Game 3 of Force on Force (Watching Jerry)

On Saturday I was able to run another game of Force on Force. I was also able to finally play in a game. Duane and Bruce pushed Germans and Dave and myself ran the Brits. I took inventory of the troops I have painted and looked through the scenarios and picked "Watching Jerry".

The German objectives were to visit each objective points and get off the table or to visit two and drop some men off at each one. Completing either one would give them 10 Victory Points. Each killed enemy was worth an additional VP.

The British objective was to escort an Observation team to one of the three objectives and keep them there for 2 turns and then get back off of their boards edge.

The game was limited to 8 turns.

Here are the British Forces (The FAC would come later from a FoG of War card that gave the British an Asset Card)

Here are the German Forces.


The Table (the table was only 5 ft wide, instead of 6 ft, so terrain was adjusted slightly)

Here is the table from the other end. The British moved up quickly to occupy the field in their center early on. The Germans deployed quickly into the building on their right as well as the building in the center of the table.

Early on the British drew friendly fire. It pinned a unit and caused a casualty. Not a great way to get started.

The Germans taking up a position in their center on Objective C. They would dominate the board from this position and halt the British advance.

A British Bren gun section deploys in the hedges. This position had excellent fields of fire and the team was able to hide. Unfortunately to cover their comrades they came out of hiding and received a huge volume of fire and eventually were wiped out.

After taking up a center position on an objective the Germans played the "Excellent Position" card on the house. This is not good...not good at all...unless your a German player.

The Germans abandon the house on the British left flank after the Fire! Fire! Fire! Fog of War card came was played on them. Unfortunately this only served to move them even further onto the British flank.

The British push up the center, this squad was quickly decimated by the Germans in the Center house.

Uh oh...the Brits brought Typhoons to the party. We rolled and got fighter-bombers. Once this card was drawn things changed drastically. Objective C (the "Excellent Position") took a hard pounding and the building was reduced and the squad forced to fall back. Two turns later the Germans on the British left flank would also be pounded into submission and forced to withdraw.

As the Typhoons pounded the German center a Brit Rifle team, escorting the observer team, was able to take up position on the wooded hill and observe for two turns and withdraw (completing the British objective for 10 Victory Points).

Germans on the British left flank. These guys really ate away at the Brit fire teams in the center. Very little of the return fire had any impact. Fortunately for the British the Typhoons would blast these guys out of position before the game ended.

In the end both teams scored 14 points for a tie. The game was limited to 8 turns.

During this game we wanted to try out Combat Stress. We all liked the idea of it in theory (and I know, it's optional) but in practice, as written, it didn't work well for our scenario. We are going to use it in our next game but remove the modifier for each turn past turn 1 (this mechanic almost guarantees that units will degrade off the table in an 8 turn game). By the end of the game there were morale Failures for everyone due to Combat Stress.

I was able to pick up some small bead like things (4 colors) on sale from Hobby Lobby this week. To cover most scenarios I will need at least 8 unique colors. I was much more prepared with dice for each side (at GenCon I am going to hit the Chessex booth and get color coded dice to make it even easier). One of the nice things about owning the book in PDF as well as hard copy is that I could print off the scenario and quick reference sheets for all of the players.

After three games I still have a few questions, which I will post on the forum as time permits, and there were a few rough points during the game but I am enjoying it and it has got my WWII figs on the table (some of which, like these Brits, haven't seen a game in 4+ years). I have also been inspired to finish up the Flames of War project on my paint table so I can get to my Gulf War II Marine project. Now I hope that some other members of the club decide they want to do some troops for the game.