A War Transformed (AWT) First game

[fred]

After quite a bit of prep work to understand the rules and the forces, we got AWT on the table this week. Whilst it is nominally 28mm, we of course we played in 10mm!

The core twist to the setting is that in 1916 an asteroid crashed into the moon, causing the sea levels to change, leaving the doggerland (eg the English Channel) dry, and causing the old gods to awaken. The game takes place a year or so later, with the WWI fighting continuing, but more as large skirmishes and fortified zones, rather than the typical trenches of the western front.

Played RaW for unit sizes and ranges, with one exception of making infantry sections 4 30x30mm bases of 3 figures, rather than 8x individually based 28mm figures.

We got the hang of the core mechanics fairly quickly, the magic and vehicle rules took a bit more flicking through the rule book, but I think we got those too.

As a first game there wasn’t too much going on tactically, we more wanted to get a feel for how units work.



The British Empire forces nearest the camera / left hand side. I had a smallish force with 4 infantry sections (each of 4 bases), a Mark IV tank and an 18pdr field gun, along with a Captain and a Witch.

The Germans on the far side, had a bigger and more diverse force. 4 infantry sections, HMG, Lancers, Flammenwerfer, 3.7cm AT Gun, T-Gewher AT Rifle, Sniper, Captain and Witch.

These were both fairly small 19pt forces - but seemed a good size for getting started.

Terrain wise I idea was the revealed sea bed - where some areas of greenery have sprung up, perhaps fed by the blood of fallen troops… There were a couple of areas of water, and several areas of mire. There is a large hill nearest the camera, which isn’t very obvious on the photo.



The left flank, the British 18pdr behind a hill, with a couple of infantry sections supporting, along wiht the Captain who has issued an Order to the gun to make its shooting a little more effective. Each turn your force generates command tokens, which can be used for a number of things, Orders from your officer, rituals from your witch and abilities by those units which have them.



The German forces undertake a general advance. The Britsh hold at the far end, and advance nearest the camera.

The British have already caused a couple of casualties on the German Lancers knocking them to half-strength which inflicts a Combat Stress Maker (CSM) on them. The 18pdr had hit an infantry section, causing casualties and pinning them.



Both sides push forward, engaging each other. The British infantry in the wood where under sustained fire from the German HMG, which pinned them frequently (the pinning mechanism feels pretty good). The Tank trundle to the crest of the hill, where its MGs proved very effective, as it could fire the ones on different facings each turn. It was hit by the 3.7cm AT gun, but this only caused a single wound - and really wasn’t that concerning to me. The German Lancers have been shot off by the infantry - only having 4 wounds and not being in cover makes them pretty vulnerable - and given their speed they were a priority target.



Getting towards the end. The Geman HMG and Flammenwerfer were taken out by 18pdr fire. The FW felt very useless in this game - it costs more points than the HMG, only has 10” range (compared to 25” for rifles, and 36” for the HMGs). Perhaps in an game with heavier terrain it would have been more useful.

The Tank was very effective with its MG fire taking out a number of German units. The German section charged into melee with one of my infantry units, and this turned into a protracted fight, with the slight numerical advantage for the British being telling in the end.

My Witch had been unsuccessful in the various rituals he attempted - but these rituals generate manifestion dice, which can also be generated by winning in close combats. I had the maximum of 6 manifestion dice, so went for the 2nd most powerful summoning, Trolls. Which was succesful, they appear on a board edge, so I choose near the 3.7cm gun - this lead to a very one-sided melee! The German witch only had 3 manifestion dice, and when attempting their summoning failed, and rolled doubles, meaning he was stunned for the rest of the turn!

All in all a fun game - the rules are pretty dense and have certiainly taken some digesting over the last couple of weeks - but once on the table we got the flow of the core mechanisms pretty quickly.

[fred]

A couple of questions around the rules

1) Captains - neither of us found our Captains that useful. The Orders seem quite specific both on units affected and impact and it is quite easy to end up with the units far away from the Captain. What was useful is that his Pistol shooting is great, even when moving!

