Solo Seven Days

The great thing about solo gaming, is that like other solitary pleasures, you can play what you want, when you want, and take as much time as you want to really enjoy the experience. 

I wanted to set this game up Friday, but feeling like crap meant that I didn't get my table cleaned off (so much cleaning needed!), terrain set up and forces organized until Sunday afternoon. 

New Ferret armoured cars being sneaky

I had a few objectives for the game; 1. Play 2. Get new stuff on the table 3. Learn the rules better 4. Try some things like Command units, Recce units and mortars that we haven't explored in my once a year games with Scott 5. Trial stats for vehicles not covered in the rules.

Watching The SitRep Podcast certainly encouraged me to give Solo Seven Days a try. I want to try having air and artillery on call as a thing to play like he does in his games, rather than just random cards.

I selected small, approximately 680 point forces, to keep things manageable and set up a Meeting Engagement.

Mantovians: platoon of Centurions, section of Fireflies, 2 Ferret patrols, 9 rifle sections, 2 MG sections, 2 mortars and 2 Carl Gustav AT sections 

Tartarians: Coy HQ in T54, 2 platoons of T54s, 4 T34/85s, 4 BTR40s with Recce Sections, 4 BTR152s with 6 Motor Rifle sections and 2 AT sections 

Both sides have an aircraft model out in hopes of an air asset card being dealt. No such luck though. I had forgotten that attack helicopters are a unit to purchase,  just like tanks or infantry. 

Table. Tartarians enter from Left. Mantovians enter from opposite corner. 

The Mantovians drew the "Divisional Artillery" card, hitting the Tartarians with a pregame bombardment that put some morale hits on several tanks. The Tartarians got initiative first and did a rapid move along the road, Combat Reconnaissance Patrols leading, and another CRP hooking around the mountain and the woods to cover the right flank. The failed Activation rolls caused by the Artillery made the advance rather strung out.

Yellow dice are tracking Morale hits

Of course I promptly made my first mistake. Both sides held back 25-33% in Reserves. Command Tokens for units in Reserve aren't supposed to be in your pool until they come on table. 

Centurions and infantry developing Mantovian right

Fireflies and Ferrets occupy the town 

Red and blue bingo chits are Command Tokens 

So the first two turns until everyone's Reserves rolled on were a little kinetic. Lots of rapid maneuvering and shooting with all the extra Command Tokens. 

Section of Centurions holding the right flank and engaging PDRT advanced elements 

PDRT left taking heavy fire

PDRT right under heavy fire too

Firefly lower right, brews up a BTR40 with the squad still mounted

Monday night after the dishes I had time to play Turn 3 and bring everyone's Reserves on. The Mantovians had drawn the very useful "Reserves" card, so they played that to bring an extra Centurion  on. I also discovered that someone had already done the leg work for Arab-Israeli War lists, including Ferret ACs and Recce Jeeps.

Reserves arrive, including Combat Team HQ (Centurion with camo netting), and an extra 5th Centurion 

Carl Gustav team, upper left, makes a hard shot and puts a rocket into the PDRT Command tank 

Tartarian dirty tricks! Special Forces infiltrators brew up a Centurion (adding Morale hits to all the infantry)

Last Command Token of the turn, Firefly (barely visible upper right), takes a shot at the T54, rolling a 10 on penetration.

The Ferret snuggled up beside the Firefly in the above picture earlier spotted for the "Precision Guided Munitions" card. Precision guided munitions aren't a thing in 1950, so I just called it an artillery barrage and played the card as written. One of two T54s targeted took a Morale hit. Big whoop....

I can see maybe making some more "period" specific cards could be something fun to do too.

Wednesday night my plans got canceled, so I headed down to the Basement o'Gaming with a glass of Port and finished the game.

Mantovians get initiative and use Rapid Move to shift Fireflies out to their left and move Centurions into town

Two Centurions engage lone T54 on PDRT left THREE times, just putting shock on it. It reacted once and missed.

T54 on PDRT right shifts to snipe a Sherman 

Centurion in town reacts

KABOOM!

But new PDRT Command tank engages that Centurion,  and it fails its reaction this time and gets brewed up.

Commander gunfight! PDRT Command tank tries to engage Mantovian Command tank, which wins Reaction and blows up PDRT Commander. But second T54 activates, Reaction roll fails this time and the Mantovian Commander gets brewed up!

The deadly T54 tries hunting for Shermans, but one Reacts and blows it up by rolling a bunch of 9s and 10s.

With few targets the Mantovians push on their right, cleaning up a couple of Combat Reconnaissance Squads lurking among the burning tanks

Shermans engage lone T34 and blow it up. The Tartarians have now lost 2/3rds of their Break Points. Game Over!

