Review of Battlegroup Kursk rules

In an earlier blog post about whether to get the new Bolt Action WW2 rules, I mentioned some other rules I had tried, and I considered revisiting Chain of Command (CoC). When I went to my rules shelf I noticed a rules bundle I had purchased at a B&B stall (I can’t remember where or when) and I had never untied, or looked at them, once I had got home. These were the hardback books Battlegroup Kursk (BGK), the Battlegroup Overlord supplement and an A5 softback version of the rules (all together costing me only £20 compared to a RRP of £70!). So, rather than play CoC again, I decided to give BGK a go. I have managed to play a few solo games all using Eastern front 20mm forces on a 6’x4’ table and 250 points (i.e. Squad level game).

The ‘Orders’ section of rules is straightforward; all the standard, obvious options are available and include reactive orders, allowing covering fire etc. The reactive movement (rather than the reactive fire) order is a bit strange, and I never used this in my games. The turn order is IGO-UGO and number of orders available to a player results from a single D6 roll plus the number of officers in the force, which can give widely fluctuating results. Larger games use multiple D6’s and give a more standard range of results. Some things were not clear: German infantry sections have 2 teams (rifle and LMG) and I was not sure whether this needed a single order (in which case, why have separate teams listed), or individual orders (in which case, the German player will struggle with the number of orders required)? Reading the Overlord supplement, I found a rule for separating Bren teams from their sections in the British listing, and I decided to use this for the German sections/teams in my games (I’m still not sure if this is correct). I also was not clear about man-portable heavy weapon teams (HMG, mortars etc.), because there did not appear a requirement to set them up; could they simply move and fire like normal infantry teams, or should they be considered as Very Light weapons teams and need an ‘unlimber’ phase before firing?

The ‘Movement’ section is again nice and simple, but maybe too simple? There is no deduction for infantry movement in rough/difficult terrain. OK I can live with this, but I instinctively feel that marshes, woods, hedgerows etc. would have an impact. What do you class man-portable heavy weapons as? I think lugging a heavy base-plate for a mortar would significantly slow you down. Tracked armoured vehicles can weave about with no apparent deduction; I had a T-34 move down a road in a village, take a sharp 90 degree turn, then make another 90 degree turn around the side of a house, and then another sharp turn to face the enemy, all with no speed reduction.

The ‘Direct Fire’ mechanisms are again streamlined, all basically following the same procedure: observation, hit, save/penetration. I quite liked the fact you may not necessarily see the target and therefore not fire; and also liked the differentiation between firing for effect and pinning/covering fire. Pinning is pretty much as valuable as killing targets, due to morale effects discussed later. I had no major quibbles about weapon ratings etc., except possibly the German MG34/42 is over-rated? A rule that I used frequently was when a squad was trying to close assault; if multiple casualties are inflicted, you can instead take a single loss, retreat back to cover and become pinned. The vehicle listing seems to indicate that players should record the number of rounds fired. Really? I ignored this in my games – Life is too short for such nonsense!

The ‘Indirect Fire’ section follows a similar process but does raise some issues. I liked the ‘Communications’ aspect for calling higher command support, but this does burn a players order count. The accuracy dice roll again seems a bit random, and you can cancel the fire order if the ranging round falls short. There is no ability to ‘walk-in’ the artillery in subsequent turns, and the danger zone is standardised and not related to the calibre and number of weapons firing. The biggest omission is the lack of smoke rules, which is very strange indeed!

The ‘Morale’ section can be split into two. At a unit level, a casualty or non-penetrating hit results in a simple D6 dice roll, Veteran/Elite troops can re-roll, but this seemed to me to be too simplistic. Troops that are already ‘Pinned’ and fail, rout off. If a player rolls a straight 6, then the unit has a chance to take an immediate counter-action. At the battlegroup level, each force has a numeric strength and morale effects result in the random drawing of ‘Chits’ that reduce this value. I really like the uncertainty this mechanism introduces, particularly because it can result in occasional side effects e.g. mine strike, air strike etc. Reduction of battlegroup morale to zero results in defeat. Strangely, rallying unit/units from Pinning requires the drawing of a chit to rally D6 units. It would seem that waiting for the number of Pinned units to rise before rallying would be sensible, but this is often not practical. Units that tend to be pinned are those at the focal point of your plans, so you cannot wait to get them active again, and therefore you have to rally even if only a single unit needs such treatment. I have found games to be frequently lost simply by the effects of pinning opposing units, and obliging an opponent to rally. Maybe my game play and/or tactics are at fault, and I would be interested to hear what other gamers think?

