a "Little" Interlude

one of teh guys in my napoleonic gaming group was over a few weeks ago, and i was showing him some stuff, including a tray of Micro Armor USMC vehicles.

US Marines moving onto the field, escorted by a V22 osprey that my friend refused to NOT put out!

a few days later he inquired about buying them a few days alter, and we agreed on a price.  then we scheduled a game for this evening. so i pulled out some of my soviet forces, set up a 4x4 table(much too small) and tossed some dice around.

a soviet mechanized infantry company advance across a field, supported by T-80s

we used a system my friend(who just graduated from the Royal military college of Canada as an armoured lieutenant) wrote 4 years ago. he called it fireteam, and it is a 1:1 scale battalion level game. it combines the best elements of Sharp Practice, Piquet Field of Battle, and a an earlier attempt at a micro armour set of rules.  it is a card driven system, with cards like Piquet:FoB(move all, move one command group, fire cards) but  used more in a Sharp Practice-like manner( both side's cards are combined in one deck, and played in the order they are drawn. the turn ends when the 2nd "fire all card" is drawn)  the deck, along with the single combat chart that he developed for all the weapon mechanics( 14 columns, 10 rows, not too complicated) make for a system with some Fog of war but not so much that you pull your hair out(IMHO).

Soviet BMP-2s carrying mortar teams, who decided to sit the battle out
(we both forgot to deploy our mortars)

the rules are 12 pages long, and about 1/3rd of that is detailing the artillery and air strike rules. the author and his brother used their ongoing military training to tweak the rules to be both fun and moderately realistic.

two platoons of soviet infantry advance in BMPs under the watchful eye of 3 T-80s

anyways, the game is optimal for a 4x8 or 6x8(or longer) table, so a 4x4 was a complete bloodbath. we played one turn and the game was over. my opponent was a little apprehensive about the card system but really warmed up to it once he shredded my soviets.  it also doesn't help that i haven't pleyed it in a few years, and did a poor job of balancing the forces.  now doubt those Capitalist  pig-dogs will get their come-uppence next time !

HUMMWVs with TOWs preparing an ambush.

Selling the marines was a good idea, because now i have someone to play against!  and maybe I'll one day paint up my larger German force.