As my wife and kids are off visiting my mother in law, I invited a few buddies over for a small gaming session. I find that early play testing rules is often better with a smaller group. I am still refining the vehicle rules for GAMER and wanted to test some ideas with just three or four guys. Only two could make it, Chris and Duncan.
I set up another tank-heavy scenario involving a scratch German force attacking an American position. I was hoping to get a couple of close assaults and some bazooka fire. I also wanted another test of the vehicle damage procedure. All seemed to work well, but I still need to think a little about how vehicles interact with cover and vehicle movement speeds.
There Germans started with four tanks, while the Americans just had a Sherman and a Stuart. The Americans also had two infantry squads, each with a bazooka. The Germans had two tank hunter teams, one with a panzer faust and the other with a panzershreck. Even though the Pz. IV fired first, the Sherman knocked out the Pz. IV. The Germans never got much momentum, and the Americans gradually attritted them. In the end, it was a convincing American victory. I just need to clarify a few points with regard to the vehicle hit procedure. Also, I think that vehicles are moving too slowly. I also need to play with indirect fire.
After the WWII game, I cooked some hamburgers on the grill and we talked about game design a bit. In particular we were trying to brainstorm ways to account for the drawbacks of card-based activation without going back to IGO-UGO.
A couple of years ago, Chris, Dave, and I were working on a set of rules for wizard battles. After the WWII game, we pulled out the wizard game again and fiddled with it some more. We came up with some good ideas. When I finish with writing Bear Yourselves Valiantly and G.A.M.E.R., I’d like to resurrect the wizard battle game.
