"Megablitz, me too?" Topic

All right gang, as i keep seeing this rule popping up
every time divisional level games are mentioned (yes
Martin Rapier i'm looking at you :)) i told myself
why not?^^
Now is this rule the same as the one available for free
or a different one from the one sold i don't remember
where? And can i play those rules "out of the book"
or do i have to do may "gap filling(rule wise)" before
being able to play them.

The only 'free' copy of MB I am aware of is a pirated PDF on an Italian wargames site. No I'm not going to tell you where it is.

You certainly can play the rules as they stand out of the book, but they are not written in Barkerese and do require a degree of interpretation. You can also add/subract/ignore/rewrite bits of them as well, so they are a lot more like, say IABSM, than Command Decision and an umpire is a huge help. I don't tend to run games in the same way as the author does, but they still appear to produce satisfactory games.

There are fairly comprehensive clarifications on the Megablitz yahoo group, as well as sample scenarios etc. One day if I can be bothered I might even do a step by step game walk through, but I don't seem to have got around to it yet.

Like any set of rules, there are gaps you could ride a horse and cart through, but I have never come across a set of rules which so elegantly captures the problems of fog of war and forward planning in a playable and exciting way. The rest is just chrome really.

When you've got two divisional commanders bickering over who gets priority for fuel and ammo resupply, and scratching their heads over traffic management problems, then you know you've got a good operational game.

Thanks for those precisions Martin i think i'll try to
get a copy then, and no i wasn't refering to a free
illegal copy, i just thought i'd seen a megablitz in
the freewargamerules section once.
I was probably day dreaming then^^.
Thanks anyway.

Ahhh. Now, there is 'Assault Gun' on freewargamesrules, which is heavily influenced by MB, but has some bits added and some bits taken away and the level of unit representation changed for some things. Maybe you were thinking of that?

That's quite probable, with the amount of rules i read,
i might get confused on what i read and where i found it^^.

There's a lot of stuff not specified in the rules, and to which I never got any answers when I asked on the group.

Some stuff one can figure out (e.g. are zero strength units removed if they take a hit? The rules don't actually say, but the answer must be yes).

There are other things which I never managed to figure out, such as:
1. What is the range of recce? In other words, what distance from your recce stand can you do recce? The rules are silent, and nobody ever seemed able to say. They just gave helpful replies such as "I normally just wave my hand and say 'recce here'".

2. There appear to be no restrictions on moving near enemy stands. So if I leave a 1 stand width gap, the enemy can move straight through it in 'Transport' mode without stopping.
This doesn't seem right somehow

3. The rules on supply use are far from clear.

There were others, but the upshot is that Megablitz is more of a rules kit, and I suspect it's almost impossible to play it out of the book unless someone who has played the rules before is there to guide you.
I also think use of an umpire is pretty essential for the game to flow smoothly.
We certainly didn't manage to play the rules, and we've played a lot of rules.

"are zero strength units removed if they take a hit?"

Hmm, the rules are reasonably clear here. If they are attacked with SP=0