I'll start by saying that I've enjoyed playing V for Victory so far and I think Studio Tomahawk have once again produced an excellent set of rules. The card activation using a set hand of cards each turn works much better for me than the random drawing of cards used in Muskets & Tomahawks. That being said of course as a wargamer I do like to make a tweak to the rules to either make them better fit the theatre being played or to correct some perceived weakness or oversight.
So having now played a few games and being an 'expert' on the rules I've introduced a few changes and additions to the game.
The first one we tried last week that I liked the outcome of was to the indirect rules. This allows you to draw Line of Sight for your mortars and other indirect weapons not only from the weapon but also from your overall commander. The change we made is to instead allow you to draw the LoS from the 2nd team of your command section. I've modelled up both 2nd teams with a radio operator and it felt natural that these should be the chaps calling in the fire. It also gives this 2nd team a bit more of a role in the game other than just eating bullets for the commander.
As V for Victory is written for later war engagements ('44-'45) it lacks some of the equipment and vehicles used in the desert war which we've chose to model. So until an official supplement comes out I've had to write up some stats for the missing options.
First up we have anti-tank rifles which where widely employed in the early war by all sides. In rules the British and Germans each have a weapon that is better than the norm and for the British this was the PIAT. As this wasn't used in the desert I've given them a slightly better anti-tank rifle by taking note of the fact that the Boys had a magazine that allowed it (presumably) a higher rate of fire than the breech loading Pz. 39 used by Germany.
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Weapon
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Range
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Firepower
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AT
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Close Combat
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Special Rules
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Boys A/T Rifle
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2L
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1d8
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E
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1d6
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Short range firepower, Rapid fire, Penetration
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A/T Rifle
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2L
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1d8
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E
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1d6
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Short range firepower, Penetration
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We also have models for a couple of vehicles that aren't in the rules which I've taken a stab at producing stats and costs for. The IPC is a pretty standard APC profile but the M3 Grant may need some further adjustments as it gets some play time in.
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Vehicle
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Armour
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Primary Weapon
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Secondary Weapon
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Cost
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Special Rules
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Indian Pattern Carrier
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1
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A/T Rifle-H
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LMG-For P +1 Star
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1
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Open-topped, Transport (5)
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M3 Grant
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3
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ATG (Light)-T, Co-axial MMG-T
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ATG (Medium)-H
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7
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When we played our first game with a couple of light tanks we noticed that the Sdkfz 222 with it's auto-cannon (Pen. E) was much more of a killer against Armour 1 targets than a Light Anti-tank Gun (Pen. D) due to it's shooting twice.
One tweak I want to trial for that is to make Rapid Fire weapons take a Burn on the penetration table when rolling to destroy. Our combat example had two Armour 1 targets facing off and the chances of killing become a bit more reasonable when rolling 2D6 rather than 2D8.
Chance to destroy against armour 1 with 1 or 2 hits.
1d6 - 16%
2d6 - 30%
1d8 - 37%
2d8 - 60%
Lastly we have some terrain rule additions mainly to combat the lack of hedges and walls that we find in standard desert operations. A big flat area of open terrain probably isn't going to make for an interesting game so I've added a few terrain types that I had the models for.
Hull Down: Vehicles may make a move action to end up behind the crest of a sand dune / hill. This grants them Light Cover but means they can only fire weapons with the Turret (-T) property. Infantry can take cover along the crest of a sand dune and this counts as Light Cover.
Barbed Wire Entanglements: Impassable to wheeled & ½ tracked vehicles. Infantry can only Advance (not Run) across them and suffer 1 stress per success on 3D6. They provide no cover benefits for blocking LOS or shooting.
Sand Dune: All vehicles move 2R if their activation includes crossing a sand dune. In addition a wheeled vehicle crossing a sand dune that wishes to use a ruler longer than M must roll a D6, on a failure it instead becomes bogged down and stops as soon as its wheels cross the edge of the dune. It cannot move again during the current turn.
Sand Drift: A small drift of sand that's enough to provide light cover for infantry only, count as linear terrain.
Wadi: All vehicles and units with the Cumbersome or Carriage keywords count the steep edge of a wadi as impassable. Other units can only Advance across the edge, not Run. Units manning the edge of a wadi count as being in heavy cover for fire that crosses that edge first (ie. they do not count cover from being shot from behind).
The rules also mention briefly that units on higher terrain can fire over units on lower terrain without specifying what that is so I've of course had to codify that somewhat.
Terrain Height
Low area eg. rocks or bushes 1
Low walls, sandbags or other linear obstacles 1
Average person 2
Vehicles, High walls, bocage etc 3
Buildings (per floor), Sand dunes / hillocks 4
Woods / Forests / Hills 5
Units on objects higher than intervening terrain can see over that terrain and also be seen by those on the other side of the intervening terrain (following normal spotting rules).
Being on the first floor of a building counts as being at height 2 and the second floor as being at height 5.
If a unit wishes to fire over an intervening friendly unit at an enemy then the enemy unit must be at least M away from the intervening friendly unit's leader model.
And that's all we have so far, I have seen at least one picture of a game involving the authors set in the desert so I'm hopeful a supplement is on the way. But they are a small team and have SAGA to write for as well so it may take a while.
