Battlegroup,
a review...
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| A picture stolen from Iron Fist Publishing site... |
What
is Battlegroup, well this answer is simple it is another 1 to 1 WW2 miniatures
game... it is aimed at 15mm and 20mm miniatures and the author, Warwick
Kinrade, claims that it is not just a simple generic World War Two system, but,
instead, a common base using a set of specific supplements to recreate specific
episodes of the second world war. Well I would say this is a big claim. As
described in the rules introduction the generic "core mechanics"
produces a rather bland game, one that will be unsatisfactory for the majority
of players. Well people plays Bolt Action so there are evidently players that
are not put off by bland games, but let focus on Battlegroup. What make the
game interesting according to Mister Kinrade is the combination of special
rules, units, scenarios, and campaigns unique to a theatre (p. 5). I happen to
agree with him. Too often world War Two rules tend to be just a very generic
1930-1950 (or even later) mish mash, and getting their feel more from the
statistic of the vehicles than anything else. Some are even so generic that they
claim you can use the same base to represent a team, a squad, or a platoon...
To
achieve this stated end Battlegroup was at start published as Battlegroup:
Kursk, focussing on... well Operation Zittadelle including both the Core Rules
and the Kursk specific material. To avoid repeating the core rules again and
again and charging customer for the same core pages... they had been removed
from subsequent books and instead offered separately (looks, it makes sense, if
you like the system you will end up buying several of the period books thus you
could have ended with the same rules over and over). At the moment, beside
Kursk, Normandy, the Fall of the Reich, and Early Barbarossa are covered with a
Blitzkrieg volume coming out next month.
Battlegroup
has also an interesting story. It started as Kampfgruppe Normandy published by
the now defunct Warhammer Historical. It was a massive and lavishly illustrated
book desinged for 20mm figures. Toward the end of the death throes of WHH It
was offered at a very cheap price but... well while being a Salute when it was
done... I completely missed it... ah... ah... ah... enough of history and self
commiseration, back to the rules.
As I
have said this is a big claim, and one I cannot yet analyze because I got only
the slim rule booklet. So this review will be incomplete by default. I am
sorry, I am poor and jobless...
I
will not provide a step by step analysis of the sequence of play, it is not my
job today. I would say that it is quite conventional; the Attacker takes his
turn followed by the Defender. In their turn the two players total their
orders, then there is an execution phase, followed by a rally phase. IT is very
simple. But there are twists and
interactions hidden. The total number of orders available to each player in
each turn is variable. You have a base number (the number of your officers
alive) plus a variable die roll. Bigger games (more on that later) give you more
dice to roll, smaller ones... well less! The order are quite straightforward:
Move, Fire, Fire/Move (and Move/Fire),
plus all the funny things you expect in a WW2 games (loading, unloading,
calling for fire, unlimbering...). There are also supply and engineering
activities. An important thing to remember is that each single unit can carry a
single order per turn, you do not have chain activation of a single elements.
Here a turn is a rather specific amount of time, rather than a more fluid
"action sequence". Trust me, the rules are quite complete here. There
is infantry and armour combat, engineering, artillery, and also air attacks.
What I really like here is that the mechanics make sense from a procedural
standpoint. There is an underlining logic in what you do and how you do it.
Fire
is divided in two types, area fire (you make the enemy lowering its heads) and
aimed fire (you kill the bad guys). The two types of fires are handled in
different ways and produce different results. Combat is basically you roll to
hit, enemy roll to save. With some added twists, like the fact you have to spot
(not requiring an order) before firing. I would say it is a system I do not
overly like (I do not like to roll so many dice every time), but seems quite
standard and well accepted by the community.
Differently from other systems the number of dice rolled are manageable
and the score required to hit depends on factors (well I will be honest, I
dislike bucket of dices hitting on 6). Ordnance fire, as you surmise, requires
first a roll to hit and then rolls for effect based on the weapon, followed by
save (ok here I think it is too prone to randomness). Armour piercing hits are
resolved (after the customary to hit roll) comparing penetration and armour on
a table and rolling two dice to see if the shot penetrates. You know I love TFL
games, but this way to resolve penetration is much more to my liking. One peculiarity
of Battlegroup is that your ammo is not unlimited so before firing ordnance
think twice (avoiding the gamey but customary extreme range shots and reducing
a bit of wristage).
As
you can see the skeleton of the game is quite tradition and does not have
surprises. The mechanics are typical. Yet in almost every case they make sense.
I also like the ability to suppress the enemy with area fire. I also like the
fact that, despite having a standard Igo-Yugo sequence, the game not only allow
for reaction but force you to plan your reaction. You can issue Ambush Fire and
Reserve Move orders to your units. These orders allow you to carry action in
the opponent turn, provided you have thought about it in advance. It follows
the time segmentation I mentioned earlier. In this context it forces you to
plan quite well rather than do things safely assured that your units will always
be able to do some reaction against enemy moves if necessary. It also avoids
the usually fire advantages of the defender. In a lot of game defending forces
can use their own action to fire and then fire again as reaction fire in the
enemy turn. Here because of the order system the defender cannot magically fire
twice.
