Saturday, January 5, 2019

More Squad-Hammer Experiments

Over the past week or so I've done some more experimenting with Squad-Hammer.

Battle 1
First, I tried grid-ifying the rules. The board is 10 by 16 squares. Infantry moved 2 and vehicles moved 3. In this game the Dominion is mopping up resistance on Zirconia.

If you zoom into this picture, you'll see orange numbers or dots next to the stands. This is how I tracked damage; it's one advantage of using a dry erase board and markers.

During this scenario, the Zirconians made excellent use of the Withdraw and Regroup commands to recover from damage, which enabled them to hold off the robot menace.

Battle 2
This second battle features some re-based troops.

I marked damage on the mat next to the unit rather than on the base. It was easier to do because I did not have to move the unit. The only issue was that I had to erase and re-write the damage when a unit moved.

Armor could be powerful. For example, on the left a Dominion (silver) tank wiped out 2 infantry.

 But in the end, both tanks were destroyed (primarily from artillery).

And the Dominion lost again. Given the Zirconian defensive position, I should have given more units to the Dominion.

The entire game lasted 39 minutes (I didn't count but it was probably 5 turns).

Notes

  • I planned on getting in one more game before posting this but got distracted by a dungeon crawl project.
  • I have another idea for damage markers. I will experiment with it when I next play S-H. Who knows when that will be?

3 comments:

  1. 39 minutes sounds like my kind of game! I thought Squad Hammer would take longer, was it because of the low unit count? I thought Squad Hammer usually had more units. Does it play OK with a low unit count? I am a little put off playing these rules due to having to keep track of up to 6 damage points per unit - I seem to have drifted away from rules with more than 2-3 "hit points" per unit.

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  2. Actually, the author recommends armies of 4-6 units (perhaps more for those attacking fixed works). It works great for that number of units. I had reservations about the damage points too, but it worked out OK. When hit, units typically take D6 damage points, so that's an average of 2 hits to destroy a unit. The options to withdraw or regroup allow units to recover some damage, thus remaining in battle a bit longer. My main issue has been tracking damage. Because I use an erasable board, I've been able to mark damage next to the unit. I am contemplating markers that indicate 1, 2, or 3 hits. I also toyed with halving hits but that causes issues with withdraw and regroup actions. For now, I'm trying to use the damage as is in the rules. Nevertheless, I am extremely pleased with S-H and will continue to experiment.

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  3. Note that the author recommends small D6s for tracking damage. I haven't tried it because I hate how it looks.

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