Last night at the club we tried out a game of Seven Days to the Rhine, reverse-engineered for World War 2, as a sort of update to Iron Cross, on which 7 Days is based (both are published by Great Escape Games). We encountered issues both with the core system and specifically to 7 Days.

First the good news. The adaptation of 7 days was quite clean, amounting to just one page of supplementary rules, plus another half-page adapting the chance cards. This compares to my 8 pages of “house rules” for Iron Cross. As I have written earlier, 7 Days is cleaner and better-written than Iron Cross, so it is a lot less tempting to fiddle with it. The second bit of good news is that we used my new 1943 vehicles on the tabletop for the first time, alongside my slightly earlier miniatures in the project. They looked really good, though I say so myself. Especially the Dingo and Humber armoured car, which, alas, don’t come out in the picture above. The one taken from the British lines came out blurred. In the low light conditions of an evening game any flaws are less visible (I don’t think the dust on the wheels tracks is particularly good…).

For a scenario we used the Breakthrough scenario in both rulebooks. We didn’t use the chance cards in 7 Days, because of the issues of adapting them to period. The forces were of equal size, but the defending force (British) had more infantry, and started the game dispersed and unprepared. They had two Shermans, a 6-pounder, the armoured car, and four infantry sections, one with a PIAT. The Dingo was used as a command vehicle. The aim for the Germans, with three PzIIIs and three infantry sections mounted in SdKfz 251s and an SdKfZ 251/10 command vehicle, was to get a third of their force to the other end of the table. They were given extra command points. They didn’t manage to do this, taking some heavy casualties. They were probably too hesitant at the start and should have picked a flank and gone for a combined arms attack… However we did finish the game, for the first time with the Iron Cross system, which shows that we had the right number of units on the table for a two player game. Unfortunately having more players doesn’t speed things up with a sequential system like Iron Cross’s.

So, what were the issues? First specific to Seven Days. There were two significant problems. First there is no advantage to closer range for fire by or against vehicles: just one d10 and the same required score to hit. And no penetration benefit either. This led to a rather absurd encounter between a Pz III and a Sherman a couple of inches apart blasting away and either missing or shells glancing off. I think the justification is that the whole table is short range, and that in the stress of combat it is all too easy to fail at short range. Also vehicles would not stand still. Well up to a point. Range seems to be about 100 yards for 12in (maybe a bit less) based on the range of bazookas et al, so we can get vistas of 500 yards across the table. Not long ranges, but enough to make a difference. This is probably less true of armour penetration than of scoring hits in the first place (especially with WW2 technology) – though even then it is easier to place a hit on a vulnerable spot at close range. In original Iron Cross it is slightly easier to hit at 12in or less; in my house rules you got an extra d10 (as you do for fire against infantry in 7 days). You also got an extra 2 penetration points in Iron Cross at under 12in

The second problem is that to react to infantry in cover (to return fire, for example) takes 5 on a D6, compared to 3 against infantry in the open (which is what it was for all units in Iron Cross). This is fair enough against infantry opening up for the first time. No so much after it has being firing at you for several rounds, by which time you are needing a 6 to react. This allowed a British infantry section to wipe out a German one before the initiative could be passed back. This happened quite a bit.

What about the wider problems? My partners didn’t like the scenario. The German player felt it gave too much advantage to a side that could stay static. Realistic tactics such as suppression fire were hard to replicate. To do well in a scenario you had to game the rules as much as play the tactical situation on the table. In particular the idea that you concentrate your command points on a small number of units while leaving the rest static was a bit counter-intuitive. Trying to overwhelm your opponent with a coordinated move forward is not really feasible (though it is too easy in other systems like Fistful of TOWs and Rapid Fire!).

What to do? Some of the issue is with scenario design, and with lack of familiarity with the rules. The withdrawal option, for example, could be really quite useful. But that wouldn’t have helped that German infantry under fire from British infantry – as a failed reaction freezes your command points which stops any possible action later in the turn – too big a risk to take. The card system in 7 Days would also help, allowing re-throws and a bit of artillery intervention, for example. Though it isn’t hard to redesign the era specific cards, this is quite hard to do without producing a new set or defacing the original – which is hard with home-made resources. I might give this a try anyway.

But the search goes on for a more satisfactory rule system. I have just bought Battlefront WWII from the makers of Fire and Fury, and I’m also working on my own system.