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I skirmished in 6mm (Tomorrow’s War), but used unit bases to depict fire teams, on 12″ tables. (well, boards on tables, obviously)

If you wanna play something really tiny like Necromunda/Zone Alpha I suggest going with 10mm, not the least because it makes line of sight a bit more manageable. Which as far as I remember is quite a factor in Necromunda. More so than the ground scale, which is basically given by the rules anyway, and we don’t see that many regular buildings in Necromunda anyway, as people in 40k don’t live in houses, but in shipping containers, leaned on a ruined wall with 2 levels above and metal walkways. 🙂

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Thanks. Yeah, those are lovely figures. Funny thing is that the more realistic proportions and faces make ye paint them differently. More (over)pronounced facial features tend to make me have fun with them a bit more, while these get more realistic looks. At least that’s me.

 

Mr.Hicks is currently working on British Paras to add to that range.

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I fully understand that. I was rather happy when around 2019 several rules sets were released which cover the time period and/or the TYW specifically.

I never played it either, but maybe Tilly’s Very Bad Day is easy to convert to grids?

https://balagan.info/download-tillys-very-bad-day-fast-play-rules-for-the-30-years-war

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hammurabi70 wrote:

Interesting AAR. You appear to prefer IDV over ToDR, is there a reason to concentrate on IDV for game play? I have read your review of IDV and your comparison at the end of the AAR of the Battle of Wimpfen but you have subsequently done six games with IDV. This would seem to suggest a clear preference. My only concern would be measuring as my failing eyes do not encourage measuring to the millimetre, so would it convert to grids?

 

Thanks for the comment, hammurabi70! Maybe my counting is off, but I think I so far played 4 games of IDV and 5 games of ToDR (plus one game of Baroque). But you’re right in the regard of my more recent games having been mostly IDV. That’s got mostly something to do with the fact that I got these rules more recently. The main reason I got them out again now is that a friend asked to play something TYW and two years ago we played ToDR already, so I thought I’d show him IDV. Before I can do that I had to re-learn the rules and test a scenario for us to play.

 

I still stand by my opinion that I can’t choose a favourite between IDV and ToDR. They do things very differently. Both give a good game and (so I believe) plausible results, they just do it differently. I’ll give ToDR a spin again next though. 🙂 It feels a bit ‘meatier’. IDV on the other hand feels a little bit more free-flowing, but doesn’t give you stuff like units supporting each other. ToDR has that in droves. On the other hand IDV has a secret orders system for each wing and card activation. Adding those to ToDR wouldn’t be a problem, but I think it would maybe make the whole creation a bit top-heavy.
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for IDV because it’s plucky. It can do more than meets the eye at first. On the other hand ToDR makes you feel smart for being familiar with the period and thinking “oh, that makes sense!” when reading the rules, and it’s got some things I haven’t seen in other rules sets.

Funny you mention grids; just last Saturday I talked to some other wargamers about the merits of grids.

If you don’t want to measure millimetres, IDV probably is more useful since that uses inches, and just inches, whereas ToDR uses a system based on base width, which usually results in measuring cm or mm (and ranges go down to 1/4 of half a unit’s frontage).  ToDR, or Baroque for that matter, use half a unit’s frontage for their basic measuring unit (BU in Baroque terms, BW in ToDR), so making that the length/width of each square might work. Units would cover two grids when set up, which isn’t much of a problem, but the problem with the smaller firing ranges (either 1/2 a BU/BW or even 1/4 BU/BW in some cases like cavalry pistols) remains.

There are some different movement and shooting ranges in IDV. You can look them up here in the IDV Quick Reference Sheet: https://www.helion.co.uk/docs/docs/in-deo-veritas-qrs-v1-1037.pdf.

Maybe 3″ squares could work for that, what do you think?

 

Have you tried the “For King and Parliament” variant of To the Strongest? That set of rules is based on being played on a grid and seems to be very popular with wargamers. I haven’t tried it so far, but it’s said to be really good. https://bigredbatshop.co.uk/products/to-the-strongest-for-king-and-parliament-rules-physical-edition

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Mike wrote:

That looks very pretty.

 

Thanks very much! 🙂 Hope it reads well too!

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I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I’ve been on the receiving end of the Longstreet situation you described there. 😀 I’m almost glad that the campaiogn was cut short by Covid. Each game I took a whopping beating.

 

Yup, that’s one of the first ideas that come to mind, right? Mortar barrage smoke in, send in the Shermans to race down he road. I think there’s still some tricky bits to that (luck notwithstanding).

 

Last night I read the tactical painter’s report on this scenario, and I found something they played differently to how we do it – in his game the Shermans’ main guns look over the hedges. That made quite a difference. I’m not sure how it works out in terms of LOS on his table, but I think that the Sherman tanks would have to be pretty close to look over those hedges. But it’s something that might be considered. So far we played as that somebody in an upper level of a building may look over the hedges (which makes sense).

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Tony S wrote:

Ouch! I think there was more movement in the battles of the Somme, than for the poor Americans so far in your campaign. Great AAR. I went back through and read all your previous games, as well as the AARs from your tabletop foe. And speaking of, good on him for not giving up!

Cheers! Oh yes, Col.Bourne’s resilience is the most impressive thing there. I feel rather bad, and in the end of our last game I was kinda rooting for the US rifle team to make it down the road, but it just didn’t quite work out. I was just lucky too that I had this weird LMG team running around for whom I had no use all game after they’d ambushed the initial US scouts. They were cowering behind the building, and only by chance were where I needed them to stop the US rifle team on the last inches.

 

In fact, over on another forum it feels like people start to turn on me. They’re being sympathetic towards the US troops. 😀 I really have to look into other people’s AARs about playing that scenario. After each game I’m rather anxious that I’m playing it wrong or something, I look up some rules, but it checked out so far. The Germans just are in a very, very strong position there with these thick hedges, that building and lots of open space for the US troops to cover.

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For me it’s a Forgeworld Death Korps of Krieg banner onto which I have to freehand something. Other than that I got some Hasslefree stuff lying around here. 🙂

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