Before I dive into some serious cardboard bloodletting, I thought I’d have some fun (geek fun, but still fun) and dig a little bit deeper into something that’s caught my attention in ATS White Beach One.

ATS portrays US Marines as some pretty tough hombres. Since I’ve played a couple of other ATS titles featuring the Marines (Semper Fi! and Toktong Pass), it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. But, finally, something this time pushed my curiosity button.

So I decided to take a look around some of my other ATS titles to see if the Marines were, indeed, the nastiest of the nasty that this game system has to offer.

Send in the Marines. Oh yeah.

I’ll confess that the first thing I discovered was that I have an embarassing amount of ATS stuff. I’m not a completist by any means, but my ATS collection consumes a fairly large shelf of the cabinet in my game closet. In case you’re not familiar with the ATS approach, many of the games are “complete,” meaning that each contains all of the counters needed to play. No single game is the only source for the core OOB for any particular nationality.

For example, White Beach One, Semper Fi! and Toktong Pass all contain several sheets of US Marine personnel counters. The upshot of this approach is that I’ve got a lot of unpunched counters — even though I’ve played at least a scenario or two from every game or module I’ve bought.

As it turns out, US Marines are indeed the baddest of the bad.

The counter format in ATS displays a personnel unit’s factors across the bottom as Firepower-Range-Morale. An infantry squad typically has four steps. when it takes its first casualty, you place a casualty marker on the unit and reduce the firepower and morale by one point each. The second casualty removes the marker and flips the counter to its reduced side. A third casualty result again places a casualty marker and a fourth casualty result eliminates the unit.

Finnish ski squads? Really?

Marine squads, as you can see, are rated 9-6-9 — which is the most potent combination of any squad in ATS. In all of the games of the ATS system, only Finnish ski squads (at 10-3-9) have higher firepower — although they’re somewhat limited by their shorter range.

My great-uncle was a BAR gunner.

In the OOB of a typical scenario, Marine firepower is usually augumented by at least one “independent” BAR gunner (which is treated as a leader for casualty results) and one M1919 light machinegun (a 5-8 light weapon) in each platoon.

Nazis. I hate these guys.

The “black” Nazi SS squads that appear in the Bunker expansion to ATS Berlin come close at 8-5-9, but they’re not very common.

Bunch of no-stat pansies.

Additionally, they suffer from the general uselessness of their higher-level backups. Old Adolph and Eva weren’t exactly well-known for their “follow me!” leadership.

The Marines at Peleliu, on the other hand, get Chesty Puller. The dude is so hard-core he gets an asterisk for his morale. ‘Nuff said.

Japanese squads are hard to dig out.

The Japanese squads that are the usual foe of Marines in ATS have their own very stony morale, but they don’t pack nearly as much firepower. Their stat line of 5-5-9 is frequently augmented with support weapons, however, and they benefit from a maddening array of fortified positions all too often. They make for some very tough opponents indeed.

Crazy enough to jump out of airplanes.

Giving credit where it is due, US paratrooper squads are also rated 8-5-9. They’re typically lighter on support weapons than the average batch of Marines, but their OOBs are liberally stiffened with good leadership.

More automatic weapons than Beau Geste.

The French Foreign Legion paratroopers that appear in ATS Dien Bien Phu are also fairly heavy hitters at 9-4-9. Their shorter range can be something of a disadvantage, but they frequently fight from entrenchments in the DBP scenarios and are very difficult to dislodge.

Ugly. And lots of them, too.

Finally, another common Marine foe appears in Toktong Pass– the large mobs of grunts from the Peoples’ Republic of Korea. At 6-3-6, they aren’t exactly born-again hard — but there are always a LOT of them in any scenario. I include them in this short survey primarily to illustrate why their lovely color scheme always gives me headaches.

After a little break in the action to deal with a higher-than-usual volume of RLI (Real Life Interference) — caused by heavy sunspot activity, I guess — it’s time to get things cranked up again.

For the next few months (optimism: on) I’m planning to focus as much as possible on games set in World War II’s Pacific Theater of Operations, and on the history surrounding those games when I’m smart enough to figure it out.

As I’ve mentioned before, the PTO holds a lot of personal interest for me. It was the slice of world War II where all of the Foster Boys fought.

The map for ATS Peleliu is 24 x 24.

My Dad was born in 1930, so it wasn’t his war. Grandad Foster was a shade too old to fight and, besides, was employed in the strategic steel production industry. But two of his brothers fought in the Pacific, as did one of my great uncles on Grandma Foster’s side of the family. (Another relative flew as a volunteer for the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War, but that’s a tale for some other time.)

Great Uncle Todd served in the 2nd Marines and fought on both Tarawa and Saipan. I keep the officer’s samurai sword he brought back from Tarawa under lock and key. Great Uncle Charles served in the 503rd Parachute Infantry. He fought both in New Guinea and in the Philippines, and jumped with the 503rd in their famous airborne assault on Corregidor in February, 1945. Great Uncle Preston was a Navy fighter pilot — but I’ve never been able to nail down the details of his service.

