Optional Rules
Units · Movement · Firing · Assaults · Artillery

« Units and Formations

101 | Veteran Officers

Almost every regiment had a few officers who were particularly wily or experienced in the ways of warfare in their sector, and who had lived long enough to apply them in action. These men could often save the lives of their men, get them into position more quickly, and otherwise "make things happen" in ways which less experienced leaders might have missed.

To roll for veteran officers, roll two dice (2D6) for each sub-unit slated to be used for game play. Any result or twelve (12) on the die will give that unit a veteran officer for the duration of the game. He cannot be killed, because he is not alone. He is assumed to surround himself with other ingenious troopers, thereby perpetuating the locally elite status of that unit. Once acquired, the veteran officer may benefit his unit in many different ways, some of which are expressed in other related optional rules. For further veteran officer related rules, see rule numbers 206 and 601.

102 | Lost Platoons

This occurs when an unsupported unit is destroyed (all bases lost) while within support range of any enemy bases. Place a marker base made up of a single kneeling or prone figure at the edge of the nearest cover within support range of the last position of the destroyed parent unit. If no cover is available, the marker base will remain stationary.

Effects: The lost platoon marker will draw the fire of up to two enemy machine guns (if any are in range and line of sight), and pin down the two closest enemy units of average training quality or lower. The duration of the lost platoon marker is rolled for at the time of the parent unit's destruction by rolling one six sided die (1D6). The die result is the number of turns the lost platoon survives before slinking away or being overrun.

103 | Automatic Behavior

Generally, you as the regimental level commander have little influence over the actions of the men below battalion level. As a result, apply the following rules to offer this lower level of control:

A) Upon entering trenches or other full cover, Shaky and Mutinous troops will immediately go prone and remain that way. If they pass an Assault Movement command test at the start of their next movement, they can stand (only).
B) Shaky troops must pass a Maneuver Movement command test in order to avoid automatically firing on any bases or units to their front (friendly or enemy). Failure of the command test (for whatever their current training level is) means the unit will fire to fullest possible effect on the closest unit or bases in question, even if they are friendly.

« Movement

201 | Post-Barrage Deployment

At the end of major barrages, there was often a slight time lag between the end of the barrage and the actual deployment of troops into the target zone. Using the Post-Barrage Deployment rule, no prone units which have been attacked by any pre-game barrage may stand from their pre-game stance until they successfully roll on the Assault Movement column of the Command chart, with the Over the Top modifier. Units which do not successfully roll are considered to have been too disrupted by the artillery barrage to react properly, and they remain in their pre-game prone positions. This can be a substantial detriment if an enemy attack is imminent, or if enemy assault teams are very close.

202 | Depleted Reinforcements

Troops being used to plug a gap in their lines often had a long and difficult march to the combat zone. This rule causes players to treat all reinforcing troops (brought on the board as a result of lulls) to behave as if they have already moved two assault moves.

203 | Battery Encounters

Troops and vehicles who penetrated deep into enemy lines sometimes encountered comparatively fresh enemy artillery which had been supplying on-call artillery fire. These behind-the-lines artillery batteries might suddenly find themselves playing a direct fire support role in the face of an enemy breakthrough. Players can roll to find out whether deeply penetrating units will suddenly encounter enemy light artillery in addition to those already placed on the board.

On each turn that a player suffers tactical penetration* into his positions, he may roll once on the "F' column of the setup page's Extra Heavy Weapons Chart, using the current number of friendly units still in existence as the numerical base. The final result is the number of light artillery bases which the defending player may place on the board in hastily dug-in, fire-ready positions. The newly positioned guns are immediately placed on the board (this will usually be during the attacking player's movement phase) but they may not be placed within 200 yards of enemy bases, and their size may not exceed weapon class five.
* Tactical penetration: Is measured from the outer edge of the closest, outermost (closest to no-man's land) friendly outposts or front-line trenches, as they existed before the pre-game bombardment. Tactical penetration has occurred if enemy units penetrate further than 2000 yards beyond any of those outermost points.