Before I discuss the non-rules aspects of the BGK publications, I will comment about the type of game they give. I like the speed of play, the mechanisms are clean and simple, and the use of chits to determine victory is good. The order system is fine but rather random when using ‘Squad’ level games. Combat is clear and does not require constant double checking in the main rules. The main weakness lie in the unit morale system (too simple) and rallying. The lack of smoke rules is bizarre! Overall, I cannot see BGK becoming my go-to WW2 rules. I will stick to CoC, which I think gives a better game, and I also still intend to try the new version of Bolt Action.

The A5 paperback rules are excellent (only £10). Regarding the hardback publications (£25-30 each), I would be very disappointed if I had purchased them at the normal price. Why do authors think they have to provide pages and pages of potted history in such publications? If a reader wants historical background then there are a wealth of sources, online or published, that can be easily accessed and  provides for all needs, in greater detail and accuracy than provided in these rule publications. They then add in a simple painting guide as well. Do they think a person buys BGK as their sole source on a period, especially ones as well documented as Kursk or Overlord? I’m sorry to say that I find this ‘fluff’ annoying, especially because it’s inclusion bulks up the book and results in increased cost for little benefit. The majority of both hardback books centre on army lists. I generally enjoy a good army list. I find they inspire me to investigate/get new units, and I like the way they constrain players to field forces that feature the common elements used historically. There are poor army lists out there, which some players can exploit to generate ‘super’ armies but, on the whole, I like an army list. The lists provided in Battle Group Kursk/Overlord are bad! Not because they are inaccurate, unhistorical, or unbalanced, but because they are extremely repetitious and tedious. For example BGK has only 4 lists: German Panzer & Infantry, Russian Tank & Infantry. This is fine, but each list repeats the information in the previous list. They share the same elements on the whole; a German infantry platoon/squad is the same in both German listings, as are the tank units, support units, recce units etc. etc. I’m sure there must be a few variations between lists, but 90%+ of each list is repeated information. The format of the army lists is again poor; each list takes a dozen sides of A4, when a better format could easily reduce this to a couple of pages! With a bit of thought and editing the authors could reduce the entire rules to the A5 rules booklet and separate, smaller, slimmer, A5 army listings. Even better would be to publish the army lists online as free pdf files! Such a decision would make BGK an attractive purchase, but in the present form I would not recommend these rules to another gamer! What is even more astounding is the authors are producing further campaign dedicated hardback books! Rather than finish on a negative note, I do like the inclusion of minor, often neglected, support elements e.g. combat medics, signallers, repair mechanics etc.

AAR; ACW (Longstreet rules) 9 Oct 2016

This was the 7^th battle (early 1864) of a 9 battle mini-campaign using Longstreet rules by Sam Mustafa (Honour Publishing). My Union force played against the Rebels commanded by Ian. I was ahead in the campaign by 5 victories to 1 defeat (24:21 EP), and in each battle the defending force had won. The composition of my force can be viewed in my previous blog post (November 2015).

 We randomly selected the ‘Meeting Engagement’ scenario and there was minimal additional terrain added. This scenario is interesting because there are no objective markers and there is no advantage to being either the attacker or defender. So this should be an equally matched contest. The thing we had not taken in to account was the club AGM which was also scheduled for the afternoon. Like all club AGM’s I have ever attended, this went on longer than expected, and so the time available for our game was severely curtailed. We decided to carry on in the couple of hours left to us.

Both armies entered from diagonally opposite corners, so the first turns involved rapid movement in columns, followed by deployment into battle lines. All my games against Ian seem to involve great swings in lucky/unlucky dice rolling. The ‘dice gods’ seem to be toying with us. In this game whenever I had a situation that I was optimistic about, I rolled badly. Whereas when I was in trouble and pessimistic, I rolled exceptionally well! My vastly superior artillery just could not destroy an opposing Rebel battery despite numerous opportunities to roll 4+. A successful charge by a fresh Union infantry unit against another exposed, isolated rebel battery was repelled by melee combat! In contrast, I shot at a 5 strong Rebel unit with 10 dice needing 4+ to hit, scored 10 hits, most of which converted in to kills, wiping it out in a single turn! Ian pressed a well co-ordinated attack against my left flank and I thought I was in deep trouble, but here luck was on my side: firstly, I played the ‘They couldn’t hit a...’ interrupt card which removed all of Ian’s careful hoarded 6 cards just prior to his key attack turn; then in my turn, I used a recently obtained ‘Retrograde’ card to move my endangered units out of the path of attack. Without my fortunate card play, I’m certain the game would have been lost! On my right flank the action did not develop as quickly, but I was confident that my 7 base coloured regiment and battery of 3 Napoleon guns would hold their own.

