Short battle report

[evernevermore(john)]

Finally got to play the game for the first time today - played against abbysdad.

I played a very elite German Veteran detachment vs a Chuman heavy Russian Psi detach.

German Veteran detachment - I'll let Chris describe his own
Elite SD Officer w/ Archaeologist hero type
Veteran Wehrmacht sniper w/ WA46 *TL upgraded
Veteran Wehrmacht Officer
Veteran Greatcoat squad w/ StG44s
Regular Wehrmacht Squad w/ StG44s
Regular Wehrmacht Squad w/ StG44s

Special Order - Keep Moving!

As you can see it has alot of 2:1 or better shooting in it - and thats what it did best

We played welcome to Hell but due to the dice the artillery was never an issue - kept landing in other parts of the board.

The game played quick and intuitively except for a squirrely bit of suppression involving a PSI Commando squad getting blindsided by some StG44s and basically taken out of the game due to suppression. Keep moving ended up winning the game for me, because it let me take down Chris's Politruk and break the morale of his remaining Chumans and a chewed up Psi Commando squad, leaving me with double the number of units, all unscathed.

Thoughts
- I didn't really get anything out of using my sniper being Veteran with the bolt action rifle as we was left with unused action points - unless you can store up partial activations so I could shoot 1 shot then 2 the next turn
- Was stymied by a game store rule about no unpainted minis or I would have had a support squad with machine gun - which would have changed the game considerably
- Either my Vampire leader will be an elite Wehrmacht officer or some other hero type as the Archaeologist did not work for me
- I am liking StG44s and I will definitely have to try either feuersoldats or rohlingsoldats in another game as I like the heavier fire.

[hannibal]

Either my Vampire leader will be an elite Wehrmacht officer or some other hero type as the Archaeologist did not work for me

Have him provide suppressing fire. With up to 4 actions he can do a lot of "pop out, suppress w/2 actions, pop back" behind LOS blocking cover.

I am liking StG44s

Yeah the Wehrmacht infantry are simply one of the best in the game because of those.

[pixelgeek]

evernevermore said:

I didn't really get anything out of using my sniper being Veteran with the bolt action rifle as we was left with unused action points - unless you can store up partial activations so I could shoot 1 shot then 2 the next turn

You'd lose the Crackshot ability if you shot twice in an activation.

If you want a Veteran Sniper I would use an upgrade option and make it a hero and give it the Marksman Hero Template so you can use the additional AP to Aim.

If not then the Veteran upgrade isn't useful with a 1:2 weapon unless you want to move them a lot

[pixelgeek]

evernevermore said:

- Either my Vampire leader will be an elite Wehrmacht officer or some other hero type as the Archaeologist did not work for me

One particularly nasty trick that Brian used in a game was to tie up units in CC with his Archeologist and then fire into the combat. Random hits stacked on top of his "Invulnerable Save" meant that he was mostly hitting my guys and when he did hit himself he saved the hits.

[evernevermore(john)]

I'm still feeling out options for my Vampire - at least till the Occult book comes out and I can make proper version of him. It wasn't a matter of not seeing uses for the Archaeologist type - it just didn't fit my concept of him

[Darkson]

evernevermore said:

I'm still feeling out options for my Vampire - at least till the Occult book comes out and I can make proper version of him. It wasn't a matter of not seeing uses for the Archaeologist type - it just didn't fit my concept of him

You will be blown away with the stuff we have done with the Vampire in the Occult Book(Looking at the selection now.) He is a very unique selection.

[evernevermore(john)]

He better be hehe - here's my bigger question. My envisioning of him draws from Dracula, Hellboy (the vamp in the 3rd or 4th book) and a little from White Wolf (the greatcoats I have painted up I want to make his personal thralls, based a little on the Ghouls from old White Wolf - little tougher then normal and more skilled because they have a bunch more years on the ground). Will this kind of mental image mesh with your selection options? And is there any chance of experimenting with a dedicated daughter unit? In this case I want my one squad of Greatcoats to be one - they are the thralls of the vampire lord so you cant take one without the other. What makes them special primarily is either one extra wound or one more toughness and the vampyr scopes, but they become a required choice if thier special character is taken and have to take a base Veteran slot. Does that sound like a start?

[Darkson]

evernevermore said:

He better be hehe - here's my bigger question. My envisioning of him draws from Dracula, Hellboy (the vamp in the 3rd or 4th book) and a little from White Wolf (the greatcoats I have painted up I want to make his personal thralls, based a little on the Ghouls from old White Wolf - little tougher then normal and more skilled because they have a bunch more years on the ground). Will this kind of mental image mesh with your selection options? And is there any chance of experimenting with a dedicated daughter unit? In this case I want my one squad of Greatcoats to be one - they are the thralls of the vampire lord so you cant take one without the other. What makes them special primarily is either one extra wound or one more toughness and the vampyr scopes, but they become a required choice if their special character is taken and have to take a base Veteran slot. Does that sound like a start?

