Friday Night Game - 28mm WWII Skirmish Using "Nuts" Rules

 John, Chris and I pitched up at Julians on Friday evening for a game of Nuts, a WWII skirmish level rule set that have a lot of interesting and unusual features to them, at least in my opinion. Its designed primarily for solo or cooperative play against "the game/AI" but can be played with a human on both sides, which is what we did. As Julian was trying out his rather spiffing Artizan Commandos for the first time, I provided the German enemy, so naturally enough, I took those, and the other three had a section (10 men) each of commandos.

First up, a couple of million-dollar views from Julian place, looking out over Remuera towards the Hauraki Gulf and Rangitoto Island (a dormant volcano in Auckland's harbour)

Mid-autumn weather for Auckland, still in the low 20's c (ok I won't mention the weather anymore!)

A view of the table, prior to the commencement of hostilities

The commando's objective, a strategically important bridge in Normandie

German defensive position on each side of the bridge - occupants unknown, at this stage.

Johns section entered from the top left of the table in the photo above

Chris came on from the bottom left .... 

.... and Julian from the bottom right.

Lord Lovats piper strikes up a tune - "Cock o' the North", perhaps?

My first small detachment came on between Chris and John

John's commandos advanced cautiously......

As soon as the commandos had eyes on the defensive position, I was allowed to test for the occupants - I rolled rather well here and the garrison consisted of an NCO, four riflemen - and TWO MG34 hmg's - sehr gut!

Each turn, we rolled for activation, against the "reputation" of our leaders - officers were 5, NCO's 4, grunts 3. A roll of 6 was too high and you could not move - if you rolled 5 and had split your section into groups with one led by an NCO - then the NCO was not activated for that turn. In addition, if any of the British players rolled the same as me, German reinforcements came on - I rolled for what these were and where they entered the table. Finally, the roll indicated order of activation - 5 went first,4 second and so on.

The next activation (third I think) I got an AT gun - not a huge benefit against commandos, but beggars can't be choosers!

The PAK deployed on the road near the occupied defensive position, aiming towards where Julians commandos skulked in the bocage!

Chris suggested to John the sooner they "saw" what was in the second defensive position, the better - one of the commandos edged forward to take a shufti ....

"Bloody 'ell, look at this lot!"

Which meant I rolled again - this time, an officer, NCO, LMG team and 6 riflemen - noch sehr gut!

Those commandos are hard to spot!"

"The bloody bridge is lousy with huns, bring up the PIAT, Jones!"

Somewhat bemused, I watched as John was allowed to target my newly arrived squad with an anti-tank weapon (well, it is Hollywood style WWII) I got off relatively lightly, with the LMG crew and most of the riflemen forced to take cover. No one was killed, though - phew!

Julian helpfully suggested to John he send a commando forward to grenade the cowering Germans, but I still had my NCO and officer available. The officer won the "in sight" test (a major feature of the rules, which determines who fires first) and killed the hapless squaddie outright - which doesn't happen that often in these rules.

Lord Lovat chaps (Julian, of course) were meanwhile engaging with the defensive position containing the two hmg crews.

Take that, Englischer Schweinhund! "I say, old chap, I'm Scottish, dontcha know?" drawled Lord Lovat!

By this stage, Chris had left - he had a long week at work - a day each in Australia, Wellington and Christchurch and came straight to Julians place from the airport - basically, he was knackered! I suggested getting rid of the third squad to speed things up a bit, but Julian volunteered to take command of them too! 

He maneuvered the section into a position where one of my hmg teams was exposed ie not in cover

A sniper lined up a shot ..... 

And I had one hmg crew less!

Meanwhile, John made another attempt to assault the other German position - it did not end well!

The remaining hmg team kept Lord Lovats men's heads down but was having trouble actually hitting anyone

Not so this fine fellow, the NCO in charge of the position. In successive turns, he won the insight test with the sniper and killed him! Then he turned his attention to Lord Lovat - and killed him too!

I tried to get the PAK 40 in on the fun, but Julians commandos were able to kill the crew remarkably easily - we decided the idea with this weapon would be to have it situated so its longer range kept it out of harm's way - ah well, I didn't really need it, anyway!

"All the occifers an' nco's 'as bought it, Len, wot we gonna do nah?"

Position when Julian called the game around 2230 - the defenders had lost an HMG, AT gun and a couple of riflemen, but they were still in complete control of the bridge, and the commandos had lost Lord Lovat, a couple of NCO,s. an LMG gunner and the PIAT guy, plus a couple of squaddies.

And finally, a few pix mate John took in B&W - (he is, as usual, responsible for all the very nice close up action shots in my report)

I hope you enjoyed that! I did try finding a brief description of "Nuts!" and how it all works but I couldn't find anything suitable and its quite involved and I can't really be bothered explaining it all, sorry! It's a pretty slow game to play if I am honest - we probably had too many figures for the time available; generally, the most common outcome of an exchange of fire is that one or other of the combatants "ducks back" - kind of like suppressed - but it's very easy to recover on your next turn. I had one dodgy moment mid game when the bulk of my guys opposing John were suppressed and then I rolled a 6 for activation and therefore missed a turn and had no opportunity to recover; however, fortunately, as soon as Johns grenade wielding commando appeared form behind the bocage, it caused an insight test, which my officer won, fired first, scored a hit, then rolled a 6 to determine the severity of the hit - 6= kill, 5 = out of action" and 4-1 "duck back". So, I was lucky! If I had not won the test and the commando had gone first, he would have tossed a grenade into the compound where most of my troops were "suppressed" ie they ducked back the previous turn after having a PIAT hit their position - which is not an unnatural reaction, to be fair!

I was pretty happy with my performance in this game; despite the fact I was ALWAYS at a disadvantage when doing the insight test, because the commandos were in cover AND had a "stealthy" attribute ie I rolled two less dice than I would have against normal troops out in the open, I won more than my fair share of the tests and had some good rolls when firing and working out the effect too - the commandos got hits on me too, but mostly when it came to the effect, they rolled between 1 and 4, so all that happened was .... you guessed it .... my guy ducked back!

Thanks for your visit and I will catch you again next time!