2) Abilites - I think that a character can only use one ability when they are activated (assuming they chose the move and ability action). The main one I wanted to do more than once was Cmd Tokens to Manifestation dice!

3) Rituals - I attempted a lvl 2 ritual a couple of times without succeeding - mainly in an attempt to generate manifestation dice. Not sure if we had fairly low Command Token pools, around 6 each, but it certinaly made rituals hard to achieve.

4) Tanks seem very good - as a Line unit for the British they are easy to take - they have lots of shooting dice, and can hit multiple targets in a turn. I suppose a limitation is that they don’t generate Cmd Tokens.

5) There are few references to activation dice in the rules - should these read Command Tokens?

[fred]

Game Two

We tried Russians vs Germans this time. A good fun game. Concerned about just how effective Armoured Cars are.

A couple of quick photos


Overview of the game.  With the prowlers (foo dogs) rampaging in my back lines. Whilst pixies were infective on the far side.



Pinning the AC in melee was quite effective

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Looking great Fred! I do like the manoeuvring room on the table smaller scales allow for. It seems your impressions of the game are similar to Nick Northstars - although you managed to get into hth with the AC (was this good tactics on the infantries side or bad from the AC player?). Well now I’m tempted……

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[fred]

Thanks!

We are playing with unit sizes a bit - only using 4 stands for infantry rather than 8. But could use 8, as I have plenty of figures! We are finding shooting generally effective, and feel the need for even more terrain to try to block some of the longer sight lines.

It was my AC that got caught be the cavalry - mainly as I’d not really judged their 14” charge range. The cavalry weren’t that effective vs the AC, but pinned it in combat, stopping it from shooting which was the aim. The supporting infantry are on the side of the AC, and they were fairly effective at neutralising the cavalry. We have found melee tends to go on for a couple of turns, certainly with full size units.

We had fun with Manifestations this game - the German witch summoned a set of prowlers behind my lines - but rolled triples on the manifestation which meant it was Rampaging. Basically out of control and charging the nearest unit. This turned out to be fairly effective as this meant it went in the compulsory moves phase which is very early in the turn, really hampering my ability to deal with it. We are learning more about juggling command tokens. When to burn them to attempt to generate manifestion dice, and when to save them for abilities.

[fred]

Got some painting done this week on some AWT Manifestations and scenic items.



All the bits together - due to my existing WWI figures having a mix of grassy basing for early war, and mud for late war, I’ve done two sets of Manifestations - which in 10mm is pretty quick and easy.

I have 4 of the 6 types painted here, I am missing the smallest (brownies) and the largest (Crushers, aka giants) I can cover these from existing fantasy figures whilst I find some specifically for AWT



Grassy based Manifestations - from left to right, Haunters, Beguilers (which like to manifest in mires), Prowlers (wolves and bears) and finally Devourers (trolls, etc).



Muddy basing - with tufts of flowers to represent the new growth mentioned in AWT. Same set of creatures as with the grassy basing, with the addition of some archers in the back, who are a spectral special summoning for the British.


Bones - 3d printed models, scaled up significantly, these are to be used as scenery for ancient dinosaur bones revealed when the sea levels change. Really liking these models, and they have painted up quickly and simpler. I have a bunch more (mainly smaller ones) still to paint.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice work.

The bones could be mammalian megafauna, they get trawled up regularly.

[fred]

Nice work.

The bones could be mammalian megafauna, they get trawled up regularly.

Thanks - yes the bones could be a bit younger than dinosaurs - not sure it matters what they represent, nor indeed if the files are designed around any specific creature or not.

[fred]

AWT - Russian Attackers vs German Defenders

Played and systematic scenario last night, with 20pts of Germans defending against 30pts of Russians (who came on in 2 waves, 20pts at the start, and the reminder at the start of turn 3)

We played a house rule that HMGs are affected by the difficult shot rules, and when making a difficult shot roll half dice. This seemed to work well stopping Armoured cars waltzing around shooting stuff up, and making troops in cover pretty resistant to MG fire.

