Fireball Forward were the rules, and unlike my Kampfgruppe Normandy rules, everyone liked them!
There were a few things players thought could use tweaking, mainly there was far too much opportunity fire, but that was partly due to me thinking the Squads range was d20 +20" when it is actually d20+10"
Since there are no late war Eastern Front scenarios in the rule book I had to make one of my own, but I felt confident I could do an adequate job, I play a lot of Advanced Squad Leader which are similar enough to fireball that felt I could design a not too unbalanced game, except I did not take in to account two players one having crappy dice and the other fantastic dice, Jim could not hit, or pass a single morale check and Glenn did not fail many morale checks, and when he did he would immediately rally (either he was rolling a lot of 6's or I forgot to mention when a unit self rallies it needs a 6 on a d6), to make things worse they were on opposite sides, with Glenn being a Soviet.
The Germans were setting up and I was looking for something to draw a map with, to keep track of hidden units, when Bob suggests I just take pictures.
So here they are:
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| PAK40 |
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| Font line defenders, these guys would all be dead by the end of turn one, accomplishing nothing. |
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| A Panzerschrek team in the woods near the PAK 40 |
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| The other German Platoon, split in 2 wooded areas. there is also a MG team, a squad and the company C.O. in the building |
For those curious the scale is 1/72, Infantry is a mix of Plastic Soldier Company, Italeri, actual ESCI, Armourfast, Pegasus Hobbies and Caesar miniatures, tanks are Plastic Soldier Company, Armourfast and Italeri, PAK 40 is Italeri.
All the terrain is scratch built (
by me) except the river, which I ordered from
HOTZ artworks and is their Felt River System and the conifer trees which Ive had so long I forget whose make they are.
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| Soviets' advance, at the end of turn 1. |
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| Midway through turn 2, the PAK 40 appears and slays a T34 |
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| Soviets' end of turn 2. the German squad in the building is dead and the MG and company C.O. also there in are broken and fled into the woods near the riverbank. |
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| German reinforcements arrive |