Unfortunately time was not on our side and the game ended early in a draw. Both sides had lost 10-15 bases each (the victory target was 23). I felt I had played poorly (I only scanned the rules before the game and was very rusty) and that Ian had the upper hand, so a draw was a good result in this game. Due to the constraints of time, I only took 1 photo and this was as we were doing the (hurried) campaign phase at the end (also the battery was out of juice, and the photo was taken accidentally!). Neither of our commanders was promoted (Ian need not have rolled because he has already reached the maximum 4 Eagle rank). My army did suffer in the campaign attrition phase, with my coloured regiment losing 3 bases! My campaign cards yielded an improvement to scouting in the next game (as if I needed such a bonus), a couple of new units (including another large coloured regiment), plus repeaters for my Maine regiment. My Union force available for battle number #8 will be:

Commander	Personality				Rank		EP’s
“Art” Rooney	Indian Wars Veteran (Scout: 2D6 & keep higher)				3 Eagles (2/63)		26
Unit	Type	Elan	Exp.	Strength		Notes
9th Pa Artillery	ART	-	-	3		3x Napoleon
37th (Prov) Pa Infantry	INF	Season	Veteran	7
13th\14th Pa (Prov) Inf.	INF	Season	Veteran	4		Sharpshooters (5,6 Skirm Fire)
16th\45th Ohio (Prov) Inf.	INF	Caut.	Veteran	4		Sharpshooters (5,6 Skirm Fire)
26th NJ Artillery	ART	-	-	3		3x Lt Rifle
29th NJ Artillery	ART	-	-	3		2x Lt Rifle, 1x Hvy Rifle
7th US (Coloured) Inf.	INF	Eager	Recruit	4
8th Maine	INF	Season	Veteran	5		Repeaters
10th Vermont NEW	INF	Season	Veteran	6
11th US (Col.) Inf. NEW	INF	Eager	Recruit	10
				49 bases
Broken Code: add +2 to scouting score in next game.

Notes: The units are listed in order of campaign appearance. The Pa units are from my original force. The 37^th Pa, 12^th NH and 88^th NJ were so battered that they were combined in to the ‘new’ 37^th (Prov) Pa regiment.

Bolt Action 2; Yes or No?

When Graham recently visited for a gaming weekend, he mentioned the only non-Flames of War game he had played in the last few months was Bolt Action, and he indicated that he thought they gave a reasonable game. I have only played a single game of Bolt Action and then only half-heartedly; a small club game that I was invited to join when I had no game of my own planned. I must admit that I did not fully participate or concentrate, and spent most of my time chatting to other gamers about this and that. I recall that I was initially confused about the command dice, thinking that you had to roll them to ascertain you order type (clearly wrong), and my fellow players did all the calculations, simply telling me how many dice to roll and what I required. I remember we were British infantry, with some armour support, and we were hammered by the Germans who were armed with assault rifles and plenty of MG42’s. Snipers were also a pain, picking off targets at will, although officers/leaders did not seem to have any beneficial effects. My partner muttered about the Germans having a ‘gamey’ list choice, but I was just happy rolling some dice and enjoying myself, rather than worrying about winning or losing. Soon after Graham departed, I noticed reports that Bolt Action version 2 was about to be released, and my interest was piqued. I have since checked them out online and read a few battle reports.

WW2 has never been a major gaming interest for me, but I have dabbled and own a reasonable number of 20mm troops for the main European participants, and these have sat in their box files for many years. I have tried numerous rules; the simplistic (Rapid Fire), the flashy (Battlefront WW2), the innovative (Crossfire) and the popular (FoW), none of which has grabbed my attention. More recently I have played Chain of Command which I did enjoy but surprisingly, after the initial burst of enthusiasm, they have remained largely on my rules shelf.

