Blitzkrieg Beginners

Had a break from Shedquarters for this Tuesday's game and went to have a game in Richard's playroom. Richard was keen to introduce us to "Blitzkrieg Commander". We've never played it before as the space it sort of occupies in gaming terms is usually covered by one of the iterations of Chris Kemp's NQM. Still, it was good to have a look at it as it does seem to be well regarded generally and has a lot of keen users. I think we were playing 2nd edition, if that makes any difference to any readers.

Note: Aware that no one uses digital cameras anymore I left my SLR at home and relied on my phone. You can see how that worked out for me below.

Anyhow, the scenario was the US landings at Salerno in 1943. The Italians have surrendered and the US forces are expecting an easy time of it. They haven't realised that the Germans have occupied the Italian fortified positions. Chris K & I were the US forces, Phil was the Germans.

Richard reckoned this was an introductory game, but it struck me that we had a lot of kit on the table. Hey-ho, the rules are supposed to be easy and quick play. Gawd knows what happened with this photo. That's brightness turned up to 11 and it's still dark as dark. The yellow bit is the beach where we landed. We had four waves that we might get on. First wave was mostly infantry.

We went first. I will say up front that there were immediately a couple of things I didn't like, being the use of a "diradice" for artillery shot fall and a blast template. Yes, I know I have used the latter elsewhere, but only out of absolute necessity but I still don't like it. I remarked to Richard at some point that this would work so much better on a gridded board. He didn't agree.

Anyway Chris and I hatched a plan. Suppress the centre with HMGs and mortars and then encircle it by taking out the flanks with overwhelming force. First off we called in the offshore artillery. We fortunately missed our own troops and Chris destroyed most of the stuff facing him. He rolled 11 sixes on 36 dice at one point. Ouch. Then he moved inland with a couple of command moves, and did a bit of firing. A lot of dice were rolled, and Phil did a bit of Op Fire.

Then it was my turn.

I started out by shelling ancient Paestum with my offshore naval guns. The effect was minimal. Chris had clearly used all of the sixes up on his side of the board. Still, I outnumbered the defenders just over 2:1, so I stormed up the beach and did a bit of shooting, before taking some damage and failing a command roll.

In the centre the plan was obviously not going to work as we couldn't get enough fire into the central strong point to suppress it. I did a quick headcount on the numbers inside and reckoned I could probably get enough to bear to shoot it up at close range or close assault. As it was I managed to get 3 or 4 activations (I was plus one because of recce sort something like that, and rolled 3 on two dice for the last charge. You need low for this). That let me get up close and personal. Phil's defensive fire wasn't great, and I burst into the complex and killed half the defenders and drove the rest back. Then it was the end of my bit of the first turn. It took us an hour and a half to get this far. There are a lot of dice to roll.

Phil got on with his turn. There was some discussion about what had happened to his FAO as my lucky lightening move had surprised him and bounced him out of his viewing position from where Richard had expected him to call down epic amounts of fire on us in the open. By now I was getting the order of play and how things work clearer in my head. In my view the QRS isn't great, but I'd need to get to know the system better before I could say if it could be improved (that's something true of the QRSs for Hail Caesar and Black Powder as well. Not the most helpful. The QRS for BKC iv seems to be better).

So Phil fought back in the centre and had a complete reversal of fortune. His single Recce base caused massive damage and kicked me out with massive casualties.

Over at Paestum I got badly shot up as well. And shelled. The FAO for this fire was on Mount Soprano...

...which was at the back of the board. Phil rolled a 1,1 which was a direct hit, and I suffered accordingly.

That brought an end to Phil's turn. We'd played both sides of turn one in 2 1/2 hours, so we stopped to pick it up at a later date.

My thoughts are a bit mixed. The system can clearly handle a game of this size and complexity. However, a bit like PBI, the non-phasing player can sit around for a long time whilst his opponent rolls move after move and then when he gets a go it can all be over quickly due to the vagaries of the dice.

We clearly need to play this some more before I form a final judgement. I can't see it replacing any of my SCW rules for my own games, and I can't see Chris dropping NQM for it either. I've half a mind to pick up a copy at the weekend, although I realise that it'll be a later version that Richard's. And I have other projects on the go. Just a bit.