So, of course, I’m kicking things off by taking a look at game that has nothing to do with any of them.

“ATS Peleliu – White Beach One” is Critical Hit’s look at the 1st Marines’ early fighting in what would turn out to be the bloodiest battle in the Pacific War. It is not a complete game, as it does not include any of the myriad ATS markers needed for play. I own quite a few ATS titles, so that’s no problem for me — but I could sympathize with someone who may be disappointed in a $70 package (MSRP) that didn’t contain everything needed for play.

The new Japanese counters are very yellow.

The 24 x 24 game map covers a slice of Peleliu that includes a section of White Beach One and the area inland from it that stretches a couple hundred meters beyond the heavily fortified Japanese HQ building. The countermix is an odd assortment that includes a number of the ATS “standard” PTO countersheets (which premiered in “Semper Fi,” a complete game), along with a couple of half sheets with additional Japanese squad counters and USMC personnel counters that are emblazoned with the 1st Marine Division patch. There are also a couple of quarter sheets (or sixth-sheets, maybe) with counters for the Marines’ LVT-4 Amtrac and some new Japanese fortifications.

I call it an “odd assortment” because the mix of standard and new countersheets means that there are Marine squads both with and without the 1st Marines markings. The “plain” squads may not be needed, but I also couldn’t help noticing that the ATS “standard” Japanese counters are an orangish-tan color, while the Japanese squads on the new countersheets are a fairly bright yellow. Ack. Looks like the printer fumbled his Pantone color wheel.

Also note the size of the game map. Critical Hit’s promotional copy on their website says the game includes a 24 x 34 game map. In fact, it’s a rather tight 24 x 24 mapsheet. It also appears to be printed on a lighter, more coarse paper stock than my other ATS maps.

The package includes eight scenarios. Seven of them are set on D-Day, September 15, 1945, and one covers some of the fighting on September 17. Scenario 8 “White Beach Blood Red” is a monster, 18-turn scenario that starts with the inital landings. For the treadhead crowd, one of the scenarios covers the counter-attack launched by the lone Japanese tank company on the island.

Back to the grit-and-grind of the Great War.

In my last game-related post, I took a quick look at the mechanism for handling artillery fire in Avalanche Press’ new-ish Infantry Attacks: August 1914. It’s a very rigid system that requires pre-game plotting for every fire ‘module’ for every turn of the game. The design goal is laudable — but the implementation leaves something to be desired.

If nothing else, the physical process of plotting an impact hex for every fire for each turn of the game can be enough to drive a man to strong drink. There are some long scenarios in the package — we’re talking day-long, regimental-size engagements — and artillery is usually plentiful.

When things go off the rails, cancelling a large group of plots certainly conveys some small fraction of the infantry commander’s frustration — but I know lots of gamers who will probably only ‘enjoy’ wasting an hour of pre-game plotting once or twice before they decide to find another game to play.

Jeux Grenier Games’ “In The Trenches” series has been around a bit longer than Infantry Attacks (maybe a year’s head start), and that system’s treatment of artillery tilts in the opposite direction.

In The Trenches: Through Mud and Blood

As I’ve noted previously, In The Trenches is more of a ‘firefight’ scale game than a ‘battle’ game. At 100m per hex and 5 minutes per turn, it slices out bits of larger engagements for players to game. The game focuses on the action after opposing forces have closed to within small arms range, so artillery plays something of a lesser role. Nevertheless, artillery still consumes a decent chunk of the rule book and it still can cause a significant amount of casualties.

In The Trenches, among other things, introduces artillery fire ‘patterns’ into the mix. Your batteries can fire ‘drumfire’ (one hex), ‘barrage’ (a concentric 7-hex pattern) or ‘hurricane’ (a linear 7-hex pattern). There were lots of elegant artillery theories running around during the Great War, so the patterns are an interesting bit of period ‘feel’.

So far, so good. But the game comes off the rails a bit with regards to how all of that fire power actually gets placed on the game board.

There’s no plotting. Rather, a player has three target markers for each firing battery. On the first turn of the process, all three markers are placed on possible target hexes. Two of the markers are ‘dummies’ — only one of them actually designates the ‘real’ target. On the second turn of the process there’s a short scatter routine and then the fire mission impacts with its assigned pattern.

Since the scenarios begin at fairly close range, there isn’t much artillery to sling around in any given scenario. Which is a good thing, because the fires are far too flexible. A 5-minute call-for-fire response wasn’t all that common in 1940, never mind 1916 or 1918. Hurricane fires (‘curtain barrages’ to you old-school types) in particular took extensive (as in hours-long) planning, registration and coordination. They were hardly a fire mission that could be laid on to any target in the field on five minute’s notice.

