Academy of Street Fighting v1

As anyone who glances at this blog will notice: I am a big fan of Bolt Action.

So, I was very excited to learn that Warlord Games had a free, down loadable, set of rules for small firefights in the ruins of Stalingrad called the Academy of Street Fighting. I immediately downloaded it and came up with a way to have it printed at work. (My home computer and printer haven't spoken in over 4 years.)

Essentially it's the same game, except instead of having squads, each 'unit' is one dude. Each dude gets a dice in the bag. No vehicles (maybe 'soft skins') aka trucks, and no guns excepting mortars 82mm and smaller.

Teams act a little different too. Another major difference is that the nationality rules are not in effect. The reasoning is that the scale of troops does not warrant any special rules for one side or the other. I'll buy that. (Except maybe the German rule for an extra dice with a MG, but anyway...) Suggested points for these games are around 200. At 10 points for an average rifleman, that's about 20 dudes. Throw in some MG's and mortars and other support weapons and leaders and you'll soon be down to about 12-16 guys (dice) at 200 points, just about what a regular game uses.

I bought a rifle section for each side; The Germans got some Sturm troops with assault rifles, a MMG,  LMG and an NCO. The Soviets got two LMGs, a few tommy gunners, a sniper and a lieutenant and an NCO.

Here's the layout. The Soviets, minus the sniper and a LMG, will enter from this side. There were no real VC; I just wanted to play through a few turns and see how it worked.

The Soviet sniper has the high ground and can see almost the entire board.

Soviet jumping off point.

The German Sturm troopers prepare to enter the contested area.

Their Grenadier rifle section led by an NCO with a SMG.

They advance up the brick assembly hall building to their right, hoping to get a better vantage point from the crossroad.

Nope. First draw of the game for the Soviets and the sniper plugs the German NCO. This seriously hampers the German command and control. In these rules, a NCO can pull the dice for any unit within 6". They all have to do the same thing. Firing is done one guy at a time but it is extremely useful for moving groups of men at a time. Or would be if he hadn't stuck his big pumpkin head into the street.

What the sniper saw. To the left, a Soviet LMG waits in Ambush.

Rifles advance, trying to get to the center ruins ahead.

Across from them, the Lieutenant leads the tommy gunners and other LMG towards the workshops.Officers can pick the dice for everyone within 12 inches! For these guys, as long as they were on the move, he could command them all.

Into the rubble. The rules for rubble are interesting with it's effects dependent on what the units have done. It's all hard cover but moving makes you more vulnerable. Seems obvious and simple but is not always the case with rules sets. There was a slight issue with them that I'll discuss in a bit.

The sniper puts a pin on the lead guy in the shell holes.

The rifle section with LMG (pictured here) take cover in the assembly hall as both sides balance movement with cover. It really did have a different feel knowing that any one guy could be dead at any time.

And the MMG deploys in the upper floor of the worker's apartments. Right now they need to do something about that sniper!

The Soviets get to the middle of the board first, thanks mainly to the officer leading them with threats of the firing squad if they didn't hurry.

And the sturm troopers go all in, in the foundry ruins. So, here's a rules hole: the rule book says you have to have a 'run' order to close assault and the Street Fighting rules say you can't run in rubble. This means there can never be a melee in rubble. In Stalingrad? I can agree you prolly wouldn't be able to move double time through the rubble, but...  I played that you could melee with either a run or an advance die.

The sturm NCO loses his pin and gives a Soviet tommy gunner the ol' what for!

I also sent two guys at the Sovier officer to double the chances of taking him out. He was a major pain in the ass of the Germans.

He dies.

So does the tommy gunner. I assume the winners get an d6 advance as in the Big Game, so here they are taking up new positions in the rubble. 

BTW, I played it that the entire footprint of all the destroyed buildings were rubble.

The Soviet rifle section takes a strong position in the center.

The MMG spends useless belts of ammunition on the sniper who stays safe in his hide. Finally, the sniper takes out the MGunner. In this set of rules, that means the MG goes away as well. Not sure the reasoning behind that. It also makes a sniper the most powerful unit on the board as he also ignores terrain. Most troops were hitting on 6's or 6's followed by 6's and he just plugged away at 3+ all game long.

After the MMGunner, he took out the LMGunner as well and pretty much ended any German hope. While Gerry was still strong on their own left (in the foundry), he had little left anywhere else and I called it.

A shot of the final positions, not that you can see too much. The MMGunner is gone, making the other two team members riflemen.  The sniper still sitting there, like a spider!

So, the game was fun, as one would expect to hear from me. It only took an hour or so and was easy to set up and take down.

It has it's weirdnesses though. I've already mentioned the assault in rubble deal and I don't understand why a MMG goes away when the gunner gets shot. It doesn't work that way in the big game, it just becomes a less effective team. I can also see why the nationality rules are nixed. Some of them make sense to get rid of but others don't. (Americans still had M1's, right?) But I suppose it's just easier to get rid of all of them rather than pick and choose. I also wouldn't take a flame thrower in these rules either. Since each dude is a 'unit' and FT can affect one unit before testing to see if it runs out of fuel, you could buy it and only fry one dude. Not worth the risk. The sniper, on the other hand, is very overpowered in these new rules. Ignoring terrain and having each guy so important is a lethal combination. In my game, the Soviet sniper killed an NCO and two MGunners and pinned several others while the rest of each side had to get into close combat to kill someone due to all the Hard Cover *plus* rubble benefit. He really skewed the game. I don't intend to use one in the rules any more.

The last weirdness I found is in the new rules for DC's. In order to set a DC, the unit must go 'Down' and place it. Then it goes off at the start of the next turn and affects everyone within 3".

That means the guy who places it gets blown up 100% of the time. It's cool that they add DC's and grenades but they need to think about the rules a bit  more.

Lastly, billed as being built to replay games in Stalingrad only, these rules would work anywhere there was conflict in WW2, from Normandy to Burma to Italy to North Africa to Norway to Poland, and all points in between. I am looking forward to getting to use my smaller forces like the Italians and all airborne. It even makes me want to put together some small infantry forces for other minor nations, Gurkhas anyone? Poles? Hungarians, Romanians? 8th army vs. DAK!

Good game. Good set of rules,