Little World Wars playtest

 We've had a few 54mm WW2 outings over the years, and Tim has been working on various revisions to get the 'feel' right. The latest version is tentatively titled 'Little World Wars' and I went over to playtest it, following a remote session with Russell.

It is pitched at a similar scale to Little Cold Wars, with each vehicle or gun representing a platoon, but the infantry are modelled as six figure companies or 2/3 figure weapons platoons, rather than the four figure platoons of LCW.

Battlefield from the east. The Russians set up around the crossroads nearest the camera, and need to clear the village on the far side of the table of Germans.

The Soviet hordes. A reinforced Rifle Battalion (four rifle companies) supported by a company of T34s plus various heavy weapons and offtable artillery. The T34s are 1/48th (or possibly 1/56th?) scale plastic models.

The German infantry, three panzergrenadier companies, plus some heavy weapons and a very obvious Tank Hunter platoon armed with Panzerschrecks.

Closer view of the Russian infantry, the ATR, MG and mortar platoons on the right, Battalion HQ top right and four companies of six figures each on the left. Mostly plastic figures from a range of manufacturers.

The German vehicle fleet, some lovely Tamiya(?) 1/48th scale Horch Cars, lorries and a Kubelwagen, suported by a dodgy Chinese plastic SP 20mm AA halftrack and a very passable Panzer IV. Star of the show is the stunning Corgi Panther, a metal diecast.

The Russians set up in the village. There is a diminutive BA64 in the lead. I wasn't sure about the weapon ranges so I set up rather conservatively behind the ridge.

The German forward defence with two rifle companies and two MG platoons, supported by the Pz IV platoon.

I spent a few turns shaking the Russian infantry out into assault waves. The moves were only 4", so this took a while, deliberately short as the table is small. The 76mm Infantry gun busily shelled the Germans while this was going on, and the tanks lurked.

There was a bit of a traffic jam in town with all the trucks and Bren Carriers of the support company cluttering things up. It kept the female traffic control NCO quite busy! Each company is dealt a card and activates in card order, so it is very easy to get some horrendous traffic jams if the units activate in the 'wrong' order.

Urrah! Unfortunately both the BA64 and one of the T34s was knocked out in short order. The infantry shrugged off the enemy small arms fire however.

The Russian covering fire had caused some losses, and the T34s had even managed to knock our the Pz IV. Tank gunnery was by Nerf Gun against various sized targets. The Panther was well forward by now.

Only one T34 left at this point, which very wisely hunkered down hull down supporting the infantry. The company on the top right are very close to the rail line now, and the carriers with the battalion MG and ATR platoons are in close support.

The 76mm gun is down to one crew figure by now though and withdraws, drawn by the truck. 

The Russians are into the first hedgerow, and outflanking the handful of Germans to their left. The chap on his own is due to a neat mechanism - when infantry become casualties, you can attempt to reorganise them, and possibly they recover, or are removed permanently. The chance of recovery is improved by the presence of a medic. This is very similar to the casualty check in Stargrunt II, and is a mechanism I really like.

The last Russian tank is knocked out, but it has done its job as the infantry are very close to their first objective now. The MG platoon was extremely effective in laying down withering covering fire, as was the battalion mortar platoon.

The Germans are looking distinctly ragged now.

Sadly the card sequence let me down. The rear company activated first and moved up behind the lead company, and before they could play their 7 of clubs, the German mortars activated and dropped a stonk right in the middle of the bunch up troops. Six guys down. Ouch!

The Russians are well into the hedgerows now and the remaining Germans bug out back to the village. By this stage though, the Russians have lost over half their infantry and all their AFVs, so they don't really have the strength to clear the town.

We called it a day at that point. The Germans are back in the town, but the Russians need reinforcements to continue the attack.

That was lots of fun, and Tim had already run this scenario with Russell so had plenty of feedback. My main suggestions were that infantry moves were perhaps a bit short and that the spotting rules could be simplified considerably, possibly just restricted to units which start the game stationary. I hadn't realised at the time, but Tim obviously also thought artillery and mortar fire was a bit too accurate based on some of the future revisions. 

As I said in the intro, this is a scale of unit representation I like in WW2 as battalion to brigade level allows for genuine combined arms forces, and avoids some of the artificiality of very tactical games where a platoon is magically reinforced by a single tank, some random machine gunners and some Army level artillery assets.