8/02/2011

Without fortune - Arhem 1944

Without fortune - Arhem 1944, is a campaign booklet from Iron Ivan Games that my buddy and me started to play last Sunday in his house, using the ruleset Disposable Heroes for the first time.
As we only have Germans and Americans, we are playing the scenarios as they are, but imagining it is Normandy instead of Arhem.

All pictures are clickable.

The first scenario was Recon rescue, here the Allied forces had to recover important documents from a jeep destroyed in a crossroads. The Allied had three squads mounted on jeeps starting on the East, while the German forces deployed in the nearby forests 2 Panzer Grenadier sections, 1 platoon HQ and 1 sniper team, awaiting for them.

The first two first jeeps entering the board, blazing Vickers.

The Allied came straight ahead in their jeeps, firing their HMG Vickers and killing many German soldiers, but then the Germans fired back. In the end there was a massacre. The British got 0 battle and mission victory points whereas the German only got 3 mission objective points. On the German side only survived one gunner and the sniper, on the British side none.

The German sniper team hidden in a forest.

The game was very straight forward but it helped us to familiarize with the rules. After this, we hastily prepared the table for the second scenario, "A bridge too late", which we could finish in the same evening.

Paras coming out from the woods, surprising a German patrol in the road.

Here British parachutes with 1 platoon command, 2 Bren sections and 2 rifle sections, had to take a bridge and avoid the Germans blowing it up. The Germans had a Reichsdeutsche Conscripts garrison of 2 rifle sections, 1 recon squad and 1 2 cm Flak 30/38, plus a squad of Pioneers from the 10th SS division Frundsberg, who had already set the charges in the bridge.

German Pioneers in the house and Flak on the bridge.

The British gained the initiative in the first turn and managed to kill an entire German section on the road and wound the other who fortunately was not pinned and could move to a near forest from where they resisted several turns and delayed the Allied advance towards the bridge.

The German recon squad was wiped out in the open with Bren fire from the house, and the Flak in the bridge run away after taking some casualties. Then the Pioneers tried unsuccessfully to blow up the bridge and then were annihilated when defending the bridge.

Although the British started very slowly and it seemed they would not take the bridge on time, they did it in the very last turn, destroying all German units in the process.

So far Disposable Heroes looks a simple, fast and very bloody game, which it is not necessarily a bad thing. We will keep playing the whole campaign and I'm sure our opinion of the rules will be changing as we progress through it.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking the time to post a report about the Disposible Heroes game. I am trying to decide if it is worth playing WW2 games in 28 mm or stick with Flames of War which we enjoy :)

    Happy Gaming,

    Allan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Allan, I'm glad you found it useful.
    I'm afraid I cannot help you with your doubt as I never played FOW and starting with DH :)
    Best,
    Javier

    ReplyDelete