SPECIAL

By Mark Backhouse

A card driven paratrooper skirmish game

GERONIMO!

I have read a lot of accounts of the D-Day landings and particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the American airborne
landings. Dropping out of the sky the paratroopers were on
their own and had to regroup quickly, often in the face of
fierce enemy opposition. Their dramatic stories inspired me
to try and recreate elements of this tension and excitement
on the tabletop. The part I was particularly keen to try and
play out was the initial landing itself and very much from
a personal perspective... not worrying about companies or
even platoons but instead focussing on the very small scale
actions that often took place during the early morning of the
6th June.

tried playing a few straight set up

scenarios, but by and large they
did not quite capture the feel of the
period that I wanted to recreate. The
confusion of the moonlit night, compounded by paratroopers who were nearly always dropped in completely the
wrong place was rather difficult to get
across. The ideas were therefore shelved
for another day and other projects distracted me. Two ideas seemed to come
together that recreated this spark of interest. The first was playing some boardgames with my friends who are more
keen on roleplaying then wargaming.
The games Zombies! and Carcassone
both use a fun card based board that
slowly expands as the players explore
each turn. Could this sort of idea work
for a wargame? Gary Chalk in 2010
wrote an innovative mini campaign in
WI magazine that used a similar system
to lay out a series of scenarios randomly
before reaching a final objective. Taking
inspiration from these I decided it was
high time to resurrect the old idea and
turn it into a game!

The aim
The idea of the game is one player to
recreate just one soldiers experiences during D Day once dropped into
Normandy. Some games will be very
quick just like some of the unfortunate paratroopers who were killed,
while others might get the opportunity
to perform heroic acts and revel in
glory. Either way you have one hour
maximum per paratrooper (unless your
ruleset is super detailed and you really
need more!). While it would work fine
as a solo game, I envisaged it to be
played several times by different players
in one evening with each then comparing how successful they were.

US Paratrooper advances
Games, or the editors 1938 Legends of
the Old West conversion from WS&S
numbers 52-53. Crucially, you will also
need rules for spotting, and if your rules
do not cover this then you will have to
make up some basic rules to cover it.
What will I need to play?
Your chosen ruleset and a small selection of figures representing Germans
and American Paratroopers. A platoon
per side would easily do this. Lastly you
need to have a set of terrain cards and
some generic Normandy style terrain
to represent them. Hedgerows, fields,
roads and something as an objective
(see later for more information on this).
Ideally you also have at least 3 terrain

THE RULES
We all have our favourites here! I am
not going to be too prescriptive, but
they will need to handle individual figures through to about 20 figures on the
table at one time. You might consider
using At Close Quarters by Chris Peers,
Rules of Engagement by Great Escape
Games, Operation Squad by Warlord

Lock and load! .30 Cal gunner moves up

Landing Table Roll 1d6 and +1 if you are within 2 of a terrain piece,
eg. Tree, house, hedgerow.
1,2,3,4 A safe landing. Your paratrooper make it down intact. He must spend
the next turn ditching his chute and putting together his weapon.
4
OOps! Dropped too fast or too low his leg bag or griswald bag comes
loose and is lost. Your paratrooper loses his primary weapon (eg. M1
Garand, M1 Carbine or Thompson SMG). He now has only a pistol
as a firearm. He must spend the next turn ditching his chute and com
posing himself.
5
Crunch! Dropped too fast or too low by a panicking pilot the pa
ratrooper hits the ground in an awkward way. Rather bruised and
stunned he takes two turns to ditch his chute and put together his
weapon... I hope there are not any Germans nearby!
6
Argh! The paratrooper lands awkwardly and does himself some pretty
serious damage. Hobbling around he will suffer a half movement
penalty for the rest of the game. He must spend the next two turns
ditching his chute and putting together his weapon.
7
Oh no! The paratrooper snags himself on the terrain item and is stuck
if it is a building or a hedge or tree. He will be able to cut himself free
with his knife but it will take at least 3 turns. If he has hit a wall then
he has broken his leg. He can crawl or hobble at a quarter of his nor
mal move. He can attempt to clear the current terrain tile, but once
this is done he must stop the game and wait in cover until he gets
medical help.

tiles such as those produced by TSS, 2 x

2 work well in 28mm, 1 x 1 would be
fine for smaller scales, although simply
use what you have available. I removed
old tiles as I went, playing the game on
a 2 x 4 table.

What happens if I do not have

American Paratroopers?
No problem. This would work well
with British Paratroopers instead. If
you do not have Normandy terrain you
will need to change the card tiles to

something you do have. With a bit of

tweaking this system could be used for
the Sicily drops or even playing German
Paratroopers dropping on Crete or the
Low countries you will just need to
muck about a bit with the tables and
make your own terrain cards to fit it.
Forget WW2 if you like and put it in
a completely different context to suit
you. There is no reason why this system
could not be quickly converted to a
more modern setting such as a downed
Huey pilot in Vietnam.