The use of a trio of ‘possible’ target markers also brings into play something of an artillery “shell game” that has a bit of a gamey feel to it. The placement of dummy target markers constitutes a bluff that can be used to influence an opponent’s actions. Does that part of the call-for-fire process have any sort of real-world analog?  Assuming, of course, that “call-for-fire” even has a place at all in a game covering the Great War.

On the positive side, in order to account for the larger, more massive bombardments that often preceded Great War attacks (or trench raids, for that matter), In The Trenches also utilizes extensive ‘pre-game’ artillery fires in some scenarios. Typically the opposing sides set up, and then the attacking player engages in some pre-game carnage as outlined in the Scenario Special Rules. Given the ‘firefight’ scope of In The Trenches, I find this particular mechanism works quite well.

So: We’ve got two game systems covering tactical combat in the Great War, neither one of which quite scores a direct hit with its artillery rules. Infantry Attacks is too rigid and uses a pre-plotting process that can be downright mind-numbing in bigger scenarios. In The Trenches features a system that’s too flexible — probably even too flexible for a World War 2 tactical game. And it can turn a bit gamey in the use of the trio of target markers.

Neither game is entirely ruined by their artillery problems. Infantry Attacks can get a bit tedious when a lot of big guns are involved, but all of the planning and plotting does force a frustrating Great War ‘feel’ on the game. In The Trenches downplays artillery to an extent, so the ‘gamey’ aspects don’t crop up as often as they could were the game set at a higher scale.

In both cases, then, it’s close, but no cigar.

Before I dive into a wargamer’s look at artillery in World War One (as mentioned in my previous post), I figured it probably would be a good idea if I first delivered quick looks at the two games I’ll be waving around during the discussion.

Infantry Attacks: August 1914

First to arrive — some weeks ago now — was August 1914: Battles for East Prussia, which is the initial offering in the new Infantry Attacks series from Avalanche Press.

The Infantry Attacks rules are close relatives of APL’s PanzerGrenadier series rules. The game scales are the same with 200-meter hexes and 15-minute turns. However, the combat units in the two series represent different sized formations; in PanzerGrenadier a typical unit is a platoon, while in Infantry Attacks most units are company-sized. Infantry Attacks devotes substantial additional “rule-age” to artillery fire and artillery ammunition (among other things), which balloons the series rules to a hefty 35 pages (compared to PG’s slim 16 pages of rules).

That said, the two series share many core mechanisms. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say most PanzerGrenadier players will be up and running with Infantry Attacks in fairly short order. Otherwise the rules aren’t as complex as you might expect from 35 pages, although I would recommend that total noobs to the series take a look at the “Infantry Attacks in Five Minutes” download on the APL website.

The game’s physical package is in line with the latest of APL’s releases in the PG series. The six cardstock maps, produced by a new artist, are another small advance for a publisher that has occasionally struggled with map art in the past. The counters are very attractive and clean (as usual) and charts and tables are printed on the familiar tan cardstock. My overall impression is that it’s an attractive, clean and very functional graphic presentation.

A more recent arrival is Through Mud and Blood, the third game of the In The Trenches tactical series from Jeux Grenier Games.

Through Mud and Blood

The first two games in the series were, more or less, “super-DTP” productions that featured pre-mounted, cut-em-out countersheets. I skipped the first game in the series (“Opening Engagements”), mostly because I found the mixed bag of scenario topics less than compelling. The second game (“The Lost Generation”) piqued my interest, however, and I’ve played it a number of times.

The game scale for In The Trenches is 100-meter hexes and five-minute turns, with most pieces representing platoon-sized units. While the game’s command system rewards players for operating their troops in company-sized formations, In The Trenches is very much more of a “firefight” scale game than it is a “battle” game like Infantry Attacks.

Unlike its two predecessors in the series, Through Mud and Blood comes with professionally-printed, mounted and die-cut counters. For gamers who wrestle DTP counters with rhomboidal cuts and slipping X-acto knives, this is a definite step up. As with all of the Grenier-published games I’ve played, the counter artwork is very crisp and functional. The production quality of the countersheet overall is excellent — better in many aspects than the counter work produced by some of the much larger players in the market.

The maps? Well. Aaa. Mmm. These are truly a mixed bag for me. Previous games in the series have featured 12 x 18 inch maps printed on a heavy, glossy stock. TMB’s maps are essentially half that size, checking in at 8.5 x 11 inches. They’re printed on the same glossy stock as earlier maps. The graphic style is also similar to the earlier games — clear and functional, if not particularly inspired — with the exception of the “Hill 06″ map that uses a color palette that’s very dark indeed. On parts of the “Hill 06″ map, in fact, the black-lined hexgrid all but disappears into the map’s dark colors.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, the mapboards in the ITT series are not geomorphic — they are all historical bits of battlefield from the Great War. So in general, the actions represented in Through Mud and Blood are much smaller firefights than those found in earlier games of the series. After some of the heavy-duty actions in the series’ second volume, this is a little bit of a let-down.  I imagine it does, however, make this a very good game for introducing new players to the ITT rules.