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SOLDAT II:
WWII Skirmish Rules

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Commonwealth Skirmish Scenarios for WWII

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Pavlov's House or The Stalingrad Sniper Hunt

Here's what the critics are saying about
WWII Eastern Front Skirmish Scenarios
By Andy Turlington

A4 paperback, 98 B/W pages with glossy covers, illustrated throughout with B/W period photos.

Review from Wargames Journal
http://www.wargamesjournal.com/

Contained within this 98 page perfect bound book is all the information you need to have to play 12 skirmish level games set on the Eastern Front during the course of the whole war. The action starts with Poland in 1939 and goes all the way to Konisberg in 1945. The book is geared to scenarios for the FINAL COMBAT set of rules although adequate conversion tables are present so you can convert the stats in the scenarios to 5 of the more popular skirmish rule sets. There is also enough information that I suspect it would be very easy to do stats for any set of rules of your choosing.

Each scenario gives:
Historical Situation – the background to the actual action of which the skirmish game is ‘part of’. All of the scenarios are based on historical occurrences in the ‘big picture’. The action takes place as a ‘piece’ of this big picture, often revolving around some key action.
Orders of Battle and Mission Briefing
Each side is given fixed number of troops and a mission briefing, what the orders are and how to achieve your objective. It is best if only one side is privy to their mission briefing.
A Map – Computer generated and like the rest of the inside of the book in B&W. The maps are grid based and most tables are large if you were to play in 28mm. The authors of Final Combat tend to use big tables and 28mm. You could of course use 15-20mm figures and the maps are rendered using 20mm as a guide, however most scenarios will need a large table (non of your 3’x3’mini games here) ranging from 6x5 foot to 10x6 foot for 20mm. I tested the scenarios using 10mm single based figures and halved the board size.
Judges notes – Final Combat works best if you use a games-master and the scenarios are really geared for this. In this section they will find guidelines for running the game, how to keep it tense, when to divulge information etc. But don’t worry if you don’t use a GM – we ran a number of the scenarios using NUTS playing ‘single side’ against a defender on ‘automatic’ and with a bit of tweaking the scenarios ran smoothly and were fun to play. This section includes the ‘Special Scenario rules’, which cover a wide range of detail from special movement, artillery incoming, communications, special morale considerations etc.
Victory Conditions – Sometimes these are specific conditions that need to be met, sometimes they are a point-based system.

The whole text is very easy and enjoyable to read and doesn’t bog you down in unnecessary detail like many scenario packs tend to do as a ‘filler’. However there is plenty of useful information to get your teeth into for each scenario, which as a comparative ‘Eastern Front virgin’ was very useful indeed.

All in all a very useful addition to one’s library if you are interested in Eastern Front action. Although a ‘skirmish’ book and a lot of people tend to think of Final Combat as ‘squad level’ a lot of the scenarios involve at least a platoon plus vehicles for each side. Many have at least 4-5 tanks and a couple of platoons involved on one side. So they would be suitable for rules where squads are in bases as well as individual figures, we even tested one of the scenarios using FOW as a ‘quick game’ which played well within an hour. If you are not already into the Eastern Front this book may help you spend even more money on our hobby! I can’t see why a majority of the scenario ideas would not ‘port’ across to the NW Front, certainly a couple of our play tests were done using US forces. Even treated this way the book gives a number of interesting scenarios for one to play through. The only possible downside to the book that I could come up with was the actual time span of the scenarios – players may not be geared up for playing the ‘whole’ war equipment wise which either means a few of the scenarios will not be playable OR as is more likely I suspect one will be so intrigued by the scenarios as to go out and buy the extra kit – now where is that credit card?

Rich Jones
May 2008

And from The Journal, Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers
http://www.sotcw.net/

Though written for a set of rules called “Final combat” (which I’m afraid I don’t know) the introduction gives conversion tables for other systems – Arc of Fire, Battleground WWII, Disposable Heroes, Face of Battle and Nuts! The blurb states that – “generic format easily translated to your favourite rules”, from my reading I would have to agree!

12 scenarios each covering a different subject of the war on the Eastern Front; from Poland 1939 to the fall of Berlin. Each scenario is laid out in a clear format – historical situation, Axis order of battle, mission briefing, Soviet order of battle, mission briefing, judges notes followed by sections with special scenario rules effecting – deployment, movement, artillery, etc. Finally a detailed B/W tabletop map.

The scenarios themselves are quite varied with Germans Vs Poles in 1939, Romanians Vs Russians, Spaniards! Vs Russians (my personal favourite), a Stalingrad sniper hunt and finally a massive (for a skirmish game) tank battle during Manstein`s attempts to relieve Stalingrad (this scenario with 10+ tanks per side is the largest in the pack).

I liked the layout and style, the historic backgrounds were concise and to the point. The various “judges notes” made sense and added to each scenario. Whilst I am not an Eastern Front fanatic myself, this book will be of great value to anyone who wanted a number of varied ready to go scenarios.

The blurb says Andy is working on a set of Western Front scenarios, which after reading this book I am really looking forward to.

Reviews by Richard Baber