Description from the publisher:
Combat Patrol: World War II is a set of rules for WWII miniatures skirmish game involving two or more players. Combat Patrol is an exciting set of rules that allows players to focus on the game instead of the rules.
Combat Patrol is a unique card-based miniatures game. The unique Double Random Activation mechanism provides a streamlined method for activating units that provides the friction and drama of card-based systems with none of the drawbacks.
More importantly, Combat Patrol uses a card-based combat resolution mechanism that is exciting and simple while eliminating unsightly chart cards cluttering your beautiful gaming table.
In developing Combat Patrol(TM) I developed the G.A.M.E.R.(TM) “engine.” Key features of the engine are:
•The Double Random Activation(TM) mechanism provides the unpredictability and drama of card-based activation without the drawbacks. This activation mechanism was originally developed for Battles by GASLIGHT and was refined during the development of Look, Sarge, No Charts titles. The mechanism uses cards for activation but ensures that multiple players are acting at the same time.
•No big yellow or pink chart cards cluttering up your beautiful gaming tables. Each player needs one or two 3″x5″ cards with the information about his units, including their weapons and equipment. Other than those, there are no chart cards. The back of these unit records includes the modifiers for hand-to-hand combat and terrain effects on movement. After a game or two, players rarely need to refer to these, so two unit records can be taped back to back for even less clutter.
•Combat resolution is resolved by flipping cards. Players read different sections of the cards in the Action Deck depending on what they are trying to do: shooting, resolving hits, “rolling” to penetrate enemy vehicles, hand-to-hand combat, movement, and morale. In development, I took a series of charts and then broke them apart to fit on an Action Deck of 50 cards. Flipping a card is essentially the same as rolling a die and looking up the result on a table. The difference is that you don’t have to do all that table look up. Flip a card and determine whether you got a hit. If so, flip the next card to see which target figure was hit, how severely, and whether he is protected by cover.
•Cover is represented explicitly. Instead of cover providing a negative modifier to hit, if you get a hit, when you flip the next card in the Action Deck, you look for cover icons. If the target figure is in the type of cover indicated on the card, instead of being wounded or incapacitate he ducks back behind cover and is stunned. While the use of cover as a to-hit modifier and the process in Combat Patrol(TM) can be mathematically equivalent, there is something intuitively appealing to knowing that the window sill deflected that round that would have otherwise hit your figure. In play tests, this explicit representation of cover has made players make better use of cover while maneuvering their squads.
•Messy “opportunity fire” rules are replaced by a simple reaction mechanism.
•Somewhat randomized movement speeds based on the Guts level of the unit or its leader.
•The G.A.M.E.R.(TM) engine name is an acronym for the attributes which describe figures in Combat Patrol(TM): Guts (morale), Accuracy (shooting), Melee (hand-to-hand combat), Endurance (how many wounds a figure can take), and Reaction. The game master can “sculpt” a unit to fit a historical scenario.
•Playable on multiple levels of resolution. At the lowest level, all the figures in a unit have the same attributes. At the highest level, each figure can have different attributes. The levels of resolution can be mixed so that the Commando unit has more detail than the installation security personnel. This allows games that have a historical feel as well as those with a more cinematic feel.
•Rules for replacements of personnel and equipment between scenarios enable players to represent mini-campaigns.
•Ground scale is 1 inch = 5 yards. This is a good compromise ground scale between extreme range being 12 inches and the games resembling Agincourt and ranges that are in scale with the figures where short range covers the entire table.
•The basic rules are just eight pages -- and that includes several pictorial examples of firing and grenade resolution that fill almost a full page themselves!
Activation:
Combat Patrol(TM): WWII uses the Double Random(TM) Activation mechanism. In Combat Patrol(TM), forces are divided into teams, which are typically half a squad. At the beginning of each turn, players roll a six-sided die for each team. This is referred to as the unit's command die. Then cards are drawn from an Activation Deck. The Activation Deck has cards numbers 1 to 6 in red, 1 to 6 in black, and a reshuffle card. The cards are drawn from the Activation Deck. When a card is drawn, all teams whose command die matches the drawn card activate. In this way, many teams are activating at the same time, speeding up game play. When all teams have gone, the next card is drawn. When the reshuffle card is drawn, the turn ends. The command dice are rerolled, and the Activation Deck is reshuffled.
Combat Resolution:
Combat resolution uses decks of cards, called Action Decks. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0hinO2KaMY
There are additional instructional videos, information, and free downloads here: http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/Combat_Patrol.html
Miniatures, Wargame, World War II · Simulation
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