204 | Scouts

Using this optional scouting rule, each infantry or cavalry unit may send out scouts to search for and identify enemy units. Each unit may roll for up to two scout detection operations at the end of each movement phase (enemy units in different range brackets require different scouting groups).

The values shown in the center of the chart indicate the number of enemy positions (infantry units, heavy weapon bases, etc.) which can be identified by troops of that training level at the range shown. Once the position to be identified is declared, the scouting player rolls one die (1D6) and applies applicable modifiers. If the adjusted value is equal to or higher than the Modified Success roll value shown at right, the position in question has been discovered and may be fired upon, even if it has not previously fired or moved. Any natural die roll of 1 will result in one damage "hit" against a base from the scouting unit. Units which have been spotted may be marked as such (Recommendation: Use a single-man enemy base immediately facing the front of the spotted position). Bases in a spotted position remain spotted unless they move out of the line of sight of both the parent unit and scout marker, or unless the parent unit of the scout routs or is destroyed on the same turn as the original spotting.

206 | Veteran Officers - Command Rolls

Veteran officers are considered to have better control over their men, and to have the ability to get them moving even under difficult circumstances. Using the Command Rolls portion of the veteran officers optional rules, each unit with a veteran officer gets an additional plus one (+1) on all command die rolls for both standard maneuver and assault movement.

207 | Entanglement Types

Barbed wire was only the first of many types of metal entanglements used to interfere with the passage of enemy troops. Entanglements can ranges from heavy coiled strips of jagged saw-toothed steel to "Spanish Riders" which could be slapped togethere by troops in the field.

Using the optional entanglements rule, refer to the types shown below for specific effect and availability. The movement reduction corresponds directly to the standard barbed wire movement reduction discussed in the basic rules. The availability ratio indicates the amount of regular barbed wire which needs to be traded off in order to obtain some of the optional wire type. Hence, a player would have to give up 40 inches of regular light coiled barbed wire in order to be able to use 20 inches of medium fence.

• Light Riders: Movement modifier = ½. Availability ratio = 0.8. Destroyed on natural barrage roll of 4+
• Light Coiled (normal game wire): Movement modifier = ¼. Availability ratio = 1.0. Destroyed on natural barrage roll of 5+
• Light Fence: Movement modifier = ¼. Availability ratio = 1.5. Destroyed on natural barrage roll of 6+
• Medium Fence: Movement modifier = Impassable to infantry. Availability ratio = 2.0. Destroyed on natural barrage roll of 6+. Most common type for constructed defenses.

208 | Trench Stops

Units which had just captured sections of enemy trenchline could build walls or obstacles across the trench at the extreme ends of their new positions. These trench stops prevented enemy attacks and counterattacks from sweeping down the length of the position without warning. Materials used to build trench stops varied from debris and wood found in the immediate vicinity to specialized materials brought up with the assaulting troops for that very purpose.

For game play, any base may build a trench stop by remaining stationary within a section of trench for one full turn of movement and rolling a six sided die (1D6). On a die roll result of 5 or 6, a trench stop is considered to have been successfully built immediately adjoining the base. Each trench stop causes any unit attempting to pass through (not across) that section of trench to stop for the turn while they dismantle the stop. If the stop is immediately adjoined by an enemy unit, an assault will be triggered instead, giving any unit defending the stop an additional +1 on the assault die unless the attacker goes "over the top" and sweeps around the stop, in which case no advantage is gained by either side. A trench stop is destroyed by the execution of any assault across it, and may be dismantled by any base which stops to spend one turn dismantling it.

