For my second One Page Ruels – Covering Fire! game I made these changes with respect to my first battle:

I added a train rail through the battlefield (difficult terrain – no cover). This proved to be irrelevant, since the Green attackers crossed the railway during their initial activation, when the Gray had no line of sight to them.

I made the objective a flat area with no cover (I decided the vehicle does not count a cover).

I used more coloured bases in order to make things more visible – red base: Company Commander; yellow base: Platoon Commander; blue base: Support Weapons.

Turn 1 and 2: the Green left platoon approaches a wooded area that will grant them a good firing position towards the objective. A second platoon crosses the railway and occupies the objective. The third platoon splits: the Company commander, together with two other units, occupies a building near the center of the table; the Platoon Commander and the other units remain in reserve. The Gray right wing occupies a wood in front of the objective: they are immediately targeted by the Green men both in the objective area and in the wood behind it. In turn 2, the Green reserve moves behind cover across the whole field, finally reaching a wood in the lower part of the table. At the end of Turn 2, the Green side gets its first Victory Point.

Turn 3 and 4: the Gray moves a second platoon right in front of the objective, but again they are under intensive fire by the whole Green company, which is now deployed across the whole field. The Gray lose two Platoon Commanders and several other units. Two more VPs for the Green (now at 3).

Turn 5 and 6: the Green in the wood at the bottom of the table move out to charge a few Gray units in the open: those Gray units move forward into a small wooded area very near the objective. Gray fire towards the objective is more effective now: the Green support weapons team is destroyed, one squad is suppressed and another pinned. But the Platoon commander and the third Rifle Squad are still in good shape and collect the last two Victory points.

Comments:

I understood that in my previous game I misinterpreted Group Firing: I used to roll a bunch of dice, pooling together all firing units. This was more or less guaranteed to result in at least two successes. Now I roll individually for each unit: so the probability that a single unit scores two successes is much lower.

I must definitely try deploying along the longer sides of the table: this could make outflanking manoeuvres easier.

I probably need more blocking terrain: possibly smaller areas but in greatest numbers.

The idea of an open, cover-less objective area seems interesting. I will probably use it again in my next game.