So, the question is: Should I invest in Bolt Action 2? Are they any good? Or, am I not cut out for WW2 games? I ‘think’ I want a fast action set of rules focussed on Platoon/Company level infantry action, which can accommodate some armour (which is not over-powering), and which does provide a good degree of period ‘feel’. What I mean by ‘feel’ is some variation in the tactical approach used by the different nations, and forces that don’t just take part in a dice-fest, but instead use covering fire etc. to set up attacks, and do not fight on to the last man standing.

Any thoughts, opinions or advice out there? I have a month or so before they are released, and maybe I will dust off Chain of Command and see if I can wet my WW2 appetite again.

AAR: Teutonics (Lion Rampant); 28Sept2016

I have previously reviewed and played Lion Rampant (Daniel Mersey; Osprey Publishing #8, 2014), and decided to dust them off for another game using my Teutonic forces. We played the ‘Fugitive’ scenario, with me using the Baltic Pagans and attempting to rescue the hidden fugitive. The terrain was fairly wooded, with a central hamlet located on a stream (rough going).

Both sides got off to a stuttering start, but I managed to move my small unit of Bidets forward to check the three possible locations for the fugitive that lay on my side of the table. If I had found him (>50% probability) then an easy win would have resulted because the Teutonics had hardly moved forward at this stage. But no, he must be hiding further away and I would have to cross the stream and engage the Teutonic knights who had finally managed to advance! On the right flank the Teutonic sergeants (mounted crossbows) shot at my lead unit of ferocious foot, killing 3 figures. I took the courage test (with a -3 modifier) and inevitably threw snake eyes! The first unit of Pagans took to the hills. In the centre I moved my Bidets into the hamlet gardens to check the next fugitive location, but I mis-measured and left them with reach of some Teutonic knights, who promptly charged in. Knights fighting in rough going is not good for their health; I killed 3 of the enemy but lost 4 of my bidets, who routed. Two Pagan units down and my army was now faced with the prospect of battling forward. On my left flank my horse archers were facing the second unit of Teutonic knights on the other side of the stream.

I was feeling the game to be lost at this point, but all changed, not because of my skill but instead due the Wild Charge rule. On my right flank, my second, supporting unit of ferocious foot charged the mounted crossbows and drove them back, battered. On my left flank, the second unit of Teutonic knights charged my horse archers (who failed to evade) and were defending the stream bank. The rough terrain again helped me, and I killed 2 opponents while only losing 1 figure myself, driving him back. I then shot a figure in my turn, before the knights were forced (by the Wild Charge characteristic) to try charging again. As the knights now only had 6 dice, I did not attempt to evade but instead fought back, doing further damage and forcing them back again! In the centre, my third unit of ferocious foot were sitting in a patch of marshy, rough ground and each time I diced for them to Wild Charge out against the Teutonic (requiring only 5+ on 2D6), they failed to budge. In contrast, the weak Teutonic knights (plus leader) in front of them decided (even after their bad experience versus the Bidets) to repeatedly Wild Charge into the marsh! It did not end well. They were all destroyed, including the leader, and effectively the game was lost.  Only 2 Teutonic foot units remained, and I quickly located the fugitive in some woods using my victorious horse archers to escort him back to my baseline. As a sideline, it was not a 5:0 victory for the Pagans because the Teutonics did fulfil one of their ‘boasts’ by forcing my lead unit of foot to fail the first Courage test of the game.

A strange game, but enjoyable. If I had found the fugitive in the first locations, then no game would have resulted and victory would have been too easy. The real problem concerns the Wild Charge, which I commented on previously in my earlier blog posts. As a player you feel a real lack of control; I didn’t choose to repeatedly hold my foot unit in the marsh, and equally the knights didn’t choose to charge over the stream, or into the hamlet gardens, or into the marsh. All these actions were decided by the ‘dice gods’ and the events just happened; was there any need for players? I suspect the root of the problem lies in the pair of forces used; both are heavily influenced by the Wild Charge characteristic. Maybe next time I will suggest trying the game without this characteristic and see how it goes. Or maybe I will play using a house rule that mounted troops do no test to Wild Charge foot in rough terrain, whilst foot will not Wild Charge mounted troops in the open.

