Built-up areas afford plenty of cover for infantry to shelter within and set ambushes. Buildings can become strong points in any defence, whilst even the most heavily-armoured tank can fall prey to infantry using short-ranged anti-tank weapons from concealed positions.
The rules we have already described for difficult terrain serve to represent ruinous buildings and rubble. The following rules cover buildings that are substantially intact, as well as defensive structures such as blockhouses and pillboxes. These kinds of structures pose an interesting conundrum to the wargamer: do we want our building models to be hollow, with roofs and floors that can be removed, so as to allow us to place models inside… or are we going to have solid buildings that serve to set the scene, but which can only be occupied in a nominal way?
Players can agree that models cannot enter buildings at all if they prefer. Perhaps the buildings are burning as a result of preliminary shelling or bombardment. However, although practical, this is not a very satisfactory solution, as we would like to picture our soldiers shooting from windows and dashing from door to door.
Only infantry units are permitted to enter buildings during the game. In order to enter a building, an infantry unit must be ordered to Run, all the models in the unit must get to within 1” of the building, and at least one model must reach an opening such as a door or window. The entire unit is then removed from the table. Note that this is comparable to the procedure for a unit mounting into a transport vehicle. If a building has more than one floor, units will enter on the ground floor. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that most buildings are large enough for a single unit to occupy each floor. This would be about correct for a house, small office building, or similar structure. Floors that are occupied by enemy troops cannot be moved into except by means of an assault as described later.
Note that infantry and artillery units can be set up inside a building at the start of the game if the building is at least partially inside their side’s set-up zone. Artillery units set up in this way will be unable to move for the duration of the game.
The rule for leaving a building is comparable to dismounting from a transport vehicle and is worked out in a similar way. The unit must be on the ground floor and must be ordered to Advance or Run. Make the move as normal, measuring the unit’s move from any opening on the ground floor.
A unit is allowed to make an assault move from within a building, either against an enemy on another floor, into an adjoining building where they are connected, or by leaping out from the building and attacking enemy outside. An enemy who is outside a building can react by firing at the assaulting unit in the usual way, but calculates fire once the assaulting troops have left the building, i.e. without the benefit of cover. Enemies on a different floor of the same building or in an adjoining building cannot react by firing in this way – see the rules for assaulting buildings.
Units inside buildings must be given orders in the usual way. An Advance order can be used to either leave the building, to move from one floor to another floor, or to move into an adjoining building and in all cases to shoot as well, as is usual for advance orders.
A Run order can be used to either leave the building, to move up or down two floors, to move up to two adjoining buildings, or to make an assault into an adjoining floor or building.
Sometimes players may want to represent a larger building: a railway station, a factory or workshop, a school, town hall or other substantial public building of some kind. In these cases it is best to treat a large building as a number of roughly house sized adjoining buildings all connected together. It is impossible to cover every kind of eventuality – but it is best that house-sized portions are no bigger than about 8” by 8”, and preferable about 6” x 6”, as this allows infantry to move through at a reasonable pace. These can be thought of as individual building ‘sections’. If a single building section has dimensions greater than a standard infantry move, troops with a Run order are not allowed to move through two sections at once, as that would obviously enable them to move unfeasibly quickly.
The rules given here assume buildings and building sections of about house size, so when considering larger buildings bear in mind that they are treated as multiple connected buildings and not just one.
Units inside buildings may shoot from any visible opening including windows and doors. Measure range and calculate line of sight from these openings. We assume that up to two men can fire out of any domestic sized window or door. A unit in a building can divide its fire against different targets on different sides of a building, but all fire from each side of a building must be aimed at the same target.
In the case of fixed weapons that have a limited arc of fire, the player must specify the opening where they are deployed; usually this will be a window or door. They will fire only out of the designated opening until the unit makes an Advance or Run action, when they can be redeployed to another opening if desired.
If troops that occupy an upper floor fire against an armoured target within 12”, any heavy weapons hits scored will strike the target’s top armour and therefore score the extra +1 penetration bonus. Note that this doesn’t apply twice to mortars or howitzers shooting indirect as they already receive this bonus.
Units armed with small arms can shoot at enemy inside buildings if they have a line of fire to any opening on the floor occupied by the target. Range is measured to visible openings. Aside from flamethrowers, heavy weapons don’t need to see an opening to shoot, but just need to be able to draw a line of fire to any wall of the corresponding floor – big shells go through most walls. Roll to hit the target as normal. Units inside buildings count as behind hard cover (–2 to hit) and can react by going down in the usual way when shot at.
Aside from HE fire as noted below, a damage roll of 6+ is always needed to score damage against an enemy infantry or artillery unit in a building, regardless of the quality of the unit. The die roll is modified by the penetration value of the weapon as normal. Note that this is the same as for artillery equipped with gun shields.
A German Spinne emerges from the ruins to confront US Heavy Infantry.
