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Anybody played Secrets of the Third Reich? Any good? How many figures do you need for an average game?

Yes I have a US Army for it... A few of us at the club have it.

We did it as a club project, played a couple of games and not been near it since.

Not sure why really. The rules are ok, not particuarly bad but nothing amazing either. They also seem rather prone to some 'cheesey' combinations though... Especially for the Germans and US forces.

One thing to watch out for are blast area weapons... I lost all my heavy armoured troops (think 40K Terminators) to a single Panzershreck round went it blew them all up... Not quite sure why they have a blast radius against armour, but they do... Didnt like that aspect, always seen Panzerscreks as pin-point anti-armour weapons.

As I say, pretty average really. Despite us all having painted full armies for the game, we have played it a total of three times... It just left us feeling rather flat. Nothing really bad, but nothing that got us frothing with excitement to play again, despite a fondness for the background. At the moment I suspect I will use Tomorrows War with the Ambush Z zombie rules for games but thats if the rest of the club dont sell their armies first!


Army size... Bigger than I thought.

My army is...

Platoon Command - six figures
3 x Rifle Squads - 10 men each
1 x MMG Team
1 x Mortar Team
1 x Sniper Team
2 x Bazooka Teams
1 x APE Team (costing alot of ££££)

That force gave me games averaging about 60-90 minutes against both German and Russian opponents.

I would be buying two forces and putting on the game, so I can control the forces and factor out any combo sillyness.

I envisaged a small skirmish game with maybe 4 players, someone beating off a load of Zombies.

Well one of the scenarios is for a zombie wave style game... It works well for that.

Im not sure how small forces could be though, but I guess that depends how fast you want the game to be.

My one problem was that I just felt it would have worked better had it been Necromunda or 2nd Edition 40k.

All that said, I would play it again, if only to give it another chance as you always miss something out of the rules when you play your first few games.

Just found the rules on Ebay for a tenner, I'll have a read and a think.

Cheers P

Deadly.

Worth it at that price. The supplement is handt to have if you can get it cheap.

My speed painted Yank army...

Nice.

I was thinking of also taking advantage of the new Bolt Action Miniatures plastic sets for basic infantry with Westwind heads to give them that 1949 feel.

That would work really well... The new plastic British look great.

Be prepared for a bit of work on the Germans. They only have rifle ammo pouches on them and some o fthe weapons look a bit too thin to me. Probably the right scale, but just look too small for gaming models.

But given the way the models are, it wouldnt be hard to replace them with metal weapons.

There is also a set of WW2 Plastic German zombies coming out...

Oh yes! Saw those too............ Part of the reason I started looking

Your right about those German Weapons, they seem to have got the Brit ones right though. Westwind weapon packs might also be in order there.

I think the Westwind or BAM weapon packs will work well.

If you want pics of what you can do with the BAM plastics one of the guys on my forum has done some wicked conversions! Really simple but effective.

And your forum is where?

I play SOTR and it's one of my favourite games. No individual areas stand out but I think the overall result came out well. I strongly reccomend you give it a try. The games has a lot more in depth rules than a lot of otehr 28mm games

I find it works best when not taken too seriously (while the rules are fine to play competitively I have found it not as fun as relaxed games). The best games tend to use a lot of the wierd options, which aren't always that competitve but are great fun.

If you like the rules I reccomend getting the Doomsday expansion, it adds a lot of options especially for the armies that don't get many wierd things in the first book.

The new scenarios are good aswell, they have come up with a lot of interesting ideas which are usually more fun that just trying to kill each other. I rarely play standard games as the scenarios are much better.

Im thinking of having 2-3 allied players with a squad each. They will have to move into an area that has various (and conflicting) objectives for them to look at/destroy. What they wont realise is that the area is ontop of a huge underground bunker system and there are several hatches/entrances which will spue forth random numbers of zombies/Germans until they demolish them. This will depend upon how good zombies are, can that number of troops handle them and can I make that into a fun 2-3 hour game.

Depends on the kind of zombie. In SOTR there are two types:

Standard zombies- Slow but hard to kill. No ranged weapons, they aren't particularly dangerous but kill you because they are so tough. Can carry bombs and blow themselves up to kill nearby enemies.

Sturmzombies- as tough as normal zombies, but faster, and can easily beat normal people in combat. Still lack ranged weapons but can also carry bombs. These are very hard to deal with using normal infantry and usually require the use of a heavy machine gun or othermedium strength weapon.

