A WW2 BATTLE REPORT - PLAYTESTING RULES

I want to share with you a new playtesting scenario of the ww2 (and weird ww2) game that I'm working on.

I like Fear of the Dark, but I love playing ww2 and I hope someday I finish this game.

The game will be set in Europe during ww2, and will have two versions: a historical ww2 one and a weird ww2 one.

The historical version would be closer to action films than to historical events, but will take place in "reality", while the weird ww2 versión will face our heroes against supernatural and unknown forces.

This time is a historical ww2 mission in which my group of airborne soldiers are ordered to sneak themselves in a town occupied by the enemy, blow up a nazi warehouse and get away alive.

I start with a group of 5 men: the officer, a sniper and three soldiers, two of them carrying explosive devices to blow up the warehouse.

The orders are to make a stealth approach, set the explosive devices (at least one of them) in the warehouse and go away with it.

The warehouse is in a corner of a 90x90 cms table, and I may deploy in any point of the two opposite sides of that corner.

There are two nazi guards, one on the door of the complex and another in the door of the warehouse.

If the guarding nazis see the allied soldiers or see/hear anything suspicious, they may raise the alarm.

I deploy my officer and two soldiers in one side, and the sniper and another soldier deploy in the other side. Each of the groups have an explosive devices each.

It takes the sniper two turns to get to the top of the building, while his mate takes a safe position in a corner of the alley.

The other three advance towards the street, but they find another guard that stands there unaware of what is happening.

One of the soldiers advances hidden in the shadows til he gets to the nazi guard. After a bad die roll he finally kills the guard cutting his throat with his combate knife.

The officer and the other soldier carrying the explosive device make it to the wall around the complex checking how to jump over it.

Up to this moment everything was working fine, but suddenly my sniper, who is in the top of a building, sees something moving in another rooftop...

...a f*****g nazi sniper is in the roof of a building!!

The nazi sniper has just appeared on the table at the begining of the turn and still hasn't seen anybody: this turn he appears but he won't actívate, but next turn he will shoot anybody that is in his line of sight.

This event makes everything go faster, as I have three soldiers in the middle of the street, and my sniper is just a few meters away from the nazi sniper.

All my stealth plans are ruined, and I have to run and blow up everything as fast as possible, as the very next turn the nazi sniper is going to start shooting my men down raising the alarm.

I decide that my sniper has to kill the enemy sniper, while his mate runs towards the guard that is in the door and shoots him down. The other three soldiers will try to jump over the wall to enter the complex and set the explosive devices.

Step by step, my sniper kills the nazi sniper

His mate runs to the gates and shoots down the guard.

One of the other soldiers jumps the wall, but the other two don't make it, failing their die rolls.

Once the shooting starts two more nazis come out from the warehouse. The soldiers dive for cover, and the blood starts to fall on the ground.

The officer jumps the wall just in time to see one of his soldiers fall to the ground.

From now on, the nazis kill the allied soldier that was on top of a car shooting over the wall, and as two more nazi soldiers appear, I decide that the enemy has too much advantage and the only way to make it alive is to withdraw.

There is no point in going on as I have one soldier still outside the wall (failed his die rolls two turns in a row... Two actions pero turn...), the officer is alone inside the complex facing all the nazis and the sniper is doing his best to shoot down enemies (but not being really succesful achieving his goal).

The nazis won today but the war is not over, and we will fight them on every street, on every road, on every house... 

'Til we kill them all....

The rules work fine and the solo system is quite realistic (on how a real opponent would play). The events included to make the game unpredictable are really funny and turn everything upside down in a second.