The Boot Camp continues yet again!

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..." (Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1)
The gaming on Saturday at the Hamilton Road Games Group was interesting. Warhammer 40K at one table and two games of Disposable Heroes at two other tables. Martin and Duane faced down Robby and Tyler, Germans and American, respectively. On the Italian front, the Germans had a mission to hold a bridge while the US had to rescue a recon unit, but neither side knew the other's mission. Martin designed the scenario and it worked well. Andy and I pushed Russians and Waffen SS at the other table. We continued our experiment of finding a way to reflect experience of troops in how they move and  hide on the board.

Here are some photos of the four-man game:

GIs and the Sherman at the jumping-off point

More GIs prepare to wade the small stream

The Wehrmacht defends the creek line from the high grain

PAK-40 preparing for action



The HMG defended the bridge.
The recon section -a jeep and a few troopers- lay hidden in the grain right
in front of the HMG




As you can tell, our players like the smoke shells
(Polyester batting glued to poker chips.)





















As it was, both sides fulfilled their missions and so, both won! The jeep was shot up and put out of action once it was revealed, but the crew got out and escaped. The US players never intended to cross the bridge and stay. The German players had been told that the river was crossed in force on their left a ways down the creek, but they were to hold this bridge ("Hold until relieved..."), but they didn't know that the US was not going to take and hold the bridge.
     On the other table, Andy and I duked it out over a village very much like the one last we played. We were experimenting again. We said that all experienced troops in cover could ignore the first "kill" whenever fired upon, to reflect the better use of cover and terrain by experienced troops. Sad to say, it didn't work well. Half way through the game, both sides having suffered a total of THREE casualties, we dropped the experiment and did a lot of damage to each other... as you will see:


Russians firing from the second story window...





The view of the 76.2 AT gun and the AT rifle as well.





The Soviets in the big house... with their Red Banner. They faced a
flamethrower and got hurt. (Cue evil laughter.)




The Hetzer - which couldn't and didn't hit the broad side of a barn -
advances up the rubber road, avoiding the AT gun and the KV-1.




SS rifle section contending the Soviets for the big house, which we counted
as two houses for movement and firing.




An SS NCO hides in plain sight/inspires his men/draws enemy fire/
is awkwardly exposed/shouldn't be an NCO. (Your choice.)




The KV-1 lurks



A view of the north side of the town and down square. The venerable
Plasticville United Church is on the right.



It seems that Russians prefer the second floor. Anyone know why?
(Besides increases vision.)



I felt that I couldn't do a Soviet army with out proper flags.



An LMG section and a Panzerschreck sneak toward the church.





















For what it's worth, our experimentation showed us that adding something to the rules to reflect experience either my making the trooper harder to hit or cutting out the first casualty of any fire slowed down the game immensely and made the play much more complex. Next time we'll try allowing any unit whose leader's guts exceeds 10 (or is noted in the scenario somehow) to get a -1 to be hit in all circumstances. It may not work but we're still trying... and we'll keep playing!