Stalingrad: Second Test Game

 

Last night we ran a second test game of the Stalingrad rules using the Northern section of the table.  This game was slightly bigger as both the Soviets and Germans fielded full battalions plus support elements.  

There were three players per side, each controlling a company plus.  The scenario was based on the Soviet counterattacks of Sept 15th, 1942 which was a surprise fro the Germans as it was historically.

There were a number of rule tweaks from last time and 4 out of the 6 players had never played the game before.

The Outcome was the slimmest of Soviet victories at 25 to 24 victory points.  Artillery proved to be both devastating and unpredictable and people seemed to enjoy the rule making artillery fire persistent over a turn.  The white cotton makers outline a german strike which impact the units under the template and any units that move into those hexes over the course of a turn.  I do think its a bit too powerful and need to tone down the impact.

We played for about 2.5 hours and managed to get 5 full turns in which works out to about 5 minutes per player per turn, which is about as fast as one can get in a convention setting.  Convention games run for 4 hours of which 3.5 is real play time and I'm planning 4 players per side so I should be able to get 7-8 turns in each session which is more than enough.  

I did get a lot of suggestions for improvements to the rules which will get incorporated over the course of this week.  The new shooting rules seemed to be work well but the areas for improvement include

1) Remove / Lighten the "Free" Rally Phase

The current iteration of the rules have a rally phase for both players as the last step of every turn.  Any unit that is not in "Good Order" (either Shaken or Broken) gets a free rally roll and the results are that most units return Good Order so it's really hard to sustain an attack.  Everyone felt it was too easy to rally so I need to change this rule.  The options are to just eliminate the phase and force units to attempt to rally as part of their platoon activation or limit the number of rally attempts by forcing a platoon of company leader be in the same hex as the unit being rallied- I'm leaning towards the latter.

2) Streamline Vehicle Combat

Vehicle combat has too may steps and bogs down so needs to be streamlined.  It's also pretty inconclusive.  3 Soviet T-70's stood up to 3 StugB and 3 Panzer IIIJ for multiple turns and the germans dice rolling wasn't that bad.

3) Snipers

I didn't explain these rules very well and both sides forgot about them until. the end of the game.  One needs snipers to really do Stalingrad but its a level of chrome that may not work in a large participation game where simplicity of rules is a must.

There are a bunch of other suggestions that I need to think about but the past 2 test games are making me really confident this will be a fun game for a convention.

Now back to finishing up for the Painting Challenge.