Morale
is handled in a particular way. Units get pinned and forced to pull back (or
rout, or surrender!) as usual, but your force morale is handled in a particular
way. You get a battle rating (based on your force) at the start of the game.
When bad things happens (kills, panic, and so on), or when you rally your
pinned units you pull a marker with a number from a bowl. These markers have
different numbers on them from 1 to 5. When the sum of the values of the drawn
markers is equal to your original battle rating... well you are withdrawing
from the field. Now larger forces are evidently more resilient, but you have
also a luck factor represented by the number and, even if I cannot still confirm
it, probably the ability of different forces to sustain different level of
punishment could also be represented by the value of the markers put in the
bowl at start. More 1s will make a force less brittle than more 5s.
The
game is scalable. You can play small actions with reduced platoons ro larger
actions with full battalions. No this is not done with naming tricks. This is
done increasing the table size and, more
importantly, using a system that allow you to roll more dice for orders based
on the size of your force. I will say
upfront here that I do not think playing a battalion action in 1 to 1 scale is
a good idea. Command levels, concerns, and time will be different. You can do
it in a well organized multiplayer game, but the larger games are better crowd
has never done for me. I think that if you have a 1 to 1 representation
fielding a company is more or less the top level, bigger forces requires
different considerations, yet someone will do it, if not, just to show how many
big guns on big tanks they have. In this light considering how to adapt the
game to different force size is a good idea.
Now
I have some minor gripes. Minor thing bear with me , but still things that
puzzles me. The first one is about fire. You can do two fire actions when you
play the "Open Fire" order.
Yet the rules are unclear on the issue if you can use area and aimed
fire together. Rules wise this is my main gripe. It is unclear, I assumed an
answer (you can), but in the small
rulebook I could not find a foolproof answer. It could cause problems if people
assume answers but it is just a minor gripe.
I do
not like the artillery system. It appears logical and functional, but I think
it is very realistic. There is a common approach in rules that you have to roll
for deviation. Battlegroup allow for a single spotting round to be fired and
based on its fall the mission resolved. It is common in a lot of rules, but it
is wrong. The idea of spotting rounds is that the observer walks them on the
target and then switch to FFE. Better system had lees time wasted in
corrections, crappy one had a lot of time wasted into it. I would have liked a
system were inaccurate shot force you to spend another order to adjust rather than having the usual deviation system
(shades of 40k here?). Battlegroup version is not as absurd as the original
version in Rapid Fire, but still it does fail to reproduce artillery. I could live with the system but I found it
more gamey than accurate. Yet this is
the only area in the rules I really do not like.
The last
problem, linked to the format of the "common" rules is that I am not
really sure of how the Battle Ratings, BG morale, and force selection works. I
know they are supposed to be explained in the supplements and the small
softbound booklet is more a way to avoid to repeat the basic rules everywhere,
but I would have liked to understand these aspects of the game, especially in
the light of the of the statement made by the author that Battlegroup aims to
be a rule set relevant to each period rather than a generic WW2 set (in the end
I got hold of the way the Battle Rating and the Marker realyl works from
examples on Iron Fist Publishing website rather than the core rulebook). I
know, Will has been even too kind in giving me the softbound for free just to
write this review, but, well, if you hope to get an impression of the game from
it you miss a key part. Also having the general rules there for reference would
have been nice in my view. The rule book provides generic scenarios but no way
to build a force. I would have appreciated to sample forces and the battlegroup
creation rules being present.
Now
I have reached the limit of my ability to do a review based on the available
material. It is only a partial review; I cannot really play a game until I get
one of the full supplements. Said that I am quite impressed by what I saw.
Certainly Warwick Kinrade had been able to articulate his viewpoint and provide
a game that reflects it. What Battlegroup is not is a 40k on tracks. It is not
even a Flames of War clone. It does not appear to be swamped by special rules;
it does not appear to be swamped by special rules and abilities. It appears to
provide you with historical limitations and plausible options. I do not like artillery, but the game effect
is reasonable.
From
a book stand point I have nothing to
reproach, the writing is good, there is an index, rules are properly numbered
to help you (sorry EvilleMonikeigh I think having rule sections numbered is a
critical part of rules writing, not some sort of aberration!). There are plenty
of examples, and nice illustrations. Except from the confusion about the
ability to use two different types of fire everything is properly explained
with examples. The graphic presentation is also nice.
Will
I play it? Well at the moment I am satisfied with IASBM and CoC, but I can
certainly see Battlegroup gracing my table soon, possible with some house
ruling for the artillery call procedure (very easy, if the barrage is
inaccurate you have the option to ask for another spotting round, and when it
is accurate you do not roll for deviation). What really piqued my interest is
the order and reaction system and, for the little I have read off, the battle
and morale rating. The rules have ptential and, differently from other games
the author has given though about scaling the battle based on the forces you
field. I am also curious to see how
Warwick's claims about the game being able to represent specific battles and
areas rather than being a generic 1930-1950 ruleset will turn out. At that time
I will be happy to post a second chapter.
And finally the big guns:
