Fire Team Risus

I've been messing around with the scenario generator in Platoon Forward again, and this time generated a Screening Mission. I decided to take 2 squads without an overall commander to see if World War Risus could handle something that small.

In the event, it can, but it wasn't terribly fun. Without a leader to roll extra dice for a given sides, whole turns went by without any action.

But still, there's nothing inherent in WWR that should make it work only for higher level games. Reading Beer and Pretzels Skirmish (recently acquired), I realized the trick would be to make the smallest element the fire team / 1/2 squad. This is also what Disposable Heroes / Coffin for Seven Brother does, by the way.

And so, I based my squads 3 figures to one base and 2 to another. The 3 figure base had the squad LMG, while the 2 figure base was the rifle fire team. It really didn't matter - the figures are irrelevant but I could have given +1 die to the LMG fire team base.

What I have is basically 1:2 ratio of figures to men, except when I don't. My MMG unit for instance consists of 2 figures and is 1:1-ish.

The replay was delayed a bit by the tornado that is Pumpkin. A secret weapon for the Allies, her destruction is somewhat indiscriminate. 

Here is part way through turn 1, after the fire team in the yellow house spotted the German blind, and revealed the blinds for the whole force: The .30 cal MG and the 2nd squad's fire teams have not moved yet.

I totally forgot to take additional pictures because I got caught up in the game. That doesn't mean everything was perfect though.

Each base has a Combat Effectiveness cliche, Leadership cliche and a Morale cliche.

Every base rolls Leadership for initiative which takes a butt-load of time, so there's something that needs to be done there.

On the plus side, you won't know which unit is going to act or in what order - always good in solo games. Also, there were fewer occasions where one side did nothing.

I adjusted the morale check a bit as I'm finding it as written to have more impact than i'd like. Units were taking a check every time they were shot at, hit or miss. Now, I take it only if the attacker scored a hit (whether or not it caused damage). The exception is when the target scores 2 or more successes than the shooting unit - no morale check is required in that case.

I also returned to removing 1 cliche die when hit regardless of how many successes more the attacker scored than the target. This extends the life of the individual units and in a small game like this, that's a good thing. Although i kept the automatic loss of Morale cliche die when a target was outscored by 2 or more successes.

Something I didn't change, but will next time, is the morale check results:

• 0 successes = fall back 2 moves, to nearest cover if possible, then pinned and lose 1 morale cliche die
• 1 success = fall back to nearest cover, if no cover within 2 moves, then pinned 
• 2+ successes = carry on

One final issue I feel merits addressing is what to do with units that have 3 or more pins on them. Regardless of their Combat Effectiveness cliche or Morale Cliche, at that point they are almost undoubtedly a write off.