|
Umm Katef: The Infantry Fight
John Stafford came down to Richmond this past weekend for the occasional "On to Richmond" gaming day with Jim Baldrighi. Daniel and I met with them and played a scenario from Sword of Israel (#11, Umm Katef: The Infantry Fight). We had a chance to talk and swap stories about our experiences with the system (PG and PGM). It was a very pleasant day.
Daniel, Jim and I played the Egyptians (they set up in three parallel lines, blocking a pass through hilly terrain). John took the Israelis who arrive on the flank of the Egyptians and are charged with clearing out the Egyptian lines and freeing up the pass. Importantly we discussed some of the rules which in PG are optional but are written into the base rules for PGM. In particular, I asked John how important the Logistics shortfall rules were. He said that he liked them as, especially in more modern conflict, the intensity of combat requires a well developed logistical effort. As he is the designer we all agreed. This proved to be very thoughtful as on the very first FoW roll for the Israelis John rolled a four thus crippling his effort.
Our Egyptians followed the time honored tradition of attacking the Israelis with our men and having our leaders slink away (the Egyptians have tons of units but few leaders). The units usually get disrupted or demoralized and then, with the surrender rule in play, vaporize. Nevertheless by the end of turn 2 the Egyptians had already caused 6 Israeli losses and things were heading south. By turn 11, the Israelis had lost 11 steps and the assaults were slowing but with 22 turns there was still a good chance for the Israelis to pull off the task.
Then John rolled another Logistics Shortfall, thus creating a critical logistics shortfall. This meant that after every combat every Israeli unit involved would have a 1/3 chance of leaving the board (being totally out of ammunition). At that point the game was called for the Egyptians.
Without those rolls I think it is very difficult for the Egyptians to win the scenario but I think it is highly likely that they will cause sufficient losses to avoid a major Israeli victory.
The system played well and we certainly had a great time. It was a gift to be able to spend a few hours with John and Jim and hope to do so again in the near future.
No "minor" country left behind...
|