THE GAME
The player representing the Paratrooper
needs to have a model to represent him.
He is probably an officer or an NCO
and will command any other paratroopers under his control that he encounters. He will be armed with an appropriate small arm of choice, a pistol, a large
knife, bayonet or knuckleduster, a few
grenades and possibly a hawkins mine.
He selects 5 cards at random from the
card deck and an objective card. He
turns over the first card this will be his
drop zone.... maybe not his intended
drop zone, but the one he is going to
land in anyway! Set up a terrain tile
to match the scenery on the card. The
paratrooper player must then work out
where he has landed. Divide up your
terrain tile into multiples of 10 and roll
a 2d10 to work out how far along the
X and Y axis he lands. He should then
consult the landing table.
For each map card drawn out you need
to also consult the events table to see
what interesting things are going on.
Events table roll 1d6 and consult the
appropriate table. Figures and events
should be located on each map tile
using the X and Y axis generator used
for landing. This might potentially mean
that several things are located very
close together.

1,2
3,4
5
6
A cautious advance through the hedgerows.

US paratroopers
Germans
Odd things
Empty

SPECIAL
Paratroops any paratroopers encountered should be equipped at a ratio of
1 SMG for every 3-4 rifles, and roughly
1 LMG (either .30 or BAR for every 10
men). If this encounter is in the drop
zone square then the paratroopers
encountered will also be landing. If
they are in a later card square then they
will be assumed to have landed and to
have got full basic equipment. You gain
automatic control of the paratrooper in
play.

1,2,3
4,5
6

1
2
3
4
5

Artillery barrage hitting a random point.

1d3 cattle wandering around and generally trying to avoid gunfire.
1d3 French refugees trying to hide in a ditch. Incoherent for your
basic French skills!
French resistance 1d3 irregular fighters joining in. Armed with
rifles and SMGs.
An ammunition or weapons container can be used to re-arm any
lost weapons that might have been lost in the jump or upgrade one
pair of paratroopers to a heavy weapons team eg. Bazooka, .30 cal
or even 60mm mortar.
Roll twice on the main events table.

A lone paratrooper.
A small section of 1 +
1d3 paratroopers.
A support team of two
paratroopers (either a
bazooka team or a
.30 team)

Germans The Germans might represent one of several units around the
drop zone. These might be poorly motivated Ostruppen, Regulars or veteran
Fallschirmjger. I recommend that you
go with whichever you have figures for
and use the same for each paratrooper
player in the same evening session. If
you are braving Fallshimjaegar then
best of luck to you! You will need it!
The Germans can be played by another
player or played out by the solo player
if required.

1,2,3
4,5

A lone German on patrol.

A small section of 1NCO
with an SMG + 1d3
Germans with rifles.
A support team of two
Germans with an LMG.

Currahee! The Paratrooper charge their objective.

Rendezvous Point
Odd things
Moving around. If your paratroopers
get within 6 of one of the tile edges
and are facing towards it you may place
down the next map tile. This should
be turned over and the card should be
turned so as it creates the best fit by the
paratrooper player. If there are hedges
or roads then obviously these should try

Gun or radar post

Causeway or bridge

Barracks

Clear it of enemy and wait for the rest of the com

pany to arrive before moving off (1d6 turns)
Capture or destroy the gun
position/ radar. Held by 2 rolls on the German table.
Capture key position and hold from an enemy
counter attack made up of 3 rolls on the German
table.
Several farm buildings billeted with Germans. Kill
or capture all enemy. Manned by 3 rolls on the
German table.

Depending on your terrain resources here are a couple of suggestions,

although there is no reason why you
cannot make up your own:
How do you win?
The paratrooper player scores 5 points
for being alive at the end of the game.
(After 1 hour = daybreak)
For each German killed or captured =
5 points.
For each friendly paratrooper in play =
3 points.
For the objective to have been met = 30
points.
Additional points might be scored for
anything else deemed noteworthy from
sheer bravery and guts to humanity and
selflessness!

to continue. If the card does not fit then

a suitable alternative may be drawn
from the main deck until you can have
it working. The terrain tile is then placed
down and terrain set up accordingly.
As soon as you enter the tile then you
activate the events table. Once tiles
have been completely moved through
and cleared you can remove the old
tiles and re-use the terrain and figures as
required.
What happens if my paratrooper is
killed?
If you have other paratroopers still alive
then you may take over with them if
there is time, until the final objective is
taken.
The objective tile
The objective tile represents one of the

units objective on D Day night. This

could be a simple rendezvous point or a
strongpoint that needs to be neutralised.

I want more!
The basic system has plenty of further
scope. Add in extra events into the
tables, or extra map cards to represent
the terrain you have got. Have additional wandering German patrols to keep
the Americans on the back foot. Allow
several players to play as the American
paratroopers, all landing on the first
square... or maybe play it the other
way around as Germans encountering
the paratroopers and trying to prevent
them from reaching their objective? We
envisaged six tiles for a quick game, ten
for a tougher challenge and a whopping
sixteen for the full Band of Brothers
experience!

Further research
Several excellent accounts of the Normandy drops are available focussing on the American perspective.
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose.
Easy Company Soldier by Don Malarky.
Currahee! A Screaming Eagle in Normandy by Donald Burgett.
D-Day with the Screaming Eagles by George Koskimaki.
The 101st Airborne at Normandy by Mark A. Bando
If you get a chance to visit Normandy the Airborne Museum in St Mare
Eglise is well worth the visit!
Miniatures are Bolt Action and Artisan Design painted by Paul Birkin
and Mark Backhouse. Terrain boards are 2 foot square from TSS.