Hexsides and Hand Grenades

Situation This scenario from James Day's MBT 2nd edition expansion FRG features a battle between some aging but still respectable equipment of the Soviet Red Army and the West German Bundeswehr.  Two platoons of Leopard 1A4s fight for control of river crossing points against two platoons of T-62MVs from the Soviet 248th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment. This is the first scenario in the FRG scenario booklet and it's meant to introduce players to the game. Although intended as a learning scenario for use with the Basic Rules, I am instead using the Advanced Rules. I guess I'm just crazy like that. I'm ignoring turrets (I just find the extra work annoying and not especially worth the simulation value) but using Weapons Malfunctions (because they're fun and easy to implement) along with Command Span and Command Range. Both sides have a command span of 10 hexes. I'm also using Morale rules. The unit quality of both types is Seasoned and Excellent. The scenario en...

December 7, 1941 - the day that would live in infamy. Mark Herman's 1985 classic "Pacific War" (Victory Games) covered the topic in the first scenario of the game. This is a tiny solitaire battle that has the player take on the role of the Japanese in a limited engagement. The scenario lasts two Battle Cycles with most of the setup (weather, time, etc.) following the historical situation. The only real decision for the Japanese player to make here is how many planes to allocate to hitting the battleships or the airfield. And that's okay, because this game can seem intimidating when you open the box and feast your eyes on the 55-page tome of rules and the nine counter sheets of playing pieces. This first scenario eases you into the game  and keeps you focused on the first part of the book, which covers the rules needed for playing the smaller scenarios. So when you get to the end of that first section and realize that the final 21 pages of the rules are ded...

Hermann Luttmann is a prolific game designer with credits that span many genres, complexities, and themes. His newest offering is Crowbar! published by Flying Pig Games, and its currently doing the rounds on Kickstarter . Here's what he had to say about it: Why did you choose this particular topic? Well, I was kind of spurned into action when I saw a number of posts on Facebook and elsewhere in which players were talking about their current plays of In Magnificent Style (IMS). I was honestly shocked that people were still playing and talking about the game, as it was published back in 2012. I had been toying with the idea of eventually doing another game in the series, especially since a couple of proposed designs (by other designers) for the series never got off the ground. I was contemplating for a long time what ideal military situation would be appropriate for the system. Then I believe it was the Pointe Du Hoc scene from The Longest Day movie that made that...

Last time, I talked about my impressions of "Mike Force", a game about Special Forces operations in Vietnam from Joseph Miranda. To get a deeper impression of the game, I'm writing a first-turn report to show off how the game is played. I'm planning to do this with other games in upcoming articles, looking at first turns to show how a game flows. Setup: Communists: I'm playing the Early War scenario here. That means the NVA set up two static units inside Vietnam Communist bases and one static unit everywhere else. Rolling for initial Infiltration Points, we get a "5", which brings the communist infiltration level down to a manageable "10" on the IP scale. The level is still at "Medium", but only just barely. With some good play and a bit of luck, maybe we can knock it down to "Low". Free World: The marker is placed on the "8" space of the Recruit Points track. We roll a ...

Mike Force is a solitaire game of Special Forces operations during the Vietnam War. If that sentence doesn't get your heart racing then please put down the horse tranquilizers. Joseph Miranda (designer of so many games, why even bother listing them here) is behind this effort. It was published in the current (MAY/JUNE 2018) issue of Modern War. So what you get here is a game that focuses exclusively on the shadowy SOG portion of the conflict to the stubborn exclusion of any other element. It's like the opposite of Nick Karp's zoomed-out look at the conflict in his seminal 1984 game, "Vietnam 1965 - 1975". With the plethora of decent Vietnam War games already out there (Fire in the Lake, Vietnam Solitaire, Vietnam 1965 - 1975, etc.), you couldn't be blamed for asking the question: Did this game need to be made? And the answer I would give is "Yeah. Sure." Because this game is the war's underbelly that you rarely get glimpses of anywhe...

"The Gap" is scenario 3 from Jim Day's popular MBT (second edition, GMT, 2015). The Soviet 8th Guards Army are pouring over the border into West Germany along with the rest of the Warsaw Pact. The 79th Guards Tank Division is given the honor of advancing first into the Fulda Gap, where it meets elements of the US 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), the Blackhorse Regiment. The cav's mission - delay the Soviet forces while the rest of the US forces move up towards the border. In this scenario, the US gets an under-strength Armored Cav Troop. That means we have an M1IP tank platoon (the IP model was basically a slightly upgraded M1 Abrams in terms of armor and electronics) and two pairs of M3 Bradleys along with an M106 for indirect fire support. We also get four recon infantry sections armed with little more than LAWs to deal with the oncoming onslaught of Soviet armor. The Soviets get a ton of tanks and fighting vehicles. They have an entire reinforced tank...