To The Last Man: *Now With Mini Report*

[Plynkes]

Björn asked me for my thoughts on this rule set, so I thought I might as well put them in a public post, in case it might be of use to anybody else.



Now I must at the outset make it clear that I haven't actually played this game yet, but I have played the Moderns rules "At Close Quarters" and comparing the two books I can honestly say that apart from the special sections dealing with things particular to the Great War (and the weapons and vehicle tables), these two rule sets are exactly the same, so I'm not totally going on my impressions from reading the text.

It's a quite slim book, but colour throughout and on glossy paper. Quite a few eye candy pictures present, they seem to be very much emulating the Warhammer Historical style here. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it does make reading the book a more pleasant experience.

There are several grades of training/experience, and also some additional characteristics such as "ferocious" and "stubborn", plus such things as the 1914 BEF's ability to perform a 'mad minute' of rapid firing. A figure's grade is crucial to this game, as the better troops enjoy some considerable advantages over their lower grade counterparts. From memory I recall a game of the moderns edition of the game where a 5-man special ops team took on a large 'horde' of Third World militia types and easily beat them, losing only one man in the process.

The game play is pretty low-level, even more so than other games that call themselves "skirmish" games. Movement is done by the unit (being sections, or weapon crews, etc.), alternating between the two opposing sides. Firing weapons however is then performed in order of experience, with the better troops getting to shoot first. The weapons ranges are long, much more so than in many games. For example tripod-mounted MGs have a range of 120", and bolt-action rifles 80". So you can see, unless you play on a massive table, there aren't going to be many places out of range of enemy fire. This gives the game quite a zoomed-in feel, quite different to other comparable games, such as Price of Glory, T&T, Warhammer Great War, etc. Might not be to everyone's taste, but for me it makes a nice change to have a game like this. Sometimes I feel that with our big 28mm figures the weapons ranges of our games look pathetically short, and just seem wrong from an aesthetic point of view. Well this game certainly lets you take a holiday from that feeling, as for the most part, if your enemy can see you, he can shoot at you.

That brings us to the next feature of the game: Spotting. Counteracting the open battlefield feel where anyone can hit you are the spotting rules. As befits the more close-in approach of the game, before any individual soldier can fire on the enemy, he must check to see if he can spot him. Sometimes spotting will be automatic (enemy moving or firing within a certain distance), or sometimes you will have to make a spotting roll, but you still will have to check. Without a clear shot at the enemy the best you can do is unaimed fire, which while good at pinning down the enemy is not going to hurt him. This system for me is the main thing that will cause the game to bog down if you try to play too big a battle. Keep it small and skirmishy though, and you should be fine.

There are no hard and fast unit coherency rules, but troops out of command of either the platoon leader or their NCOs are severly restricted in what they are allowed to do. So if you want to there is nothing to stop you leaving two Tommies out in that barn to watch your flank, but don't expect them to put up much of a fight if a couple of Jerry squads show up! Individual figures can become pinned down as a result of incoming fire, but also morale checks are taken by the section. This can be the result of casualties taken, loss of leaders, but also such things as being caught in the open with cavalry hurtling towards you, and the mere presence of tanks, armoured cars and flamethrowers can have a disconcerting effect on your troops, too.

The game uses D20s for shooting, and D6s for morale. There's a page worth of weapon stats, and a similar one with vehicle details. At the back of the main rules are a bunch of extra rules for such things as gas, barbed wire, flares, trenches, bunkers, dug-outs and such.

I'm planning to run either a 1914 BEF or East Africa game with these rules some time soon (though there hasn't been much time for gaming of late), so hopefully I'll be able to give more of a feel for how the Great War version plays when I've done that.

How's that, Björn? Any use to you? Hope I didn't prattle on too long. 

