6 replies to this topic

[Peter M. Skaar]

On Saturday, I hosted a game of Mein Panzer at Imperial Outpost Games in Glendale, AZ.  This was a simple meeting engagement scenario set in North Africa in 1942.  We had 4 players for the game with 2 German players and 2 British players.

Three of the four players had not played before and it had been a while since the fourth player had played.  I thought this was a good introductory scenario to give the players a sense of the game at least.

The British side had 2 reduced companies of Crusader IIs and the Germans had 2 reduced companies of Panzer IIIs including 3 "specials" per company.  I left the Panzer IIs out of the mix because I really didn't have enough plus I wanted to keep things as simple as possible.  Of course now I will need to get some more Panzer IIs painted to rectify the situation.

I chose these 2 types of tanks because they are very close statistically.  The speed and armor on both are very  similar and the short barreled 50mm is similar in performance to the 2 Lbr. carried by the Crusader II.
The specials are a bit better but not overwhelmingly so.

There were 4 low hills plus a village with a crossroads in the center that was the main objective for both sides.  I kept the terrain and its effects pretty simple with the players getting automatic hull down on a reverse slope and alley shots if firing in or out of the village. 

We got through 3 turns in about 90 minutes before we had to call the game since a couple of the guys had to leave.  The Germans got the victory since they managed to get the crossroads.  Both sides scored some kills but no brew-ups occurred.

All the players seemed to enjoy the game and are interested in playing again.  For me, at least, that is a successful game.

I just took a couple of pictures at the end of the game showing the final dispositions.

I will plan to run another game around January next year.

 

[healey36]

Very nice, Peter. Great looking terrain and miniatures.

 

"All the players seemed to enjoy the game and are interested in playing again."   

 

That's huge; hopefully the start of a long-running group/series.

 

 

[Peter M. Skaar]

Thanks very much, Healey!  It has been a long time since running my last game.

[Peter M. Skaar]

I am prepping for Sand Wars here in Mesa, AZ on May 18-19.  In order to tweak my Cruisin' for a Bruisin' scenario and get back in the groove so to speak, I decided to run a couple of games at Imperial Outpost which is an FLGS in Glendale, AZ.

The first game was played this last Saturday, April 13th.  I had only 2 players for the game this time with Matt W. taking the role of the British and Jeffrey M. taking the role of the Germans.  Each player had a reduced company with the Germans having 10 Panzer IIIs with 3 being "Specials" and the British side with 11 Crusader IIs.

We played through 4 turns before the game was called but there was a lot of action.  The British got the worst of things but did manage to kill a few German tanks including the German HQ tank.  The British also lost their HQ tank as well.

Both players were fairly new to the game.  Matt had played in the game I hosted in October while Jeffrey had never played Mein Panzer before.  They enjoyed the game and want to play again so I consider it a success.

The next game will be on April 27th at Imperial Outpost.  I think I may have more players for that one.

Here are a few pictures of the game from Saturday.

 

[Kenny Noe]

Well done!

[healey36]

Nicely done; a few more players and you'll likely get well past turn 4, Peter, although as game-master/umpire, you might have a bit less hair. It's a skill I haven't quite mastered. Kenny's very good at it; me, not so much, lol. Good luck on the 27th!

[Peter M. Skaar]

Thank you very much Kenny and Healey! 

I have been running games for 20+ years and I have found that you can't please all the people all the time for sure.  I have run a number of games where most, if not all players, have enjoyed their time very much.  I have run one or two where some of the players were not too happy.  There was one particular game where the members of one side thought the game unbalanced and let me know that.  I did not feel the game was unbalanced but their style of play seemed to work against them in my opinion.

As they say in Hollywood - No director sets out to make a bad movie or words to that effect.  The fact that I have two new guys that seem to like the game and want to play more is definitely a win for me.  For the next game, more people have expressed an interest with at least a couple of them never having played Mein Panzer before.

As an aside, there are three micro armor games scheduled for the Sand Wars convention but mine is the only Mein Panzer game.  This is not a large convention so it will be interesting to see how many players I have for my game.