Played at Jay Stribling's home in Jackson Mississippi, November 24, 2006

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - Fred Diamond's panzer platoon (4 PzIV tanks) and infantry platoon slowly advance through the woods looking for hidden Americans.

This is our fourth game using a miniatures version of Avalon Hill's SQUAD LEADER boardgame. It is the third on a hex-gridded table. Our game table which is 6' x 8' is about 1.5 times the width of a scaled-up Avalon Hill game board, but only about .6 of the length of what a game board would be with 4" hexes.

The American Players were Phil Young, John Murdaugh and Sean Pitts. The German players were Robert Whitfield, Jim Pitts, Ed Sansing and Fred Diamond.

The game-master was Jay Stribling who is getting a bit tired of running these games and writing these reports and resolved to be IN the next Squad Leader with Miniatures Game. By this fourth game all of the players had some previous experience with Squad Leader with Miniatures, or at least the original Squad Leader game by Avalon Hill.

The game played more smoothly than some of the previous efforts.

The German Players were on the attack. Their objectives were to recover an abandoned Tiger tank with a burned-out transmission unit (an experimental unit of great value with gears machined from Uranium) and/or to exit AFVs off the road that lead to the American rear areas. Rumors had placed a fabled hoard of Gasoline just off-table.

Photo by John Murdaugh

The Center of the board (apartment houses) infested with Americans. Note the blown-up PzIV tank on the road by the house.

Photo by John Murdaugh

Another shot of the center of the board.

The Set-up for this game

The game-master placed three lines of poker chips on the table.

• The line of RED chips was the line that the German units could set up behind and could cross on turn one. The Germans moved first in this game. This line was close to the eastern side of the game table.
• The line of BLUE chips was the line that the American player must set up behind. This was not too far past the center line of the table.
• There was also a line of WHITE chips between the other two lines. The German player was told that this line was not being used. In reality this was the actual line that the American player must set up behind. This was very close to the German set up line and a bitter surprise to the Axis Players.

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - One of Ed Sansing's German platoons closes with an American platoon.

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - Jim Pitts' infantry platoon closes on a bombed-out building that has been occupied by an American force

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - What's left of Robert Whitfield's German company cower behind a slope to escape the murderous fire of a pair of American halftracks with quad .50 cal heavy machineguns. The smaller stands in the foreground represent the weapons abandoned by a platoon that was shot to pieces by the Americans. The German advance on this flank (their left flank - American right flank) was stalled till the game's end by those halftracks.

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - German artillery fire and the fire of the tank's main guns finally set the bombed out building afire, forcing the Americans to flee the flames.

Rules changes for this game?

• We used two methods to see if artillery is available.
  1. GERMAN METHOD - When the German player has successfully tested to maintain radio contact, then he pulls a card from a standard deck of 52 playing cards. A black card means that some other unit has a higher fire priority and the German player gets NO shells at this time. A red card means that he gets his shells. A D6 is then rolled by the umpire to see how many shells are fired. A result of 1 = one shell, a result of 2 = two shells, and so on.
  2. AMERICAN METHOD - When the American player has successfully tested to maintain radio contact, the umpire rolls a D6. If the result is 1 or 2, it means that some other unit has a higher fire priority and the American player gets NO shells at this time . If the result is 3,4,5, or 6, that many shells are fired.

     Both methods seemed to work well.

• AFVs may fire in the Prep Fire phase and then may move up to half of their movement allowance. No fire is allowed in the Advancing fire phase for these units.
• AFVs that do not fire in the Prep Fire phase may move up to half of their movement allowance and then fire in the Advancing fire phase. Normal modifiers to fire apply.
• AFV units that are fired upon in the defensive fire phase, the Prep fire phase, or the Advancing fire phase and are not knocked out, may "fire fight" with the unit that fired on them. After passing an immediate morale test, they may fire back at the unit that fired on them. Normal penalties apply for moving, firing outside the covered arc, etc.

  If the unit that originally fired upon the "Target" unit above is NOT knocked out by this "fire fight" it may fire back after after passing an immediate morale test. If the "Target" unit is still not knocked out, it may again fire back after after passing an immediate morale test.

  After those possible four shots, we stop the fire fight. The result of any failed morale test by the vehicles in the "fire fight" is to stop the fire on both sides.

  AT guns may take part in these "fire fights" with enemy AFVs if the AFV target is in the covered arc.

• We now allow "Panzerfaust" counters to be held by the German commander and doled out to the players as they are used. This keeps the American player from knowing which units have the one-shot anti-tank weapons.

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - More German artillery impacts in the village held by the Americans, soon setting the buildings afire and forcing the Americans to also flee the flames.

Photo by Jim Pitts

(Caption by Jim Pitts) - A pesky American antitank gun, which had destroyed one of Jim's Panthers, is in turn destroyed by German artillery fire. The Sherman beside it soon succumbed to another of Jim Pitts' Panthers.

Who was the victor in this game?

The Germans won - although it looked as if they had no chance. The American set-up surprised the Germans and several groups of infantry and an AFV were knocked out before the Germans realized that they had hit the American advanced outpost line. It was thickly held, almost the main line of resistance for the U.S. forces. The Axis players' victory conditions required them to advance. They eventually broke the American left by comitting their last armored reserve of 3 Sturmgeshutzen IIIs. The Germans' final breakthrough also included two of Jim Pitts' three Panthers who came through the center after the pesky American AT gun was knocked out.

Against the odds, these units destroyed four American M-4 tanks and reached the U.S. rear areas. Most of the German infantry was destroyed or held up by a Quad-.50 AA halftrack and a Sherman tank on the American right so only a corporal's guard of Axis infantry was available at the end of the game.

How did the rules work?

better than they had before! The new artillery rules worked well althoug both sides failed to use their small mortars, or found them ineffective. The American artillery did not dominate the game as it had previously in our previous game.

The "Fire fight" concept seemed to work well and the rules for allowing armor to fire then move half or move half then fire was well received.

Go to the first of our Squad Leader with Miniatures game played at Hobbytown.

Go to the second of our Squad Leader with Miniatures game played at Hobbytown.

Go to our Squad Leader with Miniatures Page

Return to the Master list of Photos and Games

Return to the Jackson Gamers' homepage

Angelfire - Free Home Pages
Free Web Building Help
Angelfire HTML Library
htmlGEAR - free polls, guestbooks, and more!

Thank you for visiting The Jackson Gamers' pages at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!