PDRT Motor Rifles have dismounted into woods and farm in center 

Mantovian right advancing against non-existent PDRT left

The luckiest T54 in the world! Survived multiple hits. Managed to rally enough shock off to activate and go hide in the woods as the last surviving PDRT tank.

For turns 4 and 5 I was using the vehicle profiles someone built for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which were very close to the ones I had created.

Going forward I'm going to just use the aircraft like attack helicopters with a slightly modified attack. A strafing run with rockets and guns would be a little different from standing off firing ATGMs.

Tartarian BTRs

Komrade People's Komissar Soroyan Ansonov opened his small notebook and uncapped his pen. He gave a dead eyed stare at the squirming figures standing in front of him and sighed inwardly. 

"I am too old for this" he thought. He had survived the Second World War and a Soviet POW camp... for this.

Notice different shades of green

But the aches in his legs from shrapnel received in the Dnieper Salient reminded him he was too old and broken to be leading a platoon of Motor Rifles.

So, here he was, an obedient functionary of the Soviet installed Communist government,  just as he'd been an enthusiastic officer for the Nazis when they took over in 1936. But it was the way to survive. He'd seen too many idealistically zealous Tartarian nationalists end up in a ditch.

Survival was everything. He hadn't eaten rats in a Siberian work camp to let these idiots give him a problem. 

"So" He looked at his notebook "Komrade Mechanic Second Class Boris Tarpalov." 

A figure in oily mechanics coveralls looked at him in wide eyed panic. The others were suddenly interested in what the floor was doing under their boots. 

"How did... this" he gestured nonchalantly to the multi-hued armoured vehicles in the workshop and yard around them "...happen."

He poised his pen on his notebook. "Exactly."

The mechanic coughed. "We were told to paint the new armoured troop carriers just arrived from our glorious Soviet allies."

"And...?"

"These are colours they got painted!"

"The paint wasn't mixed properly?"

Boris and Sergei grinned sheepishly. "We follow instructions on can! Not our fault is not regulation shade of green!"

New T54 beside T54 from first batch

Komrade Senior Sergeant Olav Bakalov piped up. "This was the paint ordered by the Supply Komissariat. And..." The Senior Sergeant grinned hopefully, "...the BTRs are all green.  What is 'regulation' green anyway, Komrade Komissar?"

Soroyan tapped his pen thoughtfully, letting the figures squirm some more. It was probably just a bad batch of paint from the Soviet factory. Or the Supply Komissariat sent the wrong shade. Blaming the Russians for poor quality would see him back in Siberia. 

HQ vehicles. I should come up with a Formation Sign to put on them.

He checked his notes. The complaint was made by Komrade Major Ordovic, the Division Supply Officer. Who was probably engaging in some ass-covering.

He made a note to order covert surveillance on Komrade Major Ordovic and a thorough examination of the Major's finances. He hated corrupt officials selling supplies more than he hated the Mantovians. He would also have to make discreet inquiries into Ordovic's political connections. Survival was more important than rooting out corruption, after all. 

He hoped one, or all, of the mechanics in front of him wouldn't have to go to a Punishment Detachment. The People's Democratic Republic of Tartaria needed mechanics more than supply majors.

He closed his notebook and capped his pen. "Well, Komrades, the troop carriers are all green. I think we can consider this matter closed after we toast the People's Revolution with some of the slivovice that Senior Sergeant Bakalov obviously has in his office."

***********************

My Tartarian armour is having difficulty having a standardized shade of green. Despite trying to follow the same steps.

First tanks. A nice medium green. 

The rest, much lighter, after apparently following the same process.

After the first battle, I decided I didn't really like the light green. So, I decided to give them an ink wash to darken the green, and pick out the details better. 

After the ink

I've also marked a turret with a white cross which was a common recognition sign. This will help me mark the Command Tank without resorting to numbers

So I painted the second batch of armour Don had sent me. 1x T54, 10x BTR-152s, 6x BTR-40s, a couple of GAZ radio vans, and another artillery command BTR.

Except the ink wash didn't come out the same as the first batch. I tried two different brands of sepia ink and both were different.

Batch one on right, batch two center and left showing both brands of sepia ink

Batch one in front

Batch one on left, batch two center and right.

But I'm not going to panic over it. This is one of those problems that seems a REALLY BIG DEAL while you are painting and now that I've put them under lights and in front of the camera, I think will go away as I use them. After the first game they'll be all mixed up, no one will notice, and Komissar Ansonov can close the file.

16 new BTRs should give me more than enough transport for my Motor Rifles.