We played a quick few turns of Great Escape Games' "
Seven Days to the River Rhine" (7D) on Friday night and I took a few pictures to blog about the adventure before calling it a night. Much like me, Ken was pretty tired on Friday after work so we agreed to play a couple turns to see how the game worked.
I brought my signature 1/100 West Germans, consisting of Roskopf models, Battlefront and Command Decision infantry, and a few other makes, versus Ken's Battlefront Soviets. We played the capture scenario, or at least up to turn 3
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| The battlefield. Ivan is coming from the upper-center and upper left. The objective is the village with the clocktower in the center. Note the poker chips on the table. Those mark my hidden units. |
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| Central village position would be the scene of a brutal back and forth firefight. Ivan's BTRs will come tearing down that road any minute. |
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My West Germans. We decided to keep the points low in this case - I think I had about 430 points worth of West Germans. 1 platoon of Leopard IA5s, 1 platoon of Marders, and 2 ATGM teams.
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| Leopard Is |
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| Marders |
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| My West German infantry |
Ken splits the motor rifle company and sent them down 2 approaches, both mounted on the roads to make the most use of the "rapid road move" mobility. My Marder in the town, along with an ATGM team and infantry squad defend up but I cannot get a bead on Ken's troops, who occupy a small
gasthaus before the town that makes an excellent support-by-fire position.
I eventually get a shot off from the Milan team in the house (I know, bad move) against the lead BTR, killing it. Ken is still able to move 2 squads up into the
gasthaus before the town. I take a morale marker for firing the Milan inside a building! It's a cool feature of the rules
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| The house with the cocked roof has a Milan team in it. The house to the right has a rifle squad, Note the burning BTR in the street. |
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| BTR burning at the gasthaus. |
on the German left, the Soviets move down the highway at speed. The Milan fails to react to them. During my turn, the infantry squad takes a shot with their law from the warehouse and also misses! Damn TA troops!
Some sustained firing sees off an infantry squad on the right who execute a fall back order and lose D6 morale markers when withdrawing (another cool feature of 7D). During my turn, I activate a marder, move it out and finish the squad off in the open with the auto-cannon. Stuff is dying left and right! Then i spend another command token and move them back into cover.
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| Marder back in position after his killing spree. The dice are command tokens. |
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| Multiple attempts to activate this marder fail. I beat a hasty retreat with the ATGM team in the town and move them back so they cannot be targeted by the Soviets. The infantry in the grey house will cover their retreat! |
on the left, my Leo in the hide position emerges and knocks out the BTR moving down the road. Pressing my luck, I move him further up and engage the second BTR and knock it out! The action is heating up now!
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| Good shooting by the Leo crew! |
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| Ken's troops move up to assault the town. I cannot target them because they're on the other side of the woods. |
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| Action at the warehouse. |
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| Ken moves more troops up to overrun the town - trouble! |
At this point it was 830pm. I cant speak for Ken, but I'd been up since 430 and I was plenty exhausted so we called it a night. I left my minis at Ken's house to play more 7 Days! What a great game.
Thoughts
This was the first time playing for both of us and while we had questions we eventually got the hang of things. This game was full of excitement and the mechanisms that work so well in Iron Cross work just as well for Cold War. The engagement system is slightly different as units have an organic
"to hit" value, meaning they must achieve their modified To Hit number to hit an enemy unit. Weapon systems are pretty lethal also which makes this feel just like Cold War combat - if it can be seen, it can be hit. If it can be hit, it can be killed.
We did not make use of the cards, yet but that's coming. I like how this game keeps you on your feet, constantly guessing, making decisions, and still having to conserve resources. If you run out of tokens, your enemy can run circles around you. The game gives you enough flexibility and just enough control to be able to fight your plan and I love it. I would like to try this with MicroArmor and I have an idea for tokens and morale markers that is crazy enough it just might work.
Cant wait to play this again! I am going into a week of "stay-cation" and so I just might have to paint and game more this coming week. Huzzah! I dont know why, but I have a hankering to play BattleCry with my 15mm troops. Stay tuned.
Excellent stuff and some great pointers there.
ReplyDeleteActually the to hit system does remind me of WRG for some reason - but in a good way (and at least no bloody 'acquire' rolls here).
Glad you have reminded me of MILAN in building modifiers.
Spare a thought for your poor TA guys LOL - their role is/was to keep the regulars alive for the longest possible time...poor sods
Great looking game - really like that 1/100 kit and great setup for the game.
More please :)
Thank you sir! I also note how you said there were some things "cleaned up" from IC to 7D. From the few turns we played, I really enjoyed these rules.
DeleteNo offense meant by my TA comment - it was made in the heat of battle when my dice couldn't hit the broad side of a barn :)
I cant wait to play again.
Did I say I was very intrigued/interested by the tokens idea you mentioned...?
ReplyDeleteWe have a Russian Front lined up based on your previous IC game - we're going to use flat tiddly-winks for tokens this time.
I'm going to do a blog post on this today or tomorrow. For command tokens, I will spray paint a penny, or a small wooden square green and place a "dot" or a number from 1 to 4 along each of the edges (or increments of 90 degrees if using a penny).
DeleteWhen the unit uses its first token, place the penny with the single dot, or number "1" touching the base or behind the stand. etc. When it takes a second action, rotate the penny or square 90 degrees so the number "2" or 2 dots are are behind the stand or vehicle.
When it takes a third action, do the same so the number "3" or 3 dots are behind the stand / vehicle.
Does that make sense? I've seen that in other rules with markers placed behind a unit that you turn.
Oh that's a really good idea. Love that.
DeleteWargamer innovation at its best sir!
Thank you sir! Of all the things I could be accused of, cheap and lazy are damn near the top of the list. Watch this space!
DeleteLikewise interested in tokens idea, especially if is something that will work with micro armour. The rulebook is very nicely presented and just has a 'play me' quality. Enjoyed your table and figs.
ReplyDeleteNorm it's funny you said that because using with micro armor was exactly what I had in mind for this idea, hence using pennies or small wooden squares that are 1. lower than the base and 2. almost flush with the table.
DeleteBasically I'm going to paint a small square or penny, then use colored dots or pen numbers along the sides of the square or at 90 degree increments around the penny. As the unit takes an action, you rotate the square or penny so that the number or the dots correspond to the number of actions it has taken.
On the back side of the penny or small square, the dots would be labeled 5 through 8.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteExcellent looking fight, and a fun read! I'd been intrigued by 'Iron Cross,' and didn't even know 7DTRR existed until this batrep (I haven't been paying a tremendous amount of wargaming attention, lately, but I'm coming around). Just picked up the rules and gave them a read-through, looks very interesting. Doesn't look like something I could pull off solo, have to get the little one into the fight.
V/R,
Jack
Sounds like a great first hit out with these rules- nice!
ReplyDeleteI like the tokens idea. But knowing how things go in my group, when you move your figs, how do you make sure the correct side of your numbered square remains next to the figure base?
ReplyDeleteWe use little colored beads for Shako II casualty counters, but when lots of infantry lines move, sometimes beads get left behind, or end up on the wrong unit.
Really like the activation token idea. Have you come up with a "cheap and lazy" way to keep track of the morale points?
ReplyDelete