209 | Tank Ergonomics

Tanks with unusually small crews were more restricted in their ability to observe and act on their surroundings. By the same token a larger crew with dedicated commander for each tank could be more responsive to local threats and targets. To reflect this, try the following Command and Direct Artillery Fire modifiers:

« Firing

301 | Fire-Storms

Any unit which has five or more "heavy fire" dice thrown against it in any one fire phase is considered to have suffered a fire-storm effect, which immediately pins down the unit. At least five of all fire attack die rolls for the phase must have originated with at least three of the four following weapon types: Artillery barrages, aircraft attack, heavy mortar, heavy machine gun, direct artillery fire of 7 or larger, Flamethrower.

302 | Equipment Damage

Entrenched bases which declare themselves as prone are immune to being fired upon, although they also may not fire. In order to keep game play simple, the status of involved heavy weapons is left out of this equation. These weapons actually are subject to damage, even if their crew has sought cover. Once the crew returns to their original upright position, they may discover their weapon to be damaged beyond immediate repair.

In order to re-create equipment damage, no heavy weapons may be declared as prone during game play, and field gun bases may not be declared as prone even during the pre-game bombardment.

303 | Friendly Fire

Inexperienced units often fired on friendly troops during confusing encounters, especially in woods, jungle or during times of darkness. To re-create this condition, any unit with marginal or poor training level operating under these conditions must roll to see if it inflicts casualties on any friendly units which approaches to within 60 yards. Only one base of each friendly unit may be targeted. The attack is resolved using the area weapons chart with full modifiers. Both units must be within full cover. Partially covered or other easily identified units are not subject to friendly fire.

304 | Optional Mortar Fire

Players who would like to speed up use of mortars may roll on the Area Weapons chart instead of the Direct Artillery Chart. When using the alternate chart, players should include the following modifiers in addition to those already used:
Firing against personnel targets: Light Mortar: -2, Medium Mortar -1.
Firing against tank targets: Large Mortar: -1, Medium/Light Mortars are No Effect (N/E).

305 | Machine Gun Jams

During the small arms fire roll, any 1 result causes that machine gun base to immediately roll for a jam. If the second roll is also a 1, the gun jams and cannot fire on the following turn.

306 | Flak 88 Effects

The German Flak 36 family of 88mm anti-aircraft guns could also conduct direct fire missions and were famous for their lethal long range anti-tank performance. Players wanting to create a more detailed Flak 88 presence can add some of the following features:

A) Flak 88s have a 3200 yard range for direct heavy artillery fire (game default is 2400 yards).
B) Crews tended to be highly trained and the guns themselves used advanced optics. Consider 88s to have Outstanding training.
C) The Flak 36 was nearly a semi-automatic weapon. The gunner merely needed to keep the crosshairs on a target and the gun could automatically fire as soon as the next round was manually loaded (case ejection and recocking of the gun was also automatic). The gun's high rate of fire might be constrained only by how quickly the loaders could set fuses. To reflect this, allow a Flak 88 base to fire at two targets each turn that are both within the same 45 degree arc-of-fire (or same target twice). On a natural hit die roll of 6 the Flak 88 base gets a third shot (same 45 degree arc-of-fire).

307 | Canister Fire

Some nations still used cannister ammunition for their cannons. One known example is the USMC who used cannister shot for their Stuart tanks on Guadalcanal. Tanks or field guns firing cannister have an effective range of 400 yards and all personnel targets are considered packed, regardless of actual base interval. Cover modifiers still apply.

308 | Exploding Vehicles

Some vehicles tended to explode when experiencing a major penetrating hit. To recreate this, any vehicle on the "brew-up list" below will convert any Damage hit to a Kill hit if the To Hit die roll was an odd number. The penetration must be by a round that did not suffer any To Kill minus modifiers (even if those modifiers were partially or wholly cancelled out by plus modifiers).

Brew-up List: British cruiser and crusader tanks, American Sherman tanks.

