Lawrence Hung - Jul 20, 2006 8:32 am (#14692 Total: 15171) Now playing Twilight Struggle,Defiant Russia,ATS 1a Screaming Eagle,Grand Illusion,Here I Stand,Silent War,Triumph of Chaos,Blue vs. Gray,6 Days of Glory,Sword of Rome,Empire of the Sun,Paths of Glory,ASLSK,Clash of Giants,South Mountain ATS Basic Game 1a: Screaming Eagles When the smoke came out of the German captured French-made 35R-731 light AFV on the road to Carentan, Captain Simon thought this was going to be a very good start for the 101st Airborne. Things, however, would have gone the other way by the end of the day 13 June, 1944… 506th Parachute Regiment was just dropped into the small town. Captain Simon established his units into position well in the wood houses with bazooka and some light machine guns. A motor was hiding in the southern grain field. He was quite sure the German noticed them coming in, as he heard the sounds of the wheel tracks made along the dirt road by the German AFVs. “There are 4 of them! 2 from the north and 2 from the south. We are surrounded, Sir!” “We have to hold the town, Sergeant! General Taylor is sending in the amour. We’ll have reinforcement soon enough. All we have to do is just to hold the town!” Captain Simon believed he could do it. After all, there are only 10 houses in this small town. However, the German foes are no small feast. They came from the elite von der Heydte’s 6th Fallschirmjager Regiment…… Simon and I played the Green Devils 7-turns game in this little ATS Basic Game 1a. With 4 pages of rules only, we get the game going very fast, although with some minor glitches encountered initially, we managed to find the answers to most of our questions. The game is a highly abridged version of the complete ATS game, a system which is derived from ASL heavily on tactical WW2 tactical level. Yet, the basic interactive sequence of play, with I-fire-U-fire, I-go-U-go etc. keeps us both tightly to the sit every minute. We managed to complete the scenario in 5 hours, including the set-up time and learning the system as the game goes, probably much less if we play the game second time. Carentan is surrounded by a wall (small brick wall, not those concrete high one) on the outside in the center of the map. There is only one road into the center part of the village and it turns west on the northern part, where the U.S. and German exchange heavy fire between the 2 small houses. In our game, the battle is very intense as both sides got to fire at each other and movement is swift on the road. The German 35R-731 light AF and the U.S. Bazooka are less than powerful as we would have thought. The former must be accompanied by infantry to protect them from melee attacks. The latter is only effective when in close range. From the south, the German moved in the house R5 where the Bazookas are located and captured them (Yes! They can be picked up by spending one movement point!) I moved them to the wall next to the house P11 and blasted the Yankees out of the house… Opportunity fire can be made to unit moving. My initial deployment of the medium machine gun in the K6 forest proved to be the effective deterrent to the U.S. moving in the south. So a good placement of MG in the key position has a controlling effect. We played the game a little wrong as we count the casualty marker as one step to recover during the rally phase, whereas casualties should be permanent and could not be recovered. A casualty unit should check morale every time they are fired upon. Fail to pass the morale check would result in a broken units. A broken unit is very vulnerable to enemy units closing in – they surrender and are removed from play immediately. The mortars fire similar to the AFVs in that they have to use the Hit Probability Table to determine whether a hit is made on the target. The closer to the target to the firing unit, the higher chance to hit and vice versa. A “Burst of Target” marker would be “locked” on the target and receives a –3DRM on the Casualty Table on the subsequent turn, assuming the firing unit doesn’t move or switch the target, causing more damages to the target. Personnel units in different “cover state”, i.e. movement status, also confers benefits to the firing unit, with more casualties likely if they run, assault than stationary/ crawl. When personnel units fire their gun using the Gun Factor, the Casualty Table is checked, as long as there is a clear Line-of-Sight (LOS) between the two sides. Melee is made in the same hex with the enemy units by moving 1 hex into them in the close assault segment following the movement phase. Melee is bloody as they have to fight until to the last man to win. Final result: German captured 7 houses and 1 hill (level 10) with 14 casualties (stacking points of the units) while the U.S. lost the game with 3 houses to hold in the end with 16 casualties. There is only one “turret” counter for the AFVs to turn the gun to the direction it wants to fire without moving the tank to the direction. Although it served out game adequately (as you can see in the above my AFVs run away to avoid being captured.), I wonder if others would play the game with more turret counters needed. Despite this, we are satisfied with the game with just 4 pages of rules and yet there are no major problems. Everything went smoothly once we caught the rhythm of the game. You might be very surprised a lot is crammed in here already and almost everything key to the tactical level combat is included. Rub you hand for the ATS full games. Remember this is a ziplock game only and so no dice is provided. Always bring your 2 ten-sided dices on!