincible USMC AT gun still firing away and DPRG troops decimated and retreating. I lost one squad and one tank. The second tank sat out the battle still having its gearbox re-assembled or something.


The translation from a 1944 scenario to a Sci-fi one worked flawlessly. Having the USMC at quality 10 was perhaps a bit too much, but the rest worked as it should. We used Tech Level 2 tanks for the Shermans and TL 3 tanks for the Panthers that originally fought at Maisoncelles. The 88mm gun was just a Heavy AT gun with HE rounds for anti-personnel fire.  7 DPRG squads against 4 USMC squads made for the right superiority in manpower that was orginally the British advantage.

In 1944, the British Guards eventually took the village with heavy losses. Here however, things turned out differently.

5 comments:

  1. Very nice set up, cheers for the report. I must start on my own TW stuff....

    How long did the game take, and did it bog down with all the vehicles involved? I ask because having had a read through, it all looks a bit complicated, especially when vehicles are involved!

    Cheers
    steve

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  2. I think we started after diner between 730 and 800 PM and we finished somewhere around 915 PM. So I would say about an hour and a half of playing time. The vehicles didn't bog down the game at all. "Mechanically" as expressed in game rule terms a vehicle is just a unit and functions almost exactly like one. The one moment (a few minutes) we had to leaf through the rulebook was to find what it meant to suppress a vehicle. The book index might have been a little more comprehensive. I admit that the vehicle rules might look a bit intimidating, but there is a tryout vehicles-only scenario in the book that we once played twice in one evening. Just read the rules through carefully and play that scenario to get a feel for them.

    The rules are surprisingly elegant and have a realistic feel.
    My experience is that if ever a situation feels absurd, you are probably doing something wrong rules-wise and I recommend looking up how it should be.

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  3. That's good to know, as i've just bought a mech to go with my pig iron troops, none of them painted yet though.....

    Steve

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  4. For Mechs I use ordinary vehicle stats. However, since they walk they are able to cross low obstacles that tracked or wheeled vehicles cannot (easily) cross. And since they are tall and tower over most low obstacles these do not offer them cover dice. I considered using the Gigantic Vehicle rules but found these too powerfull so I decided to view Mechs as very mobile, easy to hit vehicles that needed trees or buildings to receive cover from.

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  5. Very cool. What paper terrain manufacturer is that house from?

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