WRG 1950 to 2000 revisited

 Mark was interested in understanding how the last iteration of the modern WRG rules worked (the 1950 to 2000 set). I'd already had a chat with him about it, but Tim offered to run through a simple scenario to show the mechanisms in practice.

This is a set which just drowns in verbiage and is very off putting on first reading, which is a shame as there is actually a good game buried in there. I'm more familiar with the earlier set, this one just made my head hurt looking at it. Fundamentally it is quite straightforwards, units can have various tactical modes which govern  their actions (similar to the order modes in Command Decision or TAC:WW2), but the modes they can adopt are constrained by the troop classification. Then there are various mechanics for calling in artillery, moving, spotting firing etc with extensive equipment tables at the back, and performance heavily informed by the outcome of the 1st Gulf War.

Mark set up a simple attack-defence scenario. A West German Leopard 2 platoon in hull down positions. The BW are defined as 'Thrusting' so can do all sorts of fancy stuff including 'skirmish' - which is essentially shoot and scoot. Not much space for that here unfortunately.

Over on the right are an attack company of T-64s. They are Russians, so 'Stubborn'. Stubborn units on attack orders can either 'attack' or 'dash'. The attack will be repulsed if they lose over one third of their at start elements.  The T64s are in line abreast, and perhaps rather closer than the Leopards would like - approx 1100m away (at 1mm=2m) having made an 'attack' move onto the table.

The Leos choose to 'hold', which basically allows them to fire two shots stationary, but not fancy jockeying and changing position. They roll to spot and acquire three T64s, then start blazing away. At this range, they are scoring hits on a 2+, but the T64s are heavily armoured so the Leos in this ranged band need a 4+ to kill. They are a bit unlucky and only knock out two T64s. Not enough to stop the Russians.

The T64s roll forward in 'attack' mode. This allows them to fire once, then advance 750m (as they are very fast tracked). The firing Leos are quite easy to spot and most of the remaining T64s acquire targets, however they are firing on the move against hull down targets so need quite large to-hit rolls, despite their stabilised guns and only score a couple of hits. Like the Leos, the T64s are in the 50% kill zone and one of the Leos goes up in flames. If they had been Leopard 1s, they would all be scrap iron now.

The Russians are now very close to the German line. On a bigger table it would be time to shoot and scoot away, but Mark elects to 'hold' again. The remaining two Leos fire twice each at 300m range(!). Two more T64s go up in smoke, at which point the 'stubborn' Russians are repulsed. Under normal circumstances they would withdraw to reorg and get new orders, however one of the surviving tanks is the company CO, so they have to option to 'hold' in place. 

The Russians opt to hold and fire ten shots of APFSDS at point blank range which blow the remaining Leopards to pieces. It would have been much less one sided if the German had been able to trade space for time and open fire at 2000m. The T64s would have been wrecks long before this.

That was very thought provoking, I really liked the way the modes and troop types interacted and it avoiding the thing which used to bog down all our WRG 1925-50 games - the endless platoon level morale tests and long lists of modifiers to apply.

As I say, I'd not had any experience playing this particular set but Tim had played it a lot before he moved to Sheffield, and I was impressed with how slick it was. It is just a shame the presentation is so dense.