A/C still seem rather invulnerable - so we will have a think about how HMGs might affect them.

There were 3 objectives near the German base line (represented by the large bones)


Righ flank, my Russians aimed to hold on this flank


The left flank - my forces mass, masked by the hill

The initial couple of turns saw my right flank moving forward - even using Orders to add some movement it was pretty steady pace. My mortar was hugely effective at neutralising the German field gun - not least due to some terrible rolling for priority by the German player - getting a total of 4, on 2d6+1d3!


Reinforcements arrive at the start of turn 3 - mainly cavalry


I managed to Manifest some Prowlers (bears!) who immediately went on the Rampage, but this meant they charged the German Field Gun - I pretty sure this gun failed to get off a shot all game!

No photo - but the Germans managed to Manifest their own Prowlers (wolves) on my flank - but they were shot up by my Tachanka then destroyed by my cavalry.

My next Manifestion - went for Devourers - needed 16 on 6d6

Failure!

The Germans tried the same tactics - but with more success

Their Devour drops in on my flank - the Tachanka attempts to shoot it up, but is shrugs off the shooting (saving on a 1-5 on a d6 vs shooting). My Cossacks charge, and lose a couple of stands, manage to inflict 1 wound, which the Devour recovers by Feasting on the casualties! This is why I wanted a Devourer on the German base line!


Got an infantry section onto the left hand objective, my A/C is threading the central one, but is being cautious as there are a lot of German infantry around. The German A/C has been engaged by my infantry pinning it in melee.

I manifested some Beguilers near the central objective - giving me control of two objectives - which was the win condition!

But!

The Germans also Manifested their own Beguilers in a mire, and used their Entrance ability to pull my infantry off the objective! Leaving me only holding one.

This was a good fun game. Felt a tough ask for the attacker - there was a lot of distance to cover in the 6 turns.

Rituals feel a bit meh, it just feels you are better to pile a load of command tokens in to attempt to generate Manifestation dice.



 

[James Morris]

Enjoying reading your thoughts and seeing your games. I’ve played a couple with Nick NS now and our impressions are definitely similar.  It feels like the magic is a bit low down in the mix (despite the background) and technology is higher than you’d expect (MGs and tanks dominate). 

Nick’s cavalry have been pretty useless - I was expecting them to have some kind of fearsome charge ability, but they are very similar to line infantry in combat, and end up losing the war of attrition as they only have four minis per unit. Any thoughts?

[fred]

Thanks.

We’ve found cavalry very brittle too. They have a bit of an advantage on the first round of combat due to forcing the re-roll of saves. But their lack of wounds is a problem. Their charge range can be useful to force enemy vehicles back - or catch them if they stray too far forward.

But overall the game still has the key WWI elements dominating even with the mystical additions

[James Morris]

Thanks.

We’ve found cavalry very brittle too. They have a bit of an advantage on the first round of combat due to forcing the re-roll of saves. But their lack of wounds is a problem. Their charge range can be useful to force enemy vehicles back - or catch them if they stray too far forward.

But overall the game still has the key WWI elements dominating even with the mystical additions

Where’s the rule on the re-roll of saves in the first round of combat?  We missed that the other night! 😀

Considering tinkering so that magic goes higher in the mix.

[fred]

It’s from Lancers having Cavalry Close Combat weapons

There are so many keyword based special rules (and lots of them aren’t in the keyword list they are in the combat or vehicle sections)

[fred]

Considering tinkering so that magic goes higher in the mix.

Will be interested to see what you come up with here - the current approach doesn’t feel too easy to tinker with

[Metternich]

Fred, James and Nick, have you used any of the upgrades for line units?  If so, which did you find useful (and which aren't worth the cost)?