6d6 WWII v.2: Scenario #8 "Melee" with Eager Playtesters

Twas the night before Thanksgiving, and all thru the store,

The gamers were hollering, "More! More!! MORE!!!"

The dice were thrown, the cards were cut, attacks made on the flanks,

In carefree anticipation of feasting, family, and - we hope - lots of thanks.

(with apologies to Clement Clark Moore)

Soooo, with quite the excitement at testing the latest draft - 11 - of my WWII rules on two Veterans and Grognards, I reported as ordered to the local FLGS to see if this draft was as good as I hoped. As a close spin on my Medieval rules, I felt that the mechanics would work well, and "scratch the itch" for a fast-playing but very tactical Company / Battalion level WWII wargame, playable in an hour or so. Will the rules withstand the test of historical knowledge, practical experience and gaming experience? We'll see!

*** EDIT: to track rules development better, these rules are now "6d6 Wargames WWII, v.2" to differentiate them from the posted v.1 one year ago. ***

I've now switched my language regarding the rules - there's so many changes that the most that can be said for Neil Thomas is that he inspired them with his philosophy and the "One-Hour Wargames" book, which I still highly recommend. In the not-to-distant future, I will unveil a legible copy of the rules and send them out to likely victims for blind playtesting. If that interests you, do contact me for the mundane arrangements. Meanwhile, I've pretty much stopped calling them "One-Hour Wargames" and free Mr. Thomas from any responsibility, morale, ethical or legal, that caused by the playing of these rules. ;)

Some mechanics that have crossed over from the Medieval Rules:

- The Initiative [IN] roll-off mechanic. As one side has Initiative and takes its Actions first, followed by the other side, it is possible for the losing side to go second, win IN, and go first in the next turn, effectively getting two Action Phases [interrupted only by Mortar Fire]. This requires winning by 3 as the holder of IN gets a +2 and wins ties. So it doesn't happen often, but it is worth thinking about.
- the 6-Hit Unit: it is so much easier to track with one dice than up to three for 15 Hits!
- the corresponding use of the 3-dice attack mechanic, which lowers the numbers of hits a unit takes in any given attack to the same math chances as the d6 attritional roll with 15 Hit Units. The main difference is that you can "miss" with all three dice, gaining no Hits, with any Unit. In OHW only the weak skirmish units that attack d6-2 can "miss".
- a combo method of varying the number of dice and the Hit number
- rallying off of hits, in a simple, limited way.
- a partially diced move system,
- A combo of Actions and fixed phases [Mortars fire in a separate phase]

Some have been tweaked a bit for WWII and of course the modifiers to the combat dice and target numbers is mostly unique to WWII as well.

Turn 2 - Initiative roll-off. The defending Italians start the game with Initiative, not the attacking Brits. They have an ATG and INF unit on the hill. They go Ready with the ATGs and move the INF into the oasis/scrub [woods] in front of them. The key decision is to dig-in off the hill or on it - the victory condition is sole possession of the hill. The Brits start with three Units of Cruds which begin dashing up the road to set up an ambush on the Axis reinforcements, two platoons of PZIII, an Infantry and a Mortar Unit. Unfortunately, the Cruds roll pretty low and don't get very far. The ATGs shoot on the Ready during the Brit turn, then hammer away at the platoon for the next couple of turns [ATGs that are Dug-in have about a 2-1 Hit advantage v. Armor in the open...as it should be!]

Turn 5 - Action heats up. The Brits got one platoon into short range of the Axis entry point, and one platoon hull-down behind them. They manage to knock out one platoon but the close ranges and dice rolls have put one of the Crud platoons at 6 Hits - it's removed at 7. Meanwhile, the British Motor Infantry are developing an attack on the Italians in the woods, who are Dug-in and Ready. One platoon of Cruds tested the ATGs and didn't like what they got, so pulled back behind the oasis to rally a few hits off before re-entering the fight.

Crud Close Support platoon at bottom left [mortars]. PZIII above road. Italian ATGs on hill at top, Infantry in Oasis. Axis have lost a Unit, but two Crud platoons are badly damaged.

Turn 8 - the battle rages! Stubborn Italian defense of oasis has cost the Brits a Motor platoon. Both the short-range fire and mortar support were tough on the attackers. One platoon of Cruds is gone, the other two are doing OK. The Hull-down one has inflicted a permanent Hit on the PZIII platoon, so they'll always lose one dice when attacking. Lots of decisions have been made, the most interesting being the Brits to take a very aggressive stance against the reinforcements of the defenders. Personally, I never found this to work, it just gets you fighting with more Units a turn or two earlier. If his two Crud platoons fighting the German armor had spent a couple turns shooting up the Units on the hill, they might have secured the Oasis as a staging poin to attack the ATGs with their infantry.

British have half an oasis - but can they get a drink?? Axis mortars below road at right. Axis infantry on hill at top to replace the destroyed ATGs [they didn't dig-in].

Turn 11 - desperate measures. With solid play and average luck on both sides so far, the battle still hangs on a thread. Cruds knocked out the PZIII platoon and are now encircling the embattled Italian Infantry in the oasis. The other digs in as MG and Mortar fire lashes at their comrades. The Italian Mortars work to support their comrades and put hits on Cruds.

Turn 15 - a brutal finale. Well, few survived. The Brits lost a Crud platoon and the Italians both Infantry platoons. The Cruds then moved up and took the hill. The Italian mortars also moved up, but we think - in hindsight - that they had fired and so wouldn't have been able to move. Clearly, however, they would have withheld shooting for movement as it meant the game. Still, the Brits have two good platoons on the table, and the Italians just have Mortars, so it would just be a matter of a few more turns for them to secure victory.

This is not as detailed an AAR as the one over at Sound Officer's Call, but it is focused more on the rules rather than the fun the two playtester's had, anyway. :)  I do encourage you to read Steve's account of the battle, it's not often you'll get to read two AAR's of the same game!

I :up well. There are plenty of clear-cut decisions to be made, and battles are shaped by those decisions interacting along with the dice. Overall, I believe that 3-4 of 5 games will go to the better player with this system, so I am happy with the occasional loss due to bad dice or a bad critical decision. It reminds me a lot of real war!

The combat mechanisms were solid and pretty easy to remember, as are the move rates. Initiative is not a game winner and here it never switched anyway. I am happy that most of the time, a Unit has a couple of choices of what to do - Rally, Dig-in and going Ready are almost always an option for a Unit if they are not moving or shooting, and I have always loved the "saving and preparing" aspect of such a mechanic. When do Units ever just totally sit around and do nothing on a battlefield?? Never! If they are resting, they are also trying to organize and get ammo, improve their position, etc.

So some little things to write up and edits to make, but these are very solid. We will be looking good for the Crusader mega-game in a few weeks!