WW2 6mm game East Front 1942 testing out my own platoon rules

Introduction
Playing a small 6mm WW2 game on a 2’x2’ table using my own rules converted to cards.

Rules
These rules were designed for the 12x12 grid games and are very close to the same rules I playtested in 2018. I have been tweaking the rules just a little and decided that as an experiment I would convert the rules to cards rather than use dice.  I was influenced by Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol.  While I followed the testing of Combat Patrol on his blog, I do not have the game, nor have seen it either.  I simply converted the results in my rules of combat, melee, spotting and morale into 72 cards.  All unique results fit onto 36 cards but just doubled it for ease and greater randomness.  They are printed on paper but if I like it I will glue them to some playing cards.  No dice were rolled during the game.

Sample card with results (from top to bottom) for combat, melee, activation/event, spotting, artillery, unit morale, force morale and then a row of various helpful rolls - 1d, direction etc.

The rules were for WW2 6mm on a 12x12 grid as a portable game.  I was thinking of playing them at home but realised I could play on my 2’x2’ board and simply convert 1 square to 4cm.  This battle report is the result.  To create the battle I used a very rough spreadsheet to randomly generate the forces, terrain and objectives.

Scenario
The Russians need to clear the building in the top right.  Enter anywhere on bottom edge.

The table, Russians enter at bottom; objective at top right.

The Russians will also get a minor victory if after 8 turns of combat they have scored more casualties.
The Germans all start onboard, dug in and hidden.

Troops
Russian
Regular morale

The two Russian platoons

2 platoons with a total of 5 sections (2 platoon leaders)
2 MMG
3 AT rifles
3 81mm offboard support


German
Regular Morale;better command than Russians

The German defenders

1 Zug with a total of 4 Gruppe (1 Zug leader)
1 StugIIIE
1 MMG
1 IG18 75mm gun onboard support


Game
Germans set up with defence around the farm with the infantry gun on the hill.
Russian first move is not subject to activation limits.  Small platoon is moving through the woods; larger platoon is heading for the hill.  One section is testing the centre by going through the fields.

At the end of the first turn, also showing the German defenders.

A random event sees a plane swoop across the battlefield.  It routs a Russian AT Rifle and suppresses an MG in the woods.  It also suppresses an MG and Gruppe defending the objective! The Germans subsequently rally off the suppression.

German defenders suppressed by a random plane.  They recovered later.

The Russians send two sections up onto the hill.  The infantry gun sees them coming and fires on them, pinning one.  The other charges into close combat.  They are locked in melee.

Russians charge the German gun on the hill.

The Russians press their advantage (got activation again) and move the rest of the platoon up onto the hill. They lose the MMG section but hold the hill.  The MMG will be missed - the whole reason the platoon took the hill was for a fire base centred on the MG.

More Russian attackers join the fray.

The Germans turn the Stug towards the hill and fire...and miss.  It has another go..and misses again!
(It was a few moves later I remembered that in the rules I cannot activate a unit twice in a row.  The things you forget after a year!)

The AT Rifle has a small chance of doing some damage - it fires and pins the Stug; the platoon leader rallies the pinned section and they both move off the hill towards the village.  As they cross the road, they suffer reaction fire from the German Gruppe behind the row of bushes.  The platoon leader and a section are pinned just as they start to cross the road and retreat. They lose their bearings in the retreat and move an extra distance at the base of the hill (random event)

The Russian AT Rifle gets a lucky shot at the Stug and pins it.  Meanwhile the rest of the platoon tries to cross the road but a German Gruppe pins one of the sections.

The Russian MMG in the woods does not recover from being suppressed. The other two sections advances to the edge of the wood.

The Russians move to the edge of the wood.  They will wait in vain for the  other flank attack to occur so they can cross the open ground.

On the other flank, the Russian section takes a shot at the German squad that fired at it as they crossed the road.  The Germans fire back at the section at the base of the hill, suppressing them.  The Stug unpins.

Germans and Russians exchanging fire.

The Russian section at the base of the hill unsuppresses and the Stug pins the AT Rifle on the hill.  Another Russian squad (the one that crossed the road) fire on the German Gruppe that is suppressed and then routs while trying to recover!

Finally the German Gruppe blocking the road routs.

The Gruppe hidden in the crops moves up closer to the Stug to lend support (random event - move 4cm in a random direction).  However this Gruppe fires on the annoying Russian Section and suppresses them.

However their is another German Gruppe to contend with.

The Russian section with the platoon leader at the base of the hill moves to the hedgeline, fires at that Gruppe and forces them to retire from the field!  The Russians also manage to clear the suppression and  pins from the units around the hill.

That Gruppe also routs!  Only the Stug is in the way,

The MMG in the woods of the other side finally has enough and retires from the field (tried to rally them but a bad card draw!)

The Stug forces the platoon leader and section to retire to behind the hill

The platoon leader is forced to retire to cover by the Stug.

There is only one thing for it - charge the Stug with infantry!  Oh dear, the worst result possible - the infantry is suppressed in the field.  The platoon leader unsuppresses the section and moves  up to near the Stug but is pinned as the Stug sees the move.  The section suppressed in front of the Stug routs.

One of the Russian sections takes the opportunity to charge the tank.  It was a chancy affair and the Russians are suppressed and then rout.

This is when I remember I have an AT-rifle and section in the centre and there is no LOS to them from any Germans.  I move them up to the hedge.

The centre section, wondering if they had been forgotten (they had) advances to the bushes with an AT Rifle, ready to attack the Stug at close range.  The Stug unleashes at them with its MG and they rout. 

In a stroke of bad luck, the Stug MG that has been unable to kill anything it has fired at so far manages to destroy the advancing section and AT rifle.  The Russians have lost more than 50% and take a force morale check.  They lose heart and retire off the battlefield, the objective untaken.

The Russian decide to retreat.  The fores at the end of the game are shown. 

Verdict
Losing the two MGs hurt the Russians, and it was hard to shift the Stug.  And also if I had remembered about the extra unit in the centre earlier it would have made a difference as well!

The cards worked fine.  I think I turned about 80-90 of them for the game.  It did take a little while to get used to reading a result on the card rather than converting a dice roll into a result.  But I was getting into the swing of it by the end.  Planning another couple of games at least.  I may reprint the cards as there are a few colour coding errors on the card (result was correct but the colour for it was not right), I can simplify the combat chart (maybe).