Memoir '44? Where did this come from all of a sudden? Well, for the last year or so, as I pondered the game projects I want to tackle in retirement, my WW2 Desert MicroArmor is high on the list. I have all of the relevant forces involved, a great deal of them mostly painted (thanks, Baron!), so it basically comes down to basing and terrain.
But whoa, that depends on the rules to be played, right? Hmmm. If I just play Armoured Storm, a fun little game of tank battles by Daniel Mersey, I don't have to base the minis at all and terrain is simple. Although I like this game a lot, I really want to play with ALL my toys: armor, infantry, artillery and airplanes along with entrenchments, emplacements, etc. Yes, Armoured Storm has some of the emplacement aspects (Strongpoints) but it is very stylized to keep the emphasis on tanks.
I really want to play more of a combined arms game at the grand tactical level - more like the company as the basic maneuver element. I have been looking seriously at Rommel by Sam Mustafa, which uses the company as the basic unit. Rommel uses a "Good, Better, Best" system (remembered from my old marketing days) to rate offensive strength and a 3-tier track for attrition: 3-2-1 is Good; 4-3-2 is Better and 5-4-3 is Best. It is a good game, but I can't make the toys look good on the table. The grid gets too big when the shooting ranges "look right" and the opportunities for modeling terrain are very limited (western desert, remember?).
Then Prufrock commented on my most recent Red Alert post, and that reminded me that I'd recently viewed his latest post on Memoir '44. We both like the Commands and Colors sytem and he seemed to get good games from Memoir '44, so I downloaded the rules from the Days of Wonder site for a fresh look. First thing I noticed was that the Units were comprised of 3 or 4 figures; if you consider a figure to represent a platoon, and 3 or 4 platoons to be a company, a Unit in the game could represent a company. And the 3-dice combat and armor/infantry interactions "feel right" at the company level. After a little experimentation, I decided I REALLY like the look of the MicroArmor toys on the 4" hexes.
But I just can't get past the fact that all the armored units are the same. I began to wonder (of course I did) if there might be a subtle way to layer some differentiation onto the armored units without changing basic rules or changing the number of combat dice rolled. While wondering, I recalled that Rommel's combat values were only a point or two different at full strength in most cases. Using Rommel's mid-war unit stats I created a "Good, Better, Best" system using re-rolls.
In the case of Attacking armored units, all German units are Best (Proven), and get to re-roll one Miss (a "Miss" is any result that doesn't have an effect). All British and 1941 or later Italians are Better (Trained) and don't get a re-roll. Americans and 1940 Italians are Good (Unproven) and have to re-roll one Hit. Infantry don't have any re-rolls, but there is a simple way to denote Green or Veteran status if ever needed (see chart following).
When Defending, armored units are designated Light, Medium or Heavy based on mid-war western desert usage. The Attacker re-rolls one Miss against Light units, doesn't re-roll against Medium units and re-rolls one Hit against Heavy units. There are also a few extra traits like Fast, Slow or Close Support, also in the chart following.
This isn't intended to radically change any of the basic interactions; just to add a little easy-to-apply chrome if you're rivet-counting-inclined. Of course a real rivet counter stopped reading a while ago! If you've read this far, I would love to hear your thoughts, pro or con. No, other than rolling some dice around, none of this is game-tested yet.
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