NUTS! Border Skirmish - IJA-IJN Joint Scouting Mission

The foliage cover was so good that I lost track of the chap on the right for half the game.

Last weekend we tested another set of squad level rules, NUTS! by Two Hour Wargames (now rebranded as TWH). I don't have a set of the rules, they were explained to me verbally, so apologies for any errors below.

It has a somewhat similar feel to Five Men at Kursk though with the welcome additional of a fog of war device that lends tension to the opening turns. Before units are placed on the table each side instead moves around blips that Possible Enemy Forces (PEFs). The players mark which PEFs represent actual units, the others are bluffs. Do I engage one PEF only to be outflanked by another?

The PEF only spawns once its player decides to reveal it or it enters the line of sight of an enemy unit.

The IJN. There's a PEF chip in the background.

In our test game of Imperial Japanese Army/Imperial Japanese Navy v US Marine Corp on a recon mission I managed to use two PEFs to keep the Marines player guessing as to whether he was charging headlong into a combined bloc of two IJA and IJN squads, or a lone IJN squad with the IJA potentially flanking him (it was the latter).

Once a unit steps into the line of sight of an enemy an In Sight test is triggered to see who shoots first. Fire and counter-fire is resolved until someone is dropped or the exchange broken. Thus, there's quite a large role for 'interrupt' reactions before squad actions get resolved.

We also learned that we shouldn't let our NCOs or LMGs be the first to enter the enemy line of sight. Sometimes you can't avoid it as the NCO spawns on the PEF token when it is revealed.

My IJA squad spawns from its PEF as it enters the line of sight of some Marines. My NCO is promptly shot down by reaction fire...

Marines spawn from a revealed PEF

Firing ranges were very long on the 6' by 4' board and we really learned to fear the BAR.

Otherwise, the game was quite intuitive in the manner of Five Men with very simple definitions of obscurement and cover (soft and hard terrain basically).

Our mission objective was to have at least one man scout out the three sectors of the enemy table edge and make it back off a friendly edge.

"Where are we now, guys?" The spirit of Captain Sobel lives on.

Oh wait, that's a friendly up ahead.

With two squads per side our IJN squad was wiped out but for their sergeant. Luckily he used fast move to scout out the enemy sectors and managed to escape off the table with cover provided by the flanking IJA force.

Heading back to camp to put in a request for some aerial bombardment.

That's it for the NUTS! playtest. Next weekend: Disposable Heroes.