LSNC Game with 1:72 Figures

Yesterday, Sam Fuson (who set up the OPD with the 114th Signal) invited a bunch of us to his house to play a scenario he wrote using LSNC.  The situation involved an ahistorical combined US/German attack on the Russians right after WWII.  The “allies” (US and Germans) had to cross the Elbe and attack a large Russian force.  The scenario was excellent.  We played from 1030 to 1700 with a short break for lunch and had a great deal of fun.  My 11-year old daughter commanded a battalion of Russian infantry.  Kid luck kicked in, and she almost couldn’t miss.  I think she had precision guided mortar rounds!

Sammy providing GM guidance
Sammy providing GM guidance

Sammy uses 1:72 plastic figures and similarly sized vehicles.  This has allowed him to create his large LSNC: WWII collection pretty inexpensively.   At 1:72nd he uses a single vehicle to represent a platoon.  He has taken the base label information, reformatted it a bit, and rubber banded the labels to the vehicles as shown.  He also uses different colored rubber bands to denote different organizations.  While I prefer the look of 10mm for this scale of gaming, what Sam did was quite effective.

Base labels affixed to vehicles with rubber bands
Base labels affixed to vehicles with rubber bands

He mounts his infantry just as indicated in the rules.  There is not a huge different in the look of the infantry between the 10mm and 20mm figures.

Pre-game deployment of some Russian infantry
Pre-game deployment of some Russian infantry
German advance
German advance

As the game progressed, on the “allied” left, the German player aggressively pushed toward his objective near the little town shown in the picture above.  He may have been too aggressive.  He kept pushing his tanks and infantry forward without softening us up first.  As a result, we Russians were stationary blazing away at him while he was moving.  With a combination of “kid luck” from my daughter’s infantry and an equally aggressive Russian player pushing his tanks and mechanized infantry around the German flank, we were able to eventually grind up this attack and retain control of the town.

Sammy provides tactical guidance
Sammy provides tactical guidance

Even compensating for her medicine wearing off, my daughter was very excited by this game and is really looking forward to a future battle.  Her tactical instincts are good; although, sometime she wanted to be too aggressive.  One time I let her advance out of cover to go after some German tanks.  She had a great time, but probably should have remained in cover, since the Germans ran up some Panzer Grenadiers and a hot firefight ensued for three turns.  Sammy did a good job as GM; the scenario was very good; the gamers were there to play, rather than test their manhood; Sam’s wife kept us well fed; and all of us had a great time!