[Driscoles]

Thanks a lot for the review  Plynkes.
I think I`ll buy the rules to have a look at them. They seem interesting to me and Iam curious.
Björn

[coggon]

I have these rules and have played them a couple of times.  They 'seem right' for this period, or at least what I want to get out of it. Or in other words, my son had 20 Germans and HMG's and a hill to defend.  I had 50 Russians.  Guess who won that game

Seriously though, I had looked at Contemptible Little Armies for this period too, but they weren't 'skirmishy' enough for my taste. Thought about AOF, but that rules set is very WWII identified in our group.  Read POG, but didn't really like (heresy, I know  )the writing style and all the charts.  Finally settled on CLA.  As Poly mentioned, very glossy and 'pretty', and I am a sucker for that.

There's also a quick reference guide on the CLA yahoo group that our group found very handy

[Poliorketes]

The modern version sounds interesting to me

[Plynkes]

Just played a game with Sickers. East Africa, South Africans attacking a German position in the foothills near Kilimanjaro.


The Germans are defending a bridge carrying the Usambara Railway over the Pangani river.




The Bridge is the only way across the fast-flowing river on the tabletop. But a flanking force has marched to a ford downriver, and will cross and try to take the position from the south, while the rest keep the Germans in place at the bridge.


The South Africans interrupt the mid-morning coffee and gossip break in the Masai village.


The flanking force arrives.


The Germans reposition their HMG to meet the flanking attack.


Flanking force comes under fire.


The Königsberg gun causes havoc in the village.

Didn't really get a feel for the system as the game was a bit of disaster, and ended prematurely. After coming under longe-range HMG fire one squad had a catastrophic collapse of morale and just evaporated (had to fail with three dice at once, and did!). This meant the flanking attack no longer outnumbered the enemy in their sector of the battlefield. The South African platoon leader called off the attack, as his frontal holding attack was also pinned down under fire from an off-table Königsberg gun. By contrast the Indian Mountain Battery supporting the attack failed to make any impact at all.

So the attack failed without any of the South African infantrymen firing a shot, and having only lost five men. Morale failure by the troops and a loss of nerve by the commander caused another reverse on the East African front today. Bad show.

(To be fair, it was all in the dice. Everything went spectacularly wrong for the South Africans, and spectacularly right for the Germans. Leaves me scratching my head about this game system. Just as I was getting into it the game was over.  )

There are some pictures showing more of the South African force, but they are new figures and I'm considering entering the LPL, so I'm not revealing them yet! 

[Mad Carew Snr]

Nice looking game. 

[fastolfrus]

Very picturesque layout.

Short games with a morale collapse aren't unique - we played an ECW game a few years ago (Covenanters vs Montrose Scots) that went almost as fast - the Covenanters fired their only cannon at a unit of highlanders, causing 1 casualty, highlanders took a morale test (rolling very high) and instantly charged (followed by most of their neighbouring units). The Covenanter foot being charged checked morale as the charge came in, rolled disastrously low and routed, closely followed by most of their neighbours (routing friends passing by causing more tests).

The only thing to do with such short run games is leave the terrain set, re-deploy, and then play another game. Possibly swapping sides.

Let us know how things work on the re-match.

[Poliorketes]

The south africans are very nice. What figures do you use? The blue sirts are brigade, I guess, but the green ones? GWM conversions?

[Helen]

Great report Dylan,

Helen

[Plynkes]

Poliorketes: Well spotted, GWM conversions indeed. They are my Gallipoli Brit Territorials, standing in for today as South Africans. I did them just before Woodbine Designs announced they were going to make this very troop type, the timing of which I found very annoying, having just done a lot of painstaking headswapping. 

[Poliorketes]

Don't worry, they will stand out amongst all the standard stuff and you'll get lots of questions like 'where to buy those?'. Then you can lean back and answer with a knowing smile 'you can't buy those...'

Good work.

[Driscoles]

Thanks a lot Plynkes!
Björn

[Malamute]

Very nice looking game, great bridge too.

[pbeccas]

How much gaming area did you need to run that scenario?  Looks like a neat little compact game.  Which is what I like.

[Plynkes]

Not so compact, really. It's just the photos don't show the whole thing. A normal, dining room table-sized game. Not huge, but not small either.

Here's a pic from the far end, where the flank attack came in: