Citizen, behold a squad of our mighty soldiers escorting a fine example of Soviet modern engineering and made by your own Proletariat hands.
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| Small dice indicate possible enemy forces to be drawn from a card deck. Mythic would determine whether or not an enemy force revealed itself on any given turn. |
See how your brave comrades advance fearlessly despite the threat of the nefarious Barbarians of Fascism!
Like rot in the grain stores, the Nazi-snake takes much effort to flush out! But the effort was made with the greatest sacrifice of our Defenders of the Motherland!
Anti-tank fire erupts to the North, machine gun fire to the South East
The Germans have no anti-tank weapons left, and are unable to close with the well armored Soviet workhorse.
*****
Rules used: Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers (with card draw activation)
Forces:
Russia - 1 T-34, 1 Rifle Squad (2 sections, one of Sergeant + 5 Privates, and 1 LMG section with Corporal, gunner and Private with Rifle).
German - A deck of 10 cards was set up, 3 of which were blank. The remainder varied from LMG team, panzerfaust team, up to a rifle section.
Scenario objective: Russians (me) - Escort the tank off the opposite corner. Germans - stop them.
Although the Russian T-34 made it off the table, they lost 9 men to the German 6. So, a victory but another Pyrrhic one at that.
This was primarily to test the feasibility of using a single squad with DHC7B. I found it worked much better than I thought. The idea came about as I considered experimenting with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for WWII.
I quite liked this battle report and your nifty terrain.
ReplyDelete"Although the Russian T-34 made it off the table, they lost 9 men to the German 6. So, a victory but another Pyrrhic one at that."
I am reminded of Stalin who said something to the effect that quantity has a quality all of its own. Nine Russian sons were lost, but in their place will sprout nine more!
Thanks, Christian!
DeleteMy only disappointment with regard to the terrain is that I have yet to make more of my trees (which are way too easy to make to have delayed the process so long). That and I have yet to make a suitable Russian farmhouse.
"Nine Russian sons were lost, but in their place will sprout nine more!" Love it - I think that may be inspiration for a follow up scenario!
-John
This is great! I love the model of the escort Tank. What type is it?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, John!
DeleteThe tank is a Classic Toy Soldier T-34, short barrel (so, a T-34/76). It's definitely built for handling as opposed to display - it's made of only three pieces: the turret, barrel and the hull/tracks.
The scale is something like 1/37 or 1/39 (I can't recall). So it's a touch undersized compared to the figures, but it looks fine to my eyes and has the benefit of taking up a bit less space on the tabletop.
-john
Does DH have a card initiative/ activation? Or is it something your borrowed or came up with from somewhere else?
ReplyDeleteHi Sean,
DeleteAs written, for DH, it's: At the start of the turn, each side rolls a d10, adds the Guts score of their highest leader, and subtracts 1 for each eliminated unit, and 1 for each pinned unit. Highest score gets to activate one of their units (a unit in DH is 1 section/fire team, i.e. 2-5 or so figures). After which, the other side goes. Sides repeat activating units until all units have been activated, at which point the turn ends.
This doesn't really work for me, since I play solo and I like to take things out of my hands a bit more than that.
So, I borrowed the card activation for units from elsewhere. Although I've seen it in several places, GASLIGHT is the notable example of it in my rules collection.
I like the uncertainty that card activation provides. As an added benefit, it eliminates the need for activation markers, since you always know when a unit has been activated, just by checking the face up pile. Although you still need to remember if a unit is pinned before they activate that they don't get to do anything when their card comes up that turn.
Using cards does reduce the importance of the Guts score somewhat, but it's a trade-off that I'm willing to make in order to have a more enjoyable game. Besides, Guts is used for morale checks and recovering from being pin, so it's not like it's eliminated.
One common objection to card activation is that one side can have a run of cards while the other doesn't get to act. Since I play solo, that's not an issue: I'm always moving figures or rolling each sides dice at the very least.
-John
I find it interesting that you consider this anything less than a stunning Soviet victory. Taking out 6 Germans at a cost of only 9 Russians AND reaching the tactical objective!!! STAVKA would consider that a major victory. They usually lost a great many more men than the Germans. If the Germans were only outnumbered 9+tank to six and failed to hold, there would be courts martial for the responsible squad and company leaders.
ReplyDelete