Today I managed to get a small game using some of my 20mm British and German forces, I set up a small 4ft x 4ft table of a French village somewhere in Normandy.
The rules I was using were a simple set called USE ME Ultra Simple Engine for Miniature Engagements and has been designed for 15mm figures, but in this battle I will be using my 20mm figures ( mainly because I don’t have many 15mm WW2 figures!! ) the rules work fine and cope with the slight increase in scale, I find that they need no adjustment at all.
So this is the table set up, plenty of buildings and hedgerows to hopefully give lots of cover during the game, the Germans will be set up behind the café, there is an artillery battery stationed there and that is the target for the British to get to and destroy.
Turn one saw a big push from all the British troops with all their tanks moving in support, early shooting from the Germans took out one of the Sherman’s on the road blocking the road for the armoured car. The German troops moved into the road to try and get into better firing positions.
Turn two and the Germans shooting was starting to hurt as another Sherman was taken out of the battle, all of the British firing seemed unable to damage the German armour, but did manage to get a shot into the Puma but couldn’t destroy it, the British infantry and machine guns did manage to get a couple of kills and put a couple of winged markers on two German infantry units, but the German tank shooting was starting to worry the British command.
Turn three and the Firefly finally managed to get through one of the Stug’s heavy armour and took it out of the fight, the British infantry continued to move forward in the centre of the table keeping as close as they could to the hedge for cover, they got some accurate shots into a German squad killing two more soldiers.
The rest of the British infantry continued with its accurate shooting taking a few casualties from the German infantry units.
Turn four and the British armoured car took a hit in its front and was to take no further part in the battle as its crew jumped out and ran for cover. The British squad that was close to this decided that it would be good if they moved back and headed towards the cover of the ruined houses.
The German infantry unit over by the café road saw a Sherman and a British unit heading its way and decided to get off the road and into the cover of the field and hedgerow, they fired their Panzerfaust only to see it explode harmlessly as it hit one of the village buildings showering the Sherman with pieces of stone and dust.
The British unit in the centre took a couple of casualties this turn but kept to the cover of the hedge and waited for the Firefly to arrive and help them out.
Turn five the British unit in the ruined building managed to get a few hits on the German infantry unit opposite as it emerged from the building and entered the road, the Stug just couldn’t get into position to help the German infantry out.
The Firefly moved up alongside the British unit in the centre and added its considerable firepower to the infantries shooting which almost finished off one of the German units taking cover behind a hedge.
The German unit in the field decided that they would be better off moving away from the Sherman and the British infantry.
So I decided to end it there as the Germans would not be able to stop the British from moving into the yard behind the café and destroying the artillery battery… A British victory this time.
This was only my fourth time using this rule set and I will have to play some more games because at the moment I am still not 100% sure how much I like them!
They are meant to be simple and they are but I am getting the feeling they are little too simplistic or at least too generic, don’t get me wrong they are not a bad rule set, I just feel that they just don’t give enough of a WW2 feel to the units, the tanks and vehicles are not bad they work ok, but for me it is the infantry stuff that comes out not so good, things like LMG’s and MMG’s etc. they feel a little odd.
This is maybe because I have play games like Bolt Action, Rapid fire and Iron Cross and so expect the weapons to work and feel like they do in those games, I am not sure.
I will definitely play using these rules again as a lot of the mechanisms work well and they have a simple solo bolt on section so they should be my type of rule set.
Hi Mac,
That’s a really great looking battlefield – I don’t have any WW2 scenery and have to make do with card flats etc, so I’m green with envy!
USE ME is indeed very simple, but because of that simplicity it’s also quite easy to mod it ad add what you want in the way of house rules.
Using the cone of fire rules for MG will increase their effectiveness an awful lot – they become quite deadly then, as you can catch an entire squad in the cone and drop them all on lucky dice rolls …
Still green here …
Hi Vic,
Thanks mate, I hope you don’t stay green for too long!
I enjoy making scenery, it is a part of the hobby that I enjoy probably as much as painting figures or even playing the games!
And I have seen the games with you using the flats and they look good to me mate and they also take up a lot less room.
I will try the rules a few more times before I think about adding any mods to them, as there are lots of good stuff in the rules which I like so I don’t want to change them if I can help it.
But the MG is the issue for me and I think it is simply the “one” dice that throws me off, I am so used to rolling several dice for them in other games systems it just feels wrong in these rules.
Oh well maybe I will get used to it eventually.
Mac
Hi Mac,
Using the cone for the MG’s eliminates that 1 dice issue somewhat. Every figure under the cone is attacked simultaneously. Assuming the fire uses both actions to hose the cone fully then each figure under the cone has two chances of being hit.
I found using the cone made MG fire much deadlier