Played another playtest round of IABNM at the club on Saturday. There was only one other game this month, a game of Angriffe that ran after the IABNM game was finished, I had to miss out on that one so only one picture of that being setup.
For the IABNM game it was the same scenario as I played last time but the result was VERY different.
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| The board being setup, should look familiar. This time I placed the woods close to the Soviet entry edge and left a larger open area. The US forces would setup anywhere to the left of the cards you see on the table. (roughly). |
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| The playing card is a blind, further back (in the blurry picture, sorry!) is the Soviet pre-game smoke barrage. On the right hand side the Soviets are charging right out in the open! (they did not see the results of the last game!) |
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| Hard to see from here but the Soviet blinds are spotted (as Phil looks on...) and the M1A1s make short work of a bunch of them (the M1A1s are in the town just beyond the bend in the river). Further back a batch of M2 Bradleys opened fire with Missiles and took out some more T80s as well, things are going very badly for the Soviets. |
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| The rest of the Soviet force is spotted and fire erupts across the board in both directions. |
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| End of the game (which only lasted for 3 rounds of cards). Anti-Tank combat is VERY deadly. All of the M1A1s were destroyed in two turns by 10 or so T80s while the M1A1s managed to kill 10 or so T80s in return. A couple of M2 Bradleys were also destroyed. For their loss the US managed to destroy two ZSU-23-4 vehicles, the Forward Soviet forward observer vehicle, and nine or so BMPs. At this point I called the game for the US. |
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| Scenes of devastation. Three dead BMPs and shocked surivors, further up are the two ZSU-23-4s, another BMP and behind the woods three BMPS running for cover. Further up from that is another platoon of BMPs, one of which was destroyed. |
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| US losses are not so bad. Up front an M2 Bradley is destroyed and another one (in the open) no longer has functioning armament and is shocked. Back in the woods another M2 is down. The last bit of woods has a group of M901 tow vehicles. Arty was going to be brought down on them but the spotter was destroyed before it could be brought in. |
The Soviets charged down the road in the open which allowed them to be spotted by the US dummy blinds (all of them spotted in one turn pretty much). After that the real US units had a turkey shoot. Armored combat in this game is very deadly and quick (no buckets of dice) so getting spotted and fired on is usually decisive. For my next game I will have to try a mostly infantry affair in tighter terrain - using inches for measurement rather than CM as was done for these past two games (for seeing how missile combat worked out - it is deadly but tank guns are deadlier).
Question if i may :)
ReplyDeleteHow do you rules cope with the ability to fire and scoot? The doctrine for most NATO was prepared positions move and scoot? I hope that makes sense
Each vehicle is given a stab rating. This allows shooting and firing for a single activation. Most vehicles get 3 activations where they can move 1d6 inches OR fire once but an M1A1 with a STAB of 3 could move three times and shoot three times if it wanted. The T80s have a STAB of two so they can do two combined shoot/move actions and then shoot or move once.
DeleteHow easy were the M1a1s to kill?
ReplyDeleteReposted since I'm not sure you would have seen the other one.
DeleteOnce you score a hit a T80 has a PEN value equal to the M1A1's front armor value - which means a 9+ on two dice to get a kill. Bad things, like messed up sites or pins, happen on lower numbers. Since they maximum range on a 4' wide table is 1000 meters/yards the rules do not specify a max range for large guns or have the effects taper off at long range. When an M1A1 fires back at a T80 it has a +4 on the effects so it kills on a roll of 5+ on two dice.
Once you score a hit a T80 has a PEN value equal to the M1A1's front armor value - which means a 9+ on two dice to get a kill. Bad things, like messed up sites or pins, happen on lower numbers. Since they maximum range on a 4' wide table is 1000 meters/yards the rules do not specify a max range for large guns or have the effects taper off at long range. When an M1A1 fires back at a T80 it has a +4 on the effects so it kills on a roll of 5+ on two dice.
ReplyDelete