It's been a few years since I sent something for Lone Warrior, but I've been busy at the wargames table again and come up with some solo rules for Ground Zero Game's Stargrunt II.
Having been impressed with GZGs rules, Dirtside II and Full Thrust, I decided to I,d buy Stargrunt II (SGII) and see if they came up to the same standard. Without going into a full review, SGII exceeded the standard set by the two previous releases, and I would advise anyone who is interested in SF skirmishing (or even Modern/WWI) to give them a go. The following are some ideas I came up with for solo play using SGII, trying to use as many of the mechanisms in the rules as possible. I,ll also explain the thought behind some of the ideas I came up with, so that they may be of use to non SGII players.
The scenario used was one set someplace/sometime in NW Europe in late 1944. A British infantry platoon, with a Sherman Firefly in support were to locate and destroy a German Anti-tank gun known to be in the area. The Germans had a single 75mm Pak40 AT gun plus crew but no limber. To defend this, they also had two infantry squads and a light machine gun. May be not the most balanced of scenarios, but I was more interested in developing solo rules and learning the SGII rules themselves.
Each German unit was given three counters, and these were placed about the table in places that I thought the units would be likely to hide. As an extra rule, the AT gun could only be represented by a counter that had LOS to a road running up the centre of the table. The AT gun would only become active when spotted or the tank came under fire (explained below).
The main idea behind these rules was that each unit the player (British) had, would have to roll a dice each turn at the start of their activation to see if they came under fire or not. The chances of coming under fire increased the closer they moved to the German table edge, and the unit's quality (green, regular, veteran etc.) would also have an effect, to represent better fieldcraft, camouflage etc. of the higher quality troops. This test was only taken if at least one enemy counter had line of sight to the unit.
Once a unit came under fire, an enemy unit was chosen (in this case at random), ready to be put onto the table. Next, one of the counters that had LOS to the unit was chosen to be the position of the enemy. In SGII, each unit has a number of range bands represented by a type of dice (D4, D6, D8 etc. relating to close, medium, long etc.), and the quality of the unit determines the distance of each band. For example, for a green unit, each band is 6 inches, so c1ose would be up to 6 inches, medium up to 12 inches and so on. A reaction test was taken, and the unit placed on the table according to the results. The idea, in a nutshell, behind this test (for non SGII players this test determines a units reaction to an event depending on the unit,s quality and how much of a threat they are under), was to try and simulate higher quality units waiting until their target was closer before opening f~re on them, with green units more likely to panic/misindge the situation and open fire earlier than veterans.
These are the two main rules that I came up with, other situations such as spotting hidden counters are already covered in SGII (or probably in what ever set you use). They are very much a first draft and could still do with quite a bit of work. Below is the actual SGII rules I came up with, plus some ideas for the future. If anyone has any comments/improvements I would be more than happy to hear them.
Chances of a unit coming under fire.
Each unit throws 1 quality die at the beginning of its activation. To remain unnoticed, exceed the following:
-
Friendly third of table - 0
Middle third of table - 2
Enemy third of table - 3
Modifiers
-
Unit fired last turn +1
Unit stationary -1
Unit in cover -I
If no counters have LOS, do not test. If a unit comes under fire, throw a D6, and on a 5 or 6 another enemy unit opens fire. Repeat this until no more counters in LOS or no more enemy units.
Calculating range band of unknown enemy firer
The enemy's LV and quality must be known in advance. Take a reaction test for the firer, but do not apply the threat level yet.
| Threat level | Range band used |
|---|---|
| 3 | D4 |
| 2 | 1 |
| 1 | D8 |
| 0 | Dl0 |
| -1 | D12 |
The fire comes from within the shortest range band which would allow the firer to pass the test. For example; a firer has an LV of 2 and is a regular unit. To fire at D4 band, the dice roll (D8) would have to exceed 5 (LV of 2 plus the threat level of 3 listed above for that range), at D6 more than 4 (LV + threat level of 2) and so on. If there are more than one counter within that range band from the target, select at random; if there are none, use common sense.
For the future.
Possibly dividing the table up into risk zones for chances of coming under fire, not necessarily related to enemy and friendly table edges. Any ideas welcome.
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