Off the Painting Table (Sept 2016)

I am currently between projects and therefore at a bit of a loss about what to paint next. Searching my ‘horde’ of unpainted/assembled figures there was a couple of sprues of ECW figures. This was a quick and simple choice which would add to my collection of figures for skirmish games. I think the figures are from Warlord, and I choose red coats to fit with my existing under-strength units.

I also painted a couple of figures a grey-coated Scots, and I found a sprue of riderless horses which are always useful on the battlefield. I find it strange that in skirmish games, casualties to cavalry involve removal of both horse and rider; units just disappear. Where possible I like to place the odd riderless horse and casualty figure to at least remind players that some action has occurred.

The addition of these figures has encouraged me to get some of my ECW skirmish rules from the shelf. Maybe it is time to have another go at Donnybrook?

Boardgame session: 24 Sept 2016

This will be a very brief report because we primarily visited Val and Chris to meet their new kittens (Sansa and Arya) for the first time, rather than play boardgames. Unfortunately Snowydog had to spend the day in the kennels (it’s not a good move for your dog to eat the hosts new pets). The 12 week old kittens were great fun and had beautiful markings!

We did manage to play a game of Dominion using the Seaside expansion, which neither Elaine or I  had played before. One of the great things about Dominion is the endless replay ability and that each expansion introduces new cards and effects. The flip-side of this is fact that you never seem to encounter all the different cards you own. I possess the base game plus the Prosperity expansion and we still find cards that are new to us coming out! From a single first play I get the feeling that Seaside does offer significant interest; the Pirate Ship card is a nice aggressive idea, stripping treasure from players hands; I made great use of the Island card to de-clutter my hand of Land/Victory cards; the Smuggler card was excellent allowing you to acquire cards for free; and the Embargo card was used by all to reduce the acquisition of those nasty Pirate Ship cards. I always find it hard to keep track of the orange period effect cards but otherwise the game flowed well, and I eventually won which is always nice.

We followed by playing a quick game of Parade (which I have discussed previously). I just love the artwork on this simple card game, and the game play requires considerable thought. Chris won the game, but I was a close second. I would love to own a copy of this out-of-print game, because I think it makes an excellent filler with simple rules that can be easily explained to a newbie.

Boardgame session: 17/18 Sept 2016

In my previous post I recorded my wargaming failures playing against my old friend, Graham. Rather than just play wargames all w/e away from Elaine, we ventured from the table and played some boardgames with her.

The first game I played was Mr Jack against Graham (whilst Elaine was preparing dinner). I took the role of Mr Jack (disguised as Sherlock). Graham narrowed down the possible suspects and prevented me from escaping off the board. In the last pair of turns (7 & 8) Graham narrowed the suspects to only two, and the last turn had determined Sherlock to be Mr Jack. But, I managed to ensure Graham had no final character who could reach Sherlock to make the accusation! Therefore, a win for me and Graham would not escape from the w/e undefeated. The game really forces you think hard and is deceptively difficult. I was glad to get my first win of the w/e.

Next, just before dinner, we fitted in a quick game of Tsuro. Elaine got boxed in with no choice that would not take her off the board. I emerged as the winner (again). Tsuro is an excellent filler game, especially for new players because the rules are so simple, also the graphics are very pretty.

After dinner we played a game of Blueprints. The rules are simple to explain, and maybe we taught them too well because Graham comprehensively beat the both of us.

We finished the night with a game of Dominion (base set, using the starter combination of cards). Graham had played this boardgame before, so fully understood the strategy. He loaded his deck with Village and Smithy cards, and in one memorable turn had a run of cards allowing him multiple actions and a pile of money, which enabled him to purchase two (or possibly three) of the valuable Province victory cards. On reflection, this single turn pretty much allowed Graham to win the final scoring phase. So the evening finished with both Graham and I having two wins each.

Next day (after playing wargames in the morning, where I was defeated again) we played a couple of games of ‘Ticket to Ride, Europe’, which surprisingly Graham had never played before. In the first game Graham got stuck trying to build tunnels, whilst Elaine beat me by a single point! I was sure I was going to win (must have added the scores wrong!). The second game was dominated by Elaine who streaked ahead. So, the w/e finished all square. A thoroughly enjoyable gaming session. Graham remains the dominant force in the wargaming arena (one day I will beat him!), but on the boardgame front things are more balanced.