What follows is an explanation of the major mechanics of WW2 conversion of Stargrunt 2. This document may also be of interest to players new to Stargrunt 2, but be aware that there are changes I’ve made.

SG2 is a fast play system which emphasises morale and quality of troops. Weapon effects are significant, but the best weapons in the hands of novices will not produce anywhere near as great an effect as experts.

The document is designed so you can view it in Word using the Outline view.

There mechanics are slightly unusual for a game involving shooting, in that opposed rolls are used, the higher result the better.

Dice Shifting

Rather than having a set of tables for range and number on fixed dice required to hit, you shift the SIZE of dice rolled. D4 - d6 - d8 - d10 - d12.

Avoid rolling ones.

Squads

Largely speaking, the squad, section or tank squadron is the smallest group you move or shoot with. The one exception which enables you to do stuff with more than a squad at a time is hidden away in Close Combat, where you can close assault with multiple squads at once.

Turn sequence

Many modern systems revolve round one player moving everything, then the other. Op fire deals with problems due to both being simultaneous. Largely speaking, one player stands there and takes it whilst the other dishes it out.

SG2 isn’t like this, one player does stuff with a squad, then his opponent does so.

This is called Activation, and one Activation is potentially simultaneous with the next and or previous enemy activation.

Op fire is possible, you want to do it when something moves into view and is about to shoot you.

Activation

You can pass on an activation so long as you have less units left to activate in a turn than your opponent.

This is very important to outnumbered defenders who’ll find themselves completely outmanoeuvred if they overlook this rule.

Once every unit has been activated, then the turn is over.

Actions

You get two actions per activation of a squad. The major ones are moving and shooting. You can move and move or shoot and shoot as well as move shoot etc. The thing about shooting twice is any single bloke can only fire a weapon once in a bound. ( Exception: unless they serving a support weapon such as HMG or AT gun. )

So if you fire all your riflemen in the first action, one of these may not pick up a Pz Faust and let fly in the second.

Moving

Squads move 6" except when under fire when they roll d6 doubled. This is not a voluntary choice of the player, it’s a result of firepower making a squad erratic. Very light troops may move 8" and encumbered ones 4".

Vehicle movement is 8" cross country usually. This would be higher, but tanks are pretty good anyhow, and tankers are assumed to be driving along slowly lest they run friendly infantry down or drive right up to enemy infantry who will have a Molotov warm welcome for them.

Sighting

Mostly the sighting rules are designed so’s a defender gets the one turn of shooting from ‘ambush’, then if anything is still hanging about unsuppressed they automatically get to spot the defender. Thus the attacker must ensure sufficient quantity covers expected areas that he can rely on seeing the enemy once they shoot and get to fire back next turn.

Quality

The coloured chit with the number on it is your squad’s quality. The number represents your leader’s quality and the lower the better. Remember: low rolls bad. High good.

You will roll your quality dice and attempt to beat the number or one based on it when you try and do things such as remove suppression, rally, communicate… in fact most things other than the shooting.

Even then, one of your dice will be a quality dice based on the chit’s colour.

Shooting

This is an opposed roll, the targetted player gets to be involved in that he throws a dice based on the range, modified by cover. The longer the range and or the more cover, then the bigger the dice. If it goes over d12, then the fire can have no effect.

The shooter rolls firepower and quality dice.

A squad can fire a support weapon plus regular small arms in one go, in which case they get a dice for the rifles / smg + another for the lmg plus the quality dice.

One dice greater than the target is a suppression, two is a suppression plus potential casualties.

Whilst three dice are better than two, there’s a trade off to consider and particularly with high quality squads, you’ll find two lots of two dice are fairly attractive.

Range

Small arms range bands are measured in inches. So’s you only need remember one set of numbers the range bands are equal to the quality dice. So an average squad has a d8 quality dice and it’s range bands are measured in 8". Short range ( target rolls d4) is up to 8" for an average squad, the second range band is up to 16" (target rolls a d6) and so on.

