Artillery and other unwanted effects

Artillery was a potent force in WWII, supposedly the #1 source of casualties.  I have never been able to track down the source of that statistic, but it is repeated so often it has become commonly accepted knowledge.  In wargames, however, no one really wants fire from the sky in anything like historical terms.  Looking at historical OoB's, AT guns, mortars, and artillery assets were very common.  Why is it then that players so resent mortars and off-board artillery in their games.  Maybe because it is out of the player's control as they maneuver their infantry and armor around the board.  For the U.S. forces it makes up for untrained infantry and deficient armor.  One U.S. army officer in Europe said once that he moved about five to ten miles each bound.  Then he would call down the artillery on the enemy position, and advance another five to ten miles.  So you can see playing without the artillery for any of the western Allies hamstrings them unfairly.

The new playtest rules have significant changes to the artillery, which make it quite a force to be reckoned with.

Now the real work begins

I have literally a ton of unmade paper terrain buildings and fixtures that need to be constructed.  It is time to dig into these and put them together.  The 10mm are for a friend's playtest and development group for his miniatures game.  The 6mm are for my chosen scale, microarmor in WWII, and 10mm everywhere else, though I may be tempted by 15mm's for the War of the Roses project.  So much to work toward now, what with a group that is willing to try out new systems and help me out with playtesting.  The Battlelines system has to jell relatively quickly, so that I can open up space for the GQIII project final work, and the Meine Truppen rules, which are going off in directions that no one planned for.  It is all keeping me busy.

Too much combat?

A recent poster on our playtest site indicated that Mein Panzer and Mein Truppen have excessive dice rolls, and that it takes too much time to resolve combat.  Well now, this is something which occurs when you have a lot of units on the battlefield uncovered and shooting at each other, especially if there are units which have rates of fire of two or more and have Bonus rolls due to being Veteran or Elites.  Our group is as guilty as the next for having too many forces on the battlefield.  When you get up around five or six units per player, you are asking a lot.  It is better to max out around four or five, especially if there are combined arms in action.  For infantry in Mein Panzer, that is two platoons.  In Mein Truppen, it is one.

I am going to start posting some of the very numerous scenarios I have collected over the years to the Download Library for use by MP players.  I hope that some will find them entertaining.  Many of them contain specific rules for incorporating MP.

An Idea that isn't quite working

Meine Truppen may end up as a stand alone game.  Whether it can make it in the very crowded skirmish game field is debatable, but limiting it to just Mein Panzer owners may not work, due to the numerous concepts that are to be changed.  Either way has its pros and cons, and it is a hard call to make.  One thing that has yet to be considered is the Databook conversion.  MT has a current scale of 1"=25yds, which essentially means doubling all ranges.  But it also does not have the telescoping scale, so some close range weapons need adjustment.  Kind of a big deal.  So a decision has to be made, and at least one playtest group has made their vote, very strongly.  I wish others would weigh in, as well.

Meine Truppen playtesting pt 2

We have a number of playtesters working on these rules, providing me with good questions on the rules and promising to try them out in games.  I have no doubt they will, which will provide me with the necessary feedback needed for refinement of the game.  So far two groups have come to the fore, which is better than none.  Other fellows who have offered to be playtesters will be given time to respond with criticism.  If none is forthcoming, I will make a decision about their continued inclusion in the playtester group.

Right now the major source of confusion is about the spotting rules, which have been simplified from the original, but there is an optional set that is deterministic and, at first blush, more complicated.  Playtesting of the optional set will determine if it is included, though it has been thoroughly tested in my own playtest group.  That does not mean it will be palatable to others.

Meine Truppen playtesting

So I have a few responses from my four hundred and one email blast to the Mein Panzer database.  Good to see that some are willing to try out my weird and unusual concepts.  I have one idea that is very radical, involving a wholesale change in the way the game is played.  May introduce this to the playtesters at a later stage as an alternative.

Omaha Beach & Meine Truppen

One of my wargame fantasies is to game out the invasion of Omaha Beach. I have done so much research on this assault that I feel I know it backwards and forwards. Sometimes, though, I find books or sites that give me even more information. Such is this site, which goes into the number of troops and even their names at each of the Widerstandsnestern.  Great resource.  Here is another site that gives specific info about each of the German resistance points.  With this kind of detail, constructing a map of the region should be easy to do.  A real labor of love.

Certainly Omaha Beach would use the Meine Truppen rules currently under development.  With the low number of tanks, the use of armored strong points, suppressive fire and close-in tactics, this would be an obvious choice for an infantry-centered game.  Note that MT will be 1 inch = 25yds, which will allow for a great deal of detail, but not be a skirmish game.  We expect the maneuver unit to be the platoon, with each stand a section or team.

Currently I have a campaign in development for MT, which I will not divulge until we release the game itself.

Meine Truppen

The third project your humble narrator is working on is the infantry-centric version of Mein Panzer, to be called Meine Truppen. MP itself is actually an excellent infantry game, so much so that my group has had many very enjoyable infantry only battles. Take a look here for some of the AAR's that the Miracle Mile Gamers (MMG) have posted. But the detail we use really makes for a different game at a different scale. Soon I will do a general call for playtesters of this new game, since the folks who currently have the game seem to be sitting on it. Got to make some progress somehow.

Anyone who is interested, leave a note here and let me know a little bit about yourself.

and the beat goes on

I wish I could speed up the process of Meine Truppen development, but the rules now reside with the ODGW partners to look over and dissect. So, until life events clear up for my esteemed colleagues to review the initial ideas presented, the game is in stasis. The rules I have written do push the MP envelope quite a bit, so we will see what the response is.

All of the rules will be compatible with Mein Panzer, utilizing the Drop-In system for several sections, not just infantry.

first view of Meine Truppen

Like pulling the wrapping off the present, the first looks at Meine Truppen have been presented to the various playtesters and to the ODGW staff. There will certainly be some difficulty in overcoming previous notions of the Mein Panzer system. The best I can hope for is that everyone keep an open mind to the changes.