You are thinking along the lines we are going with the German Occult selections. You will need to take certain selections to open other selections, and some selections will prevent you from selecting other's. More info on this very soon.

[evernevermore(john)]

Good - Ive played too much 40kand Battletech to not want unique units available - and I mean unique as in an individual not just something different from other companies

[Darkson]

evernevermore said:

Good - Ive played too much 40kand Battletech to not want unique units available - and I mean unique as in an individual not just something different from other companies

We have quit a bit of Unique/strange units available for the Occult book.

I am a huge fan of Snipers in my Faction Lists. By making a German Sniper an Assassin/Veteran and taking the STG you get one nasty close range killer. As a Vet you can fire that STG a total of 6 shots if you don't move. He can be very nasty.

[evernevermore(john)]

Oh beleive me I know - I chewed up some of Chris's units with my force as the only non StGs in the list are a pair of MP40s and a WA46

Any chance of creating something akin to special characters?

[Darkson]

You will see our first "Named Hero" in an up coming issue of Over the Wire. ;D

[evernevermore(john)]

Good - it will give me a basis for creating mine

[abbysdad]

Done with work for the week so now I can BS online! ;D

Anyway, the game with John was fun! We played the "Welcome to Hell" scenario on a board with a lot of terrain (trees, ruined buildings, store houses) and a decent slope on the diagonal. It was modeled after an Ghost Front/Ardennes forest (I think).

My detachment was:

Russian Experimental
El-Politruk-Brute
Vet-Banshees
Reg-Psi Commando
Reg-Psi Commando
Green-Chuman
Green-Chuman
Green-Chuman

Special Order: Coordinated Attack

John and I set up on the right hand side of the board. I loaded my monkeys into the trees. John set up in a ruined church about mid board. My plan was to use the move through difficult terrain and cover abilities of the chuman to rapidly approach John's guys.
John used the church to divide his group. He put a sniper on high ground in the upper right corner and a weapons team walking around my flank on the left. The bulk of his guys were in the middle.

The bombs fell fast and furious the whole game, but no one got hit. Not even once. We got thingyy towards the end because the scatter gods were with us.

This was fortunate because I had the monkeys run up awfully close to the bomb sites to charge into combat with John's germans. My plan was close combat with some support, but it would have helped me a lot if I had realized that the rules don't have a "whiff" clause: if you miss and the other guy hits, you get hit even if you charged.

As my monkey's rushed from the trees John got a surprise that all of my units had at least two wounds. So I not only out numbered him I also had more wounds on the board than he did. Of course, he brought more guns! Which is one of the reasons why he won. John ended up with 2 full strength squads on the board that were not routing. I had two psi commandos that were surpressed to pieces and two banshees that were not capable of taking out the remaining squads and had a high chance of routing the next activation.

The highlight of the battle (for me at least) was the wave of soviet monkeys crashing into John's lines that ended with my goriila brute tearing his vampyr in two (only to be shoot to pieces immediately afterwards). R.I.P. Komrade Kerchak.

The switching activation took some time for me to get used to, but it worked much faster than other table top games I've played. It is also tricky to get the right sequence of activation. Definitely a level to the game play I will need to work on. But very interesting. And simple. I wonder why more games don't do it?

In the post game discussion we decided that I did two things wrong:

-I neglected my left flank in the rush to get into combat and because I was distracted by checking the rules. Ditto for forgeting about special abilities some of my troops had. Silly me, won't happen again. I'll probably invest in those AE tokens to help.

-I set-up really well to minimize his chances of shooting at my guys but then I moved into a bottle neck so that my heavy hitters in support were trapped behind my fast movers. Not good.

In the future, I'll keep an extra Reg slot for the psi commandos and take only two squads of chumans. I'll also read the rules more closely so I find the errors in my battle plan before I put some metal down on the table!

A final note, the soviet experimentals soaked up an astonishing amount of fire. I almost pulled off the human wave tactic on that strength alone.

Now I'm going to Disney World with the wife and kids ;D Hopefully I'll get another game or two in next week.

Any comments or advice are appreciated.

Best Regards,

Chris

[evernevermore(john)]

Well actually the board we played on was put together for the Lord of the Rings release of cavalry (you learn things being quiet in the game store)

Now I just need to order my copy of the rulebook...