If a weapon fires an indirect HE round and scores a hit against a unit inside a building, this means the shell has managed to find – or make – an opening. Roll a die. On the roll of a 4, 5, or 6 the shell explodes immediately hitting any target on the roof and/or the uppermost floor of the building. On the roll of 1, 2, or 3 the shell has plummeted straight through the topmost floor, so roll again to see if it explodes on the floor below. On a roll of 4, 5, or 6 the shell explodes on the floor below, and will hit any target on that floor.
Once again, on a roll of 1, 2, or 3 the shell plummets down to the next level. Keep on rolling in this way until the shell explodes or reaches the ground floor, where it will explode automatically. HE shots fired over open sights – i.e. directly at the target – can be aimed at any viable target in the same way as already described for other weapons.
If an HE shell strikes troops that are either inside a building or on rooftops, damage is scored as if the target were in the open. The extra protection rule given above does not apply. Even the crews of guns fitted with a gun shield are hit as if in the open – the gun shield having no effect. In addition, if a weapon with HE value of 2D6 or greater hits a unit inside a building, the explosion might bring the entire house down about their heads. In this case, roll to determine how many hits are inflicted as usual. If the total number of hits scored is twelve or more then the building is blown to rubble and all infantry and artillery units inside it are destroyed.
Remove the building and replace it with a ruinous equivalent or an area of rubble and debris.
A flamethrower can only be used against troops inside buildings where there is a window, open door, or some other gap to shoot through. Flamethrowers score hits automatically without making any ‘to hit’ roll and are therefore devastating when used against troops within buildings.
The extra protection rule described above does not apply to flamethrowers. As with HE shots, troops are hit as if in the open, and gun crews derive no protection from their gun shield. If a flamethrower is used against troops in a building then the building catches fire on D6 roll of a 4, 5, or 6 and is considered impassable from then on. Any surviving infantry units inside a burning building will immediately abandon it in the same way as units disembarking from a vehicle that has been immobilised or destroyed (see here). Artillery units inside a burning building are automatically destroyed.
Infantry outside a building can assault enemy units occupying the ground floor of a building. Measure the move to any opening on the ground floor. Resolve the assault sequence as normal, except that the assaulting models are moved into contact with the building, with at least one model in contact with an opening. The rest is exactly the same as an assault across a defended obstacle, see here. Infantry units inside a building can assault units on a floor immediately above or below, or on the same floor of an adjoining connected building section.
Heavy and super-heavy tanks or super-heavy walkers can attempt to smash into a wooden or brick building in the same way as already described for tanks assaulting other vehicles. This is treated as an assault and the building has a total Damage value that is established randomly when the assault is made as follows:
| Wooden building | 2D6 |
| Brick building | 3D6 |
Tanks are not allowed to attempt to assault fortifications such as pillboxes, blockhouses, tank traps, bunkers, or any other structures that are equally solid in construction. Note that Damage values given for buildings are meant to reflect fairly substantial buildings – it is not intended that a tank should be troubled by a garden shed, kennel, or sentry box.
A heavy tank or super-heavy walker would therefore roll a D6 plus its Damage value (D6+10) whilst a super-heavy tank would roll D6+11. Walkers with fists may add a further +1 to the roll for each fist. The opposing player rolls for the building.
If the building scores higher resolve damage against the vehicle as described for a vehicle ram. If the building is a wooden structure only superficial damage is caused; the vehicle model is placed in front of the building having failed to demolish it.
If the building and the vehicle score the same, then resolve superficial damage against the vehicle and the building is destroyed as below.
If the vehicle scores higher than the building, the building collapses in the same way as for an HE shell. The building is destroyed and the model is replaced with an area of rubble. The vehicle is placed within the rubble area and comes to a halt, indicated by turning its order die to Down.
Finally any vehicle that survives driving into a building takes a further pin marker in the same way as tanks surviving a collision.
Artillery units cannot enter buildings during a battle, but can be placed in buildings during deployment. We assume their position has been prepared in advance. If so, the player must pick an opening for the gun to fire from. This cannot be changed during the game. An artillery unit placed in this manner cannot move and cannot therefore be ordered to Run or Advance during the game – its position and its arc of fire are both fixed.
The following rules cover bunkers, pillboxes, and all other reinforced buildings specifically designed to protect soldiers from enemy fire. Bunkers follow the rules given for buildings with the following exceptions.
Bunkers can only be accessed through doors and not through firing slits. Similarly, models can only fire from/towards firing slits and not through doors or through solid walls. It’s extremely difficult to hit troops inside bunkers through the narrow slits in the reinforced walls; therefore when shooting against them, the cover modifier, which normally is –2 is increased to a whopping –4. This makes flamethrowers the perfect tools against bunkers because hits are automatic (see here).
Indirect fire weapons (at least those of the calibre we cover in our game) are useless against bunkers with thick reinforced concrete roofs designed to be shellproof. Indirect fire weapons cannot shoot with any effect against bunkers or their occupants.
Tanks and walkers cannot assault bunkers.