309 | Smoke Silhouetting

Tanks would often avoid driving through enemy generated smoke screens because they did not want to become silhouetted. Using this rule, any direct artillery firing on a vehicle which is backed (silhouetted) by a smoke screen that is within 200 yards, the silhouetted vehicle counts as large (large vehicles still count as large).

« Assaults

501 | Lone Assaults

The war saw countless lone acts of bravery, many of which achieved more than whole units. The veteran stormtrooper Ernst Junger considered daring (and often suicidal) acts by individuals to be one of the most common reasons for breaking of tactical deadlocks. Indeed, accounts by all nationalities abound with various heroic acts, from rear-guards being assaulted by lone warriors to crack shots who crept or charged into enemy positions and successfully gunned down anyone who wouldn't surrender. Ironically, the crews who operated machines built for mass slaughter were sometimes ill-prepared to deal with lone assailants!

A lone assault may be attempted once per turn, per battalion or regiment (depending on player preference) against the troop types listed in the chart below. Players should remember that the modifiers are skewed to provide fewer and fewer "heroes" each time an attempt is made. Excessive requests for brave acts will meet with increasing deafness from the less inspired survivors. Also, lone assaults are only effective against somewhat isolated positions or weak units. Fully supported enemy battalions with heavy weapons support will usually chew up lone heroes as quickly as they show themselves.

Hero Die Roll Modifiers
• Great Brave Hero: +1 to die roll if hero is from a unit with great training and/or brave morale or better.
• Active Hero: +2 to the die roll if a hero was successfully requested by this battalion last turn.
• Poor Shaky Hero: -1 to the die roll if the hero is from a unit with poor training and/or shaky morale or worse.
• Well Led Hero: +1 to die roll if hero is from a unit commanded a veteran officer.
• Consecutive request: -1 for each previous hero action requested by this battalion (including both successful and failed requests).
• 120 to 180 yards to target: -1 to the die roll if the distance from the hero's unit to the targeted base/unit is between 120 and 180 yards.
• 180 to 240 yards to target: -2 to the die roll if the distance from the hero's unit to the targeted base/unit is between 180 and 240 yards. No heroic attempts are allowed on targets greater than 240 yards distant.
• Target supported: -3 to die roll if the target base/unit is supported by one or more friendly units.
• Target Pinned/Demoralized: +3 to die roll if the target base/unit is currently either pinned and/or demoralized.

« Barrages

601 | Veteran Officer - Barrages

Veteran officers were sometimes able to mitigate the effects of preparatory barrages based on their previous experience. Common sense practices ranged from digging elaborate tunnel systems to simple trench maintenance. One trick was to lead the men into nearby positions during the barrage. This seemingly suicidal act was actually a stroke of genius if the artillery was firing mostly into known positions and not into an "unoccupied" zone of craters and desolation. In such cases, hiding nearby was actually safer than staying in a known position that was well targeted by the enemy artillery batteries (This tactic would not work with a rolling barrage, and could actually be counterproductive. Knowing when to try something was just as important as knowing what to try).

Any unit under the command of a veteran officer may roll a die (1D6) if it is targeted by any pre-game barrages. On a 6 result, the officer is assumed to have stuck upon an idea to reduce casualties and acted upon it. All pre-game barrage die rolls against that unit suffer an additional minus one (-1) when rolling on the Area Weapons chart.

602 | Sd.Kfz. 251 Wurfrahmen 40 (Rocket firing halftrack)

May be used as an area weapon attack during the fire sequence at Medium artillery range as measured straight from the front edge centerline of the firing vehicle/base. Attacker may not pre-measure before declaring the volley. Roll one six sided die (1D6) for each launch; range varies accordingly:

1 = Minus 180 yards
2 = Minus 120 Yards
3 = Minus 60 yards
4 = On target
5 = Plus 60 yards
6 = Plus 120 yards

603 | Aerial Spotting

Test rule; spotter plane on board places all points under observation. Player must have air superiority. Spotter plane causes all friendly barrages to be spotted (no blind barrages).