This is my third and final game of "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! v3". I wanted to find a 15mm WW2 game that was easy to learn, fun to play and had a skirmish feel too it. I played it once before at a friend's house, and although it was a small game and I got soundly beaten, I did like it. I do remember that it took a long time to play though, but I put that down to learning the rules while playing.

I played two games after that with my wife and I have yet to win a game (that's 0-3 for me so far). I have been the allies twice and Germans once. This game was going to give me the chance to play the SS.

Its a much harder game to set up than, lets say FoW because you don't have a "points" system worked out before hand. You do have Company/Platoon set-ups, but it seems like a rule set made for more "historical" scenarios. Therefore, I had to play the other games, to get a feel for how the forces matched up.

In Game 1, I was attacking a bridgehead with a British/American armoured force. I got soundly beaten by a defending German SS group. I learned that an attacker is at a large disadvantage, as he had to spend most of his actions in moving, while the defender could spend most of theirs on shooting. So a 60-40 percentage for the attacker was MUCH too low.

In Game 2, I played the allies again, but his time with a much larger force. At least twice as big in Infantry and Armour with some Air support. The Germans were this time defending a town, and had much the same kind of force as game 1. The game was much closer, but again the movement took allot of the time. I still lost, but it was a much closer battle, although the defender got to take allot of shots.

This is Game 3's report.

David, overlooking the battlefield. The objective was for either side to get to the downed reconnaissance Spitfire and get the images from the camera before the others. The Germans will setup in town, and the British in the fields outside of town.

The objective was chosen to hopefully make for a quicker game, as I have found in the 3 previous games that it was a slow ruleset to play and you needed allot of time play. As I only had 3 hours for his game, I was hoping that by having both forces "forced" to move that it would speed up the process.

The Germans force consisted of a Platoon of 12th SS infantry, MG42 MMG, a halftrack and a Tiger tank. Here is 1st squad moving behind the halftrack. They are rated as Elite.

Here's what happened in the game session (click on the first image to begin):

 
 

Fast forward to this Saturday and David returned to take up arms again...

 
 

The next turn they shoot out of the Church, killing seven more SS Hitler Youth. My wife's infantry get the photos from the Spitfire and the game is over!

Losses :

German :- 1 halftrack and 27 infantry 

British :- 3 Shermans, 1 Cromwell and 8 Infantry.

Reasons I lost? 

The silly loss of my half-track really hurt my chances, as its MG42 could have helped prevent the assault of the church. The Tiger also shot blanks in the middle of the game.. I should have easily destroyed those two Shermans long before I did, and in the time it took to kill them the assault of the Church reached its conclusion.

Reasons Allies won?

The way they used their Infantry was great...the 2 flanking assault divided my already outnumbered force into 2 halves, neither able to support each other. That assault on the Church, even though it was not an objective caused me to fight were I did not need to fight. Letting the other Allied platoon reach the objective without resistance.

The Rules?

Pros :- 1. Great WW2 feel...probably the best WW2 feeling company level game I have ever played. 2. Good mechanics that are easily learned. 3. Great support online. 4. Cards give tension 5. The use of actions give you simple but strategic gameplay

Cons :- 1. The game is a slow game...I like slow, but not that slow. Perhaps things will speed up the more I play. 2. An appendix was BADLY needed.

Bagration