Presented changes after 18/3 playtest

0. General ideas:

1. Command points need to work more directly: player must have the option to use up their command points, leaving none for defense, if they want to force the attack.  The highest commander on board can generate command points, say Quality x 2 plus a D6 bonus - this will even out the variation a bit.  OR we can have each commander on board generate points, although this means more administration.
   
2. Alternatively, we can have movement switch sides quicker, for instance by rolling against the leader quality, losing the turn (the turn goes to the opposite player) if the roll fails.  The goal is to have a game that is relatively quick, and that keeps both players involved as much as possible.  This has to be tested in a game situation.

S²OM Playtesting Session

 

My mate Kilian came over Friday for a good playtesting session, this was the first time a number of new game mechanics were put to the test, after the rather large overhaul that was a result of the last round of test games.  Also, it was the first game to actually use finished Pendraken miniatures.  The terrain was still a bit make do, using dirt roads and rivers from the RuneQuest 28 mm terrain, only having a few houses that were only half finished, and using 28 mm trees instead of trees adapted to the scale.  But it still was a nice game, that I spectacularly lost, even after getting my 3 Sherman tanks back a second time.

Here is the German defense.  Kilian had to protect a factory unit against an assault by the American Airborne.  Nothing too historical, the story was secondary to the testing.  He had a few infantry squads, off board 105 mm artillery, and a few tanks, including one tremenduously unbalancing Panther.

The Americans, that would be me, mounted an attack on the right flank, as well as a tank charge across the bridge.  The tank assault was stopped in its tracks by a Pz IV G, leaving the bridge blocked.  The last tank than tried to take up position on the right, but got immobilized in the woods and was subsequently destroyed by the Pz IVh.  By that time, the Panther was already on the board, making the situation all but hopeless.  So much so, that we agreed to allow the 3 Shermans to re-enter as reinforcements.  It made little difference, the Panther alone was alone to stop the advance, and infantry never got close enough to try a potshot with a bazooka.  To make things worse the German artillery started to score hits, and if not for the totally inadequate new HE table, things would have gotten really really ugly.

Making a river set for 10 mm - phase 1

On the list of terrain I still have to prepare for playing SSOM is a good set of river tiles, including corners and so on.  I cut up a few 100 x 250 mm sheets of pp, 2 mm thick, and started cutting 50 mm wide masking tape.

I cut it in a wavey line, then glued the straight edges in the middle to get a natural flow while still keeping a 50 mm width.  On both edges I indicated a 25 mm bank, in order to make sure the rivers fit together well.

I made a total of 8 straight pieces, that's 2 meters of river, and some corners, 4 straight corners, and a ford.

Using leftover strips of foam I made the rought bank shapes.  After doing all the pieces I cleaned up the edges and made sure the banks more or less aligned.  Not perfectly, but I managed to get rid of the biggest misses using an exacto and a big dollop of patience.

I cut roughly and let the glue dry overnight before starting to refine the shapes: that way I avoided tearing off pieces of foam.

I made up a bowl of home improvement plaster, and started smearing and sculpting.  Quite a lot of plaster went into it, but I did manage to get all corner parts done, and partly finished the ford.  With the plaster not yet completely dry, I start tearing off the masking tape.

Apart from a few smudges, this makes for very nice edges.  The smudges will probably remain, I might try to clean them up later, but it just adds a bit of irregularity.