Bit of a surprise, but today I got a round of 1-48 Tactic in. This game probably requires a little bit of a preface, as not many people are aware of it.
1-48 is a small team skirmish game set in WW2. The game is oriented toward fast, brutal skirmish. Each turn you gain 5 actions to spend on your men, who you can actually repeatedly activate. If you don’t spend actions, you bank them for future turns.
It is not realistic, but more cinematic. It makes for intense, brief, and dramatic encounters that are some of the BEST wargaming I’ve experienced. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Gushing aside, let’s take a look at the table… Sorta…
I set this table up for Chain of Command (hopefully tomorrow!) but we cut off the farm area to produce a 4×4 area to play on. Normally, 1-48 is played in a smaller area, but we decided to give the bigger board a go. Our mission is a simple kill mission. First to three kills wins.
The left-most road forms the barrier for our board. The diagonal road is basically a killing lane that we split across. I had a left flank with two men (ARs both) carrying smoke and a right flank near the church with three men (MG, AR, NCO). My idea was to pressure with the church group and use smoke to surprise him up the left flank.
My opponent lined his men up to take opportunity fire down the killing lane, trapping my left flank immediately. He also proceeded to pressure my right flank.
My approach to the left flank now was to stick to my strategy. I laid down some smoke so my man here could advance.
I made it across the road and placed some opportunity fire on the corner of the building. I then forgot that buildings have… more than one side. My opponent came around the other side and shot me good. He used up his actions, though. In 1-48 the first hit wounds, and only the second hit kills. I was down, but not out!
My NCO managed to sneak a shot from the church yard to down his man, saving mine.
Meanwhile on the right flank, I advanced my MG and my AR to a forward position. If you look carefully here you can see an American (opponent) behind the building there. He would go on to wipe out my entire right flank almost single handily. I setup opportunity fire on his corner to prevent him from popping out again. To try to get around this, my opponent brings another man out farther back (photo below) and shoot at me. I managed to down and kill him in one turn as a response!
I don’t seem to have a great photo for this sequence, but essentially, he brings up a man from across the killing lane, who takes shots at my men killing the MG. The AR fires back, dropping his opportunity fire against the man behind the building, who pops out and wounds my AR.
I then remember I still have a man covering the killing lane, who pops out and downs one enemy model!
Unfortunately, I lose another man on the right flank. Good thing we are near a church to be buried.
My opponent also laid down smoke (flaming marker) to block his downed man from being killed. This was the game winning move. I needed one kill, he needed two, but this denied me my kill.
The man behind the building strikes again! Downs my NCO and wins the game.
This game was excellent. It was a ton of back and forth and I didn’t cover every element above, just what I had photos of. 1-48 is everything I love about wargaming. Great models (seriously the best WW2 sculpts I’ve seen), fast effective rules, and tons of tactical decision making. I can’t recommend it enough so long as you can enjoy its rather cinematic style. I won’t do many more reports like this, as I usually like to just do highlights, but I really wanted to convey how dymaic and exciting this game is. Really, check this game out. Link below.
Small Scale Victory 
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