One of the nice things with sharing blogsposts from this blog with relevant groups on Facebook, is that it reaches people who either doesn't follow this blog or else doesn't read it/find it. On one such grop someone pointed out that one of my reviewed games had similarities to the 'Army Men Combat' rules by Gaetano Ferrara at 'OnePageRules'. I'm a great fan of rules that can be fittet into only one page, and I've seen several references to these rules several times in the past, but I've never seen the rules them selves before. The link to them seem to be inactivated from the OnePageRules page as well. The nice thing is that these rules got uploaded to the Facebook-group's file-section and they are free. Since you probably need to be a member of the Facebook-group in speak to download them from the file-section, I'll also share The One Page Rules' Army Men Combat v2.0 in this blog-post so you can have a crack on them yourself if you'd like to.
These rules are referred to as a throwback to the 1st edition of one page 40k and its mechanics. I've never played any 40k games earlier and have no experience with them. Despite of the name One Page Rules, these rules aren't actually only one page. They fits on a single piece of paper printed on both sides though. It's free, can be played with any miniatures including regular army men and it's within my scope of 'budget wargaming'. Therefore I wanted to test-play and review them, and it would be fair to use the same 'Battle of Lumbaya'-setup and scenario I've used for all my other previous game-reviews.
The Army Men Combat rules states that the game ends after only 4 turns and have only up to 3 units each side. Considering that all the previous 'Battle of Lumbaya'-games have more units and lasted for several turns more than that, it was clear that this scenario couldn't be played in only 4 turns, as just trying to get the attacking forces in positions almost took that many turns. -So to be true to this game limitations of number of units and 4 turns, I think it was time to develop a new scenario which could be played in such a time, and I needed a break from playing the same scenario all over again anyway. Besides, these rules presupposes that the forces involved are balanced in strength regardless of 'dug in' defenders in fortified positions, so I think a new scenario for more balanced forces and terrain for this game was needed anyway. I found inspiration for a new scenario at the excellent blog of John Yorio and a game he recently posted a battlereport of; 54mm or Fight.
The scenario
The rules' cover-art suggests some kind of 'Green vs. Tan'-battle, and since my 'Tan' Katangese and 'Green' UN miniatures are still ready available and the Congo conflicts and this UN-mission really interests me, I've placed this skirmish as well to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement'.
Situation:
Two UN vehicles from the UN base at Kamina were performing a reconnaissance mission on the roads between Kamina and the city of Kolwezi. Outside Kambezi they came under heavy mortar shelling from Katangese forces and they were probably both hit as the UN HQ at Kamina cannot reach them by radio anymore.
The UN HQ sends out search and rescue patrols to find the missing reconnaissance-unit, and it's expected that the roads in the area have taken damage and are impassable for other vehicles, and it's only reachable at foot.
The Katangese forces in the area are aware of the possible UN-wrecks and sends out patrols to find them, and to seize anything of value such as documents like the UN SOPs and codes for radio-communications.
Some houserules to this scenario seems to be required though; It takes 1 man 1 turn to search a vehicle, and it takes 1 man 1 turn to examine a casualty. To check a casualty's condition, roll a D6, and if the roll is the same value or higher than the turn number for that turn, the casualty is alive and can be medivaced. Casualties can be medivaced at half speed.
Forces:
- Katangese:
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles, 1 sniper rifle and 1 LMG
- UN:
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
- 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles, 1 bazooka and 1 LMG
Mission:
- Katangese: To find the immobilized UN vehicles and search them for valuable things such as secret UN documents, orders, maps, SOPs and radio-codes
- UN: To find the missing reconnaissance-patrol and save the members of the unit, and make sure no graded documents in the vehicles fall into the hands of the enemy.
AAR
Time: 40 minutes
Turns: 4
Result: UN victory by only 5 pts.
When UN and Katangese forces spots the UN wrecks on the road, both sides advance rapidly and make a run for it.
And it looks like the UN will reach the site first in the cover of the wrecks...
...which they do. They immediately begins to examine the 2 casualties, gives them first aid and starts searching through the jeep for any compromising material.
The Katangese have reached the other vehicle, and take the UN search and rescue team under fire. They start looking through the UN vehicle close to them.
A fast and brutal battle breaks out, but they're starting to run out of time to secure their missions, and the UN forces tries to 'secure' the possible secret documents in the UN vehicle under Katangese control by blowing it up by a bazooka rocket. The grenade hits but doesn't make much damage, and the Katangese soldiers leaves the truck as they didn't find any thing interesting in it.
The UN have searched the jeep and secured the only secret documents the reconnaissance unit brought with them on this mission; a map and a radio code-list. They've also managed to save one of the crew-members and are now starting to Medivac him...
...as the one of the few remaining squad-members gives covering fire.
And this was the situation after turn 4. Both sides managed to search a vehicle each, and the UN forces also managed to Medivac one casualty and seize the graded documents in the jeep.
There were almost the same numbers of soldiers left on both sides at this time (the UN won only because one of their targets was a sniper and gave another 5pts to their winning score) and it would actually been interesting to see how this battle would have evolved futher if it hadn't been for the limit of 4 turns only.
Pros
- It's easy to learn.
- Fast playing.
- The activation-mechanics ensures pretty fair activation among the players.
Cons
- To make balanced forces some calculation is needed.
- The rules includes only MGs and doesn't differ between LMG and HMG, even if it includes rules for vehicles which is often armed with HMGs.
- There are no rules for SMGs or pistols, even if your Army Men are armed with such weapons.
- There are no rules making heavier weapons needed to be served by 2 or more crew-members.
- I think it's unlikely that a bazooka have longer effective firing range than a rifle.
- No aim-bonus for 'Hold action'. It's probably easier to aim at a target when you're not moving.
Conclusion
I don't know if the game is very 4k-ish, as I have no experience with Warhammer, but I felt that these rules missed some essential elements in modern combat. The rules only mission seemed to be like "kill as many enemies as possible within 4 turns to gain as many points as possible" making no room or time for a secure advance for your own troops. This makes this game a good game if you just want a fast and brutal battle.
