'Hammer of Democracy' Christmas bash #2

 My nephew, a burgeoning wargamer, came over for a Christmas game. Now, little did I know that he has been receiving education in 'Advanced Squad Leader', so he knows his sh*t...

 I had what I thought, was an 'introductory' game set up with 'Hammer of Democracy', but actually, these rules have an immense amount to offer.

 I have had them for years, and never got to play, but here are some highlights.

• The game is intrinsically designed to be hacked. There is a solid game system there, and to be honest, you get as much gameplay, game-dynamic, and quasi-simulation from these rules as you get from expensive hard backed books for ww2 wargaming. I do not say this lightly.
• Orders work off a number of d6 rolled. Now in our game, we took '2 best of 4' for Germans, and '2 best of 3' for British, emphasising German command ability. Invariably this meant that the Germans had command freedom, whilst the British, even with greater numbers, were hampered by command inflexibility. Add to taste in terms of ww2 actions. 
• Each order can devolve into: move and engage, move only, defend (get HP back), or regroup (get HP back if out of range).

•  Units typically have 7hp...in our game we used 1d6 damage as a standard

• Hits in the open 6+ on 2d6, cover makes this 8+ or 9+ etc.
• Armour works differently, with differentiation for turret and hull hits and a really tense mechanism for taking out tanks - good guns are 'really' good against poor armour. Now for a simple system, this all works beautifully, so much so that my nephew kicked the 'old man's' ass... 

 A great set of rules - and very compatible with 1:1 vehicle scenarios - and one infantry base = 1 fire team OR even a full squad.

'It's Firefly time!'

too many damned Panthers

British advance up the road

Early 'Ronson' action

A lot of built up area

Panthers take up ambush positions on the flanks and make an absolute mess of the British armour

A lot of smoking wrecks

On the British right, the German armour takes long range shots

British infantry make it to the farm

The British assault across the bridge, when their withdraw roll is imminent

British MGs and infantry on the flank

'over the bridge lads...'

German MGs and armour

The bridge marks the furthest point of the futile British advance, into the teeth of German armor and MGs

'Vee seem to hev seen them off Hans...'