Posts made by Audacity

Unlike infantry, vehicles must face one hex side at the end of their turn.  Front armour ratings are used for any incoming shots that approach through the three sides that surround the vehicles front.  In other words the side that it is facing and the sides found immediately left and right of that side.  Rear armour ratings are used if the approaching round comes into the hex through any of the three sides that surround the back of the tank.

I’m going to stick by the explaination that a fixed weapon on a vehicle can only fire at units that could in fact fire back and hit its front armour. ie 180 degrees.

I’ve always been happy with this forum.  I did try to get into Gleeminimum the other day and hit road block after road block just trying to login, register, blah blah blah.  Run away while you can people and join in over here.

Answer #1.  The road bonus is granted if the unit stays on the road from start to finish.  This includes roads that go through restrictive terrain.

Answer # 2.  The front facing is equivelent to the front three hex sides that are identified for the front and rear defensive numbers.  So it can really shoot at the 180 degree arc that surrounds the gun.

Enjoy the game.  Although I don’t have much gaming time right now, I’ve just found a way to plan a large Canadian German battle for the Moro River Battle fought just south of Ortona in December 1943.

For a while this site for minis had great participation.  I’d like to see everyone come back to here.

Outstanding link Mot,

Now I actually know what the 39-45 set has in it.

Audacity

Damaged tiles stay with the vehicle forever or at least until the vehicle gets a second damage (which is easier because it now has to accept 3, 4, 5 and 6 as success against it and requires 5 and 6 to get successes) at which time it is destroyed and removed.

I’m good with the new models (I guess).  I also picked up the same packages as you.

New rule book doesn’t have all the expanded rules that came out last summer (like grazing fire etc).  Why not eh?  It would be so good to have all rules in one good colour book.

Rule book still doesn’t include Canadian units on Allied lists.

Booster sets didn’t include copies of all units in 39-45 release.  I thought marking them off was part of a collectibility sales gimick.

Is there a list of old vehicle issues that can be considered 15mm?

Otherwise I just don’t have time for my hobby these days.

I don’t believe there are or should be “must haves”.  If you build a limited army that only plays certain pieces each time, then you’ll find your self extremely limited.  Different scenarios require different weapons and mixtures.  Offensive, defensive, open ground, close ground, air units allowed, no air units, etc etc.

The same goes for the WaS.  You can play these games with a limited group but the real fun is playing various scenarios (sub hunts, convoys, landing parties, etc) and being able to do well in all.

I’m not a fan of this collectible system and in order to get a bit of everything, I just buy a case of each that comes out.  Then I’ve got enough to do most everything that I wish to do now and might think of in the future.

WoTC needs to offer a box of just armour units in the corrected sizes.

I’ll use the old ones for chess boards and military orders groups.

I made my own hex base map.  I had a role of brown kraft paper, 3 foot wide and rolled it out on my 4 x 8 gaming area.  Then with a plywood hex with a center hole I cut , I traced it on, (over and over for an hour) until I had one lage map.  I also cut various paper hexes of different colours and just lay them on top to give me woods, cities etc.  Roads are made of strings and creeks are paper pieces cut to the edge of the hex shapes.  You could make anything you want!

As for the Higgens boats there are some great scenarios that Der Lieter put up for Dieppe.  They used the Higgens.  I have played beach landings several times and have used my one higgens supplemented by other representative pieces of paper to make a fleet.

The way I understand it and play it is to pay for each model you have once.

So a carrier with two flights of aircraft is carrier cost + plane cost + plane cost = total. Its no different than having three destroyers are paying a cost for each one.

I only use what is on the cards I have.  We don’t even bother with “official” WoTC updates to Panzer Grenediers or whomever.

It remains a decent playable game.  I’ve watched too many other games get so detailed that you can never play through a decent battle.  I have one friend who would take 16 hours to recreate 16 seconds of a guys life if he could do it perfectly.

The expanded rules are generally good just to have the errata together.  Too bad its not all glossy though.

The new rules that are included that I consider worthwhile are…

Overwatch, really very useful.  I made a token to represent this.  Too bad the enemy knows where the overwatch is but that is the nature of miniature gaming.  I have set up very good overwatch with extended range units and forced a complete change to the enemies plans.

Aircraft, this makes sense to penalize units shooting at planes that are not on the flight path.  It makes it less likely for a random shot. That said, I’m still not a big fan of any of the planes and only use them when my oponents agree to add a plane or two to the builds without cost.

Enfilade Fire, I really like this as it promotes maneuvre.  Pushing a unit up tight to an opponent to draw his attention is worth the risks to get a bonus for the guys you’ve snuck around the back.

Grazing fire, this too is great for MG capabilities.  If you’re succesful at catching three units in a beaten zone, you can now have the oportunity to shoot them or choose to take the original double shot on one unit in particular.

Defensive Fire, instant kills are now possible.  Overwatch is Defensive Fire which allows instant results for the alert gunner watching his arcs.

The other additions are just fluff.  But I’m okay with that.

Is the new rule book worth $20?  I guess.  Are these rules enough to play?  I still like the simplicity of the game and will continue to play. I’ve never had any issues with over powering of some units as their employment just requires a new solution.

I also like the new maps, though as I’ve often said, I have a home made blank hex board 3 ft x 8 ft and can create my own maps at will.

Does anyone live near Peterborough Ontario and want to get together?

Audacity

The best officer is the Brit with his “Tally Ho” ability to move the troops along at a speed of two hexes.  If you set up right you can litterally move 14 troops at double speed.

I’ve got my new rules and maps.  I’ll have to play a few of the additional rules.  I like the overwatch idea and I like the map scale.  I’m a map nut and I collect them all.  Still I can make my own maps and have an 8 x 3 foot generic hex board that I can make into anything.

Now to rant.  I 'm not impressed with the paper quality of the maps and booklet.  I’m not impressed with the lack of colour in the booklet especially on the terrain pictures.  I’m not impressed that the Canadians were left off the Allied Order of Battle  colour icons on the inside of the cover.

Besides that…

I’ve got a new chess board half made of blue styrofoam sheets.  It measures 16 x 16 inches and is sculpted with little hills etc.  I’ve got to paint and flock it yet.  I’ve currently picked from my smaller models to ensure they fit on the 2 inch squares.

I’ll follow the allignment of scales issue carefully but have invested quite a bit so far and will probably just stick with them

I’ll look into this series, but I’ll be careful to jump in.  I’m interested in the mapsa nd rules but not the new vehicles especia;lly if the soldiers are okay.

Speaking of chess boards I have a great one that I built some years ago.  The pcs are a variety of HO scale armour from Roco.  The neat part is the board I made.  The squares are greens and browns and each is a different height to the next roughly forming a valley in the middle.  A painted creek runs through the valley and I’ve bushes etc on the board.  Of course the landscaping is just for show and the game is still chess.

I’d pick a theatre of the war to build and as you are leaning to a German fleet, I’d say the North Atlantic.  Unless you have friends with fleets, you had beter build two fleets.

I learned a lesson with my Nashorn today.  It was my first battle with it and I took it in way too close and of course lost it due to its low armour.  Better to find a field of fire and sit way back!

I have a 3 x 8 table and today we played a 400 point game and used only about 1/2 of the available area based upon objectives.  It took about three hours to play and was quite enjoyable.