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.