I used this as a quick teaching game before; It plays in maybe 15-20 minutes. I recently tried it using the preview of the new rules, and it worked pretty well. Thought I'd share.

Something is stirring in the ancient castle . The dreaded Obscura corps of the Reich have taken control of it, and no one knows what their sinister plot might be. When Heinzinger takes most of his troops to deal with a discipline probem in the local village, resistance units see their opporunity, and a pair of soldiers sneaks into the relatively ungaurded castle.

The information they find there could give the Union the chance to stop a terrible power from awakening...if they can make it out alive.

Set Up:

The Union player receives Commando Alpha and Commando Delta, armed with either equipment pack.

The Reich player receives the Strosstruppen and the Shock Trooper, armed with either equipment pack.

Use the Castle Map.

Shuffle the crate tokens and place one on each action circle and each minor objective circle.

Place a Reich flag token on each of the two major objective circles. These represent Heinzinger's notes and sketches of the Patmos seal, which is still being unearthed.

Place 10 spare tokens forming a "path" leading to the castle and place the Heinzinger figure near the path*.

Objective

The Union infiltrators must find collect at least one of the flag tokens and escape the castle by carrying the flag token to their starting entrance.

If both Union troopers are killed, or if Heinzinger returns, the Union loses.

Game Play

A Union trooper may pick up the notes (the flags) from an adjacent circle with an action. The notes do not take up any space, and may be dropped or transferred to an ally as normal for an item.

Heinzinger has graphically demonstrated what will happen to anyone who interferes with his research, so the Reich troops will not pick up the notes, even if they have been moved.

After each turn, move Heinzinger onto the next space on the path. At the end of the 10th turn, he returns to the castle with his troopers, and the Union player loses.

Modifications

Since there are so few models in play, you might want to just use 1 command point per turn. I haven't experimented with the revised rules enough to be sure.

For first edition rules, there are no reinforcements used. (Obviously, there aren't any in second edition either, since there's no way to get 3 CP!)

* The track is just a way of tracking 10 turns. Feel free to use VP counters, or dice, or stacks of stray hamsters. Whatever works for you. Heinzinger advancing to the castle just feels more ominous

I like it.

I love the "Token Path" for an extra-map area. (Although your really only using it as a turn counter) I can see other uses.

BTW

In the first edition rules reinforcments were dependent upon the "difficulty level" see page 14.

Also, the 2nd ed. rules state you may use command points provided by equipment such as the Iron Cross, or a crate. see page 26

Again, very good scenario.

Miah999 said:

Thanks. Hopefully it will work for anyone else

The reinforcements are one of the oddities about the new rules. You can only reinforce before you activate any models , but CPs reset each turn - they don't carry over. So you can't possibly have the extra CP from a crate at the time you can reinforce.

When I played this, the two sides had a firefight in the middle as the Union grabbed the notes. Trooper Alpha was badly hurt, so he handed the notes off to Delta and made a valiant but final stand to buy some time.

Delta got caught in between the two Reich units and was badly injured, but he had just enough move to make a desperate bull rush smash through the Demon trooper to reach the exit and escape!

StormKnight said:

You are right, but I'm hopeing this apperent error in the game mechanic; is the result of us not having rules for the tokens. I can hope but I may be wrong: that there may be some kind of difference between "Bonus Points" and "Command Points" just as BP differed from VP in the 1st edition.

Again, nice scenario.

I gave this a quick solo try last night. As I saw before, it was a lot less lethal (I only had one casualty!). However, that's playing a game without any real heavy hitters, and the maneuvering was very exciting.

Both sides made a dash for the center. I had Commando Delta with the Stamina back so he could really move far. However, the Demon Trooper was able to block him in the center of the seal, so he could not get to the objectives, while the Shock Trooper took up position on the machine gun nest and hosed the area down with fire (courtesy of overwatch and the Fire! Fire! Fire! or whatever its called ability).

A grenade from Commando Alpha wounded the demon trooper, but I decided that trying to fight from that position was a bad idea for the Union, so they retreated and approached from a different direction, where if the demon stayed blocking the center they could shoot him without the shock trooper being able to stay on a bonus circle. The Reich moved to block, the demon trooper rushing to attack (and stubbornly refusing to lose that last wound) and the shock trooper holing up in the doorway.

The Union threw a smoke grenade to neutralize the shock trooper's overwatch, but failed to bull rush past him, and instead dashed toward a different entrace, having circled clear around to the other side of the cavern by now. They got a break when they finally gunned down the demon trooper. With the Stamina pack, he wouldn't be staying gone though!

The second smoke grenade let Commando Alpha make a mad dash to the center of the chamber while the shock trooper coughed and sputtered in the smoke (I made the ineffective 1 die attacks for him, having forgotten that smoke means you can't attack more than 1 circle away. Oops), while the badly wounded (1 health left) Commando Delta held off the demon trooper.

Alpha grabbed the notes and ran for the exit, with the shock trooper hot on his heels. While the Union won initiative, the trooper went on overwatch, so he got a volley of desperate fire at Commando Alpha as he fled, but the shots barely missed and the Union escaped with the key information, with only 2 turns left.

Very happy with how it played. I'm still typing up reference sheets to use before I can play a full game, but I think I may try this little intro scenario against another actual player tonight. Maybe.

Thank you for writing up an AP report, that's a great scenario. I like the way you use Heizenger as a turn counter - very ominous - and the creative use of spare tokens as a pathway leading to the castle's entrance. For me, half of Tannhauser's appeal is the game's visual nature, and this is a neat way to transform a simple game mechanic into something more tangible.

Your scenario got me thinking... wouldn't it be great to have a map of the castle's exterior (e.g. a walled garden maze with a checkpoint and guard house) that links up with the top floor of the mansion? I can imagine some interesting "castle assault/escape" scenarios with a map like that.

One of the things I'd love to see FFG produce for Tannhauser is a map-pack expansion - even if they are PDF downloads we can purchase and then print. As it stands now, the maps are a limiting factor to designing new and thematic scenarios.

Don't forget the fan-made maps - they look pretty good, too!

More map variety would be nice.

Finally got to play this and try the new rules against a real opponent last night! She's either luckier or more vicious than I am, as the game was a lot more destructive. I nearly blew up Commando Delta with my shocktruppen's grenade, but just couldn' t seem to finish him off with the strosstruppen, especially after he backed off into a defensive spot and set off a smoke grenade.

I had the shocktruppen already to defend the notes with overwatch fire, but only got one ineffective shot off before Commando Alpha nailed him, killing him outright with a single burst from the flashgun.

The strosstruppen was able to block his run for the exit, but couldn't kill him, and Alpha escaped with the plans, in only about 5 turns.

Wonder if this is slanted towards the Union...

Next game: Need more reference sheets! I've got a few scenarios in mind, and some of the new/revised modes look cool. Decisions, decisions...