As cover shifts the dice up one or two steps, you often need to count through the steps up.

I work out the number of range bands, add one and double it for dice type.

A green squad shooting at enemy in a house is 23" away, hence in the 4^th range band +2 for hard cover giving 6^th range band or a d14. D12 is the biggest dice rolled so their efforts are ineffectual.

If they’d have been average though, that’d be 3^rd range band +2 = 5^th. (5+1) x 2 = d12.

A difficult shot, but at least with some kind of chance of success.

Cover / Armour

If you’re being shot at, then if the fire is on target you want something nice and solid between you and the incoming. Hard cover such as walls or armour will do the job.

Armour is assumed impervious to small arms fire.

Otherwise, when two shooting dice exceed the range dice then you roll off for casualties.See the rules for how many you can cause.

For each, you roll an impact dice versus the target’s armour. This is d4 for infantry usually.

Taking cover behind bricks and mortar shifts this up to a d6.

Suppression

Small arms fire at a fair range or into cover is likely to result in no casualties, but has a fair chance of suppressing a squad.

As it’s title suggests, this represents the way squads have a tendency to hug dirt as they come under fire.

Each suppression may also result in a drop in morale, but the main effect is to rob that squad of actions whilst the leader motivates his men and removes the suppression.

Two in a turn means the squad will definitely take an entire activation just to remove them.

Morale

There are grey chits represent your squads’ morale ( confidence as the rules describe this ). You mostly start at confident, slipping either one or two steps per failed confidence roll until you hit Routed.

Most squads will rout long before they are turned into smoking boots, especially if shot at more than once in a turn. Morale tests can be guaranteed failures, pour on the heat and watch em run.

Use rally actions to up the morale of squads before they leg back out the line, off the table and into the figures box.

Command Control

Rallying is important, but by then you’re in trouble. A more important thing that commanders do is to pass on their actions. Part of the fun is to decide how far you put your command squads / tanks forward. Do you act like ‘Panzer’ Meyer and lead them in on a motor bike, or hang back from the action immune to direct attack.

Close combat

Bayonet, sharpened entrenching tool and grenade are all lumped into the Close Combat rules. These side-step the precision of precisely which figure is where and deliver the goods via lining figures and rolling off opposed rolls.

Don’t engage in close combat in your first game, learn shooting and moving well before moving up to street-fighting.

The first time you do this, you’ll be struck by how bloody the effects are.

Before you get stuck in, ensure you outnumber the enemy and that you have weapons suited for the job, or at least he also doesn’t have. Aside from flame throwers, what you really want is to reduce his morale to Broken first, so you don’t even fight. If you must put valuable men into the breach, don’t make it a fair fight, or you’ll lose. Heap three suppressions up, outnumber him two or three to one. And whatever you do don’t roll low and leave your assault squad sat in the middle of the road looking stupid as he shoots you to bits with his free shot.

As sides come to contact then the set of priorities will often change several times during a bound. Do you need to get your shot off with that squad, or is it better to wait and see if he moves that bunch over there into view…. This adds quite a bit to the challenge of the game. This and opposed rolls mean that both players are constantly involved.

Think about what the enemy are doing, are likely to do and activate your units which matter least first.

Try and shoot his most effective units before he gets to use them.

Optimise the range and cover you engage enemy over. Try and minimise the number of enemy can see something firing from ambush. Support the main assaults as you attack.

Concentrate force but not so you make a great target for artillery.

Keep your commanders safe, but they need to be up there influencing events if you’re to maximise their potential.

Hit a given squad or unit with as much effective fire in one turn as possible, losses in a turn are accumulative for confidence rolls simulating the greater shock effect of large losses at once.

It’s often said that the most successful commanders are those who make the LEAST mistakes.

Once you get a squad or two stuck in front of the enemy and you watch the suppressions mount up, you’ll know what they meant.

Whilst the rules are fast play, they are a fair match to ‘reality’.

Real tactics maximise your chances of success.

Real bad tactics will likely see your casualties mount and morale tumbling.