This would be a good idea to get some people into the game and killing zombies is always fun. It's probably beter to start with standard zombies as sturm zombies are nasty, especially of they are popping up around you. The zombies would need to appear in large groups or very often as a single zombie isn't that dangerous. Having them compete to complete missions at the same time sounds fun (so much so you've inspired me to do something similar).

Normal Zombies sounds like what Im after. I was thinking D6 Zombies per turn that the German player can have appear in any of the 4/5 entrances. I was going to recycle the "Dead" ones (no pun intended) and have them keep comming until the other side seal the entrance points.

Then I think I might go for a new scenario for the next game where now the area's clear some of those guys in big battle suits have to go into the complex, think space hulk. I'll have to get some nice floor plans from somewhere.

There is a game called incursion which is set in the SOTR universe which is like spacehulk. Ape suits vs Sturm Zombies in some tunnels.

Something I have been planning which is similar to your ideas is to have 2 or 3 small platoons on a large board. At the start of each turn zombies radomly appear at spawn points. As the game continues the numbar of zombies spawned increases. The last player in the game wins.

Dont forget the bomber zombies...


Our forum is www.guildwargamers.com

Drop me a PM over there (my member name is Piers) and I will link you the topic.

I saw incursion but assumed it was just a rule suppliment.
Any good?

I haven't played it but if you are interested in getting Germans or US then it is worth getting as the incursion models have rules in doomsday which lets you play them in standard SOTR. It's a good introduction to the setting but I personally think that it's something to play along side SOTR not instead of.

It depends on what you prefer, Incursions focuses on single people while SOTR plays with units. It has a very different feel to 40k as it's a lot more tactical (without being complicated) and while the more elite units are good you have to be careful with them or they will get killed fast. Even the tough stuff dies if you shoot it with an Anti Tank gun or a sniper.

As SOTR don't care which models you use (even in their own competions, although a lot of people use their models as they look great) it's quite easy to get a small force started up cheaply by buying other models and only using the official models for special units.

I would personaly recommend getting some small forces going and see what it's like. If you do like I strongly suggest doomsday as it really improves the games. While the rules in the basic book are good, the platoons are a bit limited. Doomsday adds new wierd units (british MI13, German flying brains, ect...) for each force, new types of platoon (soviet subhuman and mecha, British paratroops, german zombie platoons, and US jet rangers) and the rules to make a partisan force (with special rules to play some of the bigger partisan groups such as french radwraiths- Irradiated french who managed to survive the nuclear attack on france).

It all sounds great! I was going to use westwind for the wierd and wonderful stuff, lets face it with online discount and free P&P from Weyland games its hardly expensive, and plastics for the more run of the mill.

Perhaps I'll get the wife to get me incursion for Christmas.

There was a nice satisfiying thump on the door mat this morning, Im reading now

Wayland Games are doing a special on Incursion, The Game, a pack of Sturmzombies and one of those German chicks with the MP40 all for £25!!!!

I saw this as Fate an ordered straight away

Incursion has just arrived and well, I'm glad I spent the £25!

Quality product is the only way to describe it, nice thick card used in all pieces, study box, stunning game board, art work that can only be described as impressive, quick reference sheet. My first impressions are I'm going to love this game.

The free figures are good as well, good proportions and nice detail.

I cant wait to play it.

Good to hear incursion is worth it, as I didn't bother gettinas I prefer larger games. Once you've played a few games would you be able togive a quick overview?

You planning on playing SOTR aswell or just incursion? If so which forces are you going with?

Played a game Wednesday, did the first mission. It was very Spacehulky, but that is just that particular mission Im told. It was good fun and the rules were nice an easy to learn. I can see that the other missions are going to be alot more diverse, the first mission only uses Zombies. One thing that struck me straight away is that although the card counters are nice, to really get the most out of it Im going to have to have the figures.

Thats not going to be cheap, so I will look at the main table top game after Ive got what I need for Incursion. I will be using either standard Westwind or the new plastic Zombies as I think they look better then the Sturmzombies and are a damn sight cheaper.

If I do expand It will be either Americans or Brits Vs. Germans, I dont like the Soviet models at all.

Started this now with a vengance, found myself buying SotTR and Incursion stuff at the same time (when will I learn?) So heres the first figure:

I've always loved the models for this game. Nice job there too - what was the painting recipe/technique used on the stockings?

Nice and easy, painted the legs the same color as the other flesh and black washed to taste.

And here's big Sis:

Looks good, especially the bases.

Thanks 4M2A, the bases are from Fenris Games, military industrial complex resin bases. They do them in both 30mm and 40mm and were designed for Incursion.

Their quite cheap too.