We decided to try out Chain Of Command from Too Fat Lardies which I have had since publication but never tried in 'anger'.
I set up a quick table top and rolled for scenario type which yielded an attack versus defence background.
Stephen chose to use American Armoured Infantry in defence s and I chose German Panzer Grenadiers as attackers.
After rolling for support I gained 10 points and Stephens lot 3.
I picked a Stug IIIG (mainly to try vehicles) and a Flamethrower section.
Stephen selected a Sniper as his support.
We found the Patrol and Jump Off points pre-game stuff quite interesting with some thought required when placing and moving the Patrol markers.
Certainly a nice simple method to set up an encounter and to deploy units on table.
The game itself turned out to be an enjoyable and interesting time.
I was worried that with our 15mm multi-based stands on the standard 6' x 4' table there would be too much space or conversely that the units would be to constricted on deployment.
However this turned out not to not make any difference as far as we could tell as most weapons range over the whole table (as per Crossfire) anyhow with terrain being the main restriction on firing.
The systems for moving, shooting and morale are sort of standard Lardie with some twists bit the replacing the usual card system for Command by dice was a very intriguing change.
We both started with 5 Command dice but found that the Yanks having two Senior Commanders by default was a great asset with their 3 Command Initiatives combined with 9" Command radius made them very useful chaps indeed.
In hindsight I would have been much better taking a second Senior Officer as Support than the flamethrower team.
We both thought the Stug had the potential to dominate the game but as it can only activate on a roll of 3 this proved unfounded (in fact it done very little).
Initially we forget that you can combine certain dice to make higher amounts but even so the vehicle was much less useful than another Squad or Team.
I like Chain of Command dice which is a nice way to generate a sort of 'joker' event of course requiring 5s to gain these dice (1 per 6 x 5s thrown) I gained a fat zero whilst Stephen managed to generate two !
Game really hinged on us both racing to a large building on my left but as Stephen managed to roll 2 x 6s he got a continuing initiative allowing him to beat me into the building and then to shoot my Grenadiers to shreds .
Again this is a nice simple system which allows a side to hold initiative and therefore allows units to potentially activate more than once before enemy can react (use of Overwatch pr Covering Fire can offset this a tad), this reminded me in some ways of the effects of initiative flow in Piquet.
I like the system of Shock which again is a simple but effective way to measure unit morale/degradation during a game and the use of Officers to Rally it off.
Overall Force Morale is also handled fairly simply with a roll per Broken or Destroyed unit garnering 1-3 drops in morale levels (Germans started at 8 and US at 9).
Of course being a new set of rules we had one or two small queries but nothing show stopping.
The table set up (Yanks set up their Patrol markers 18" from lower edge)
Of course despite lack of gaming time I did manage to acquire more rule sets (some via PDF)
Also a couple of board wargames one being a 2nd edition and the other the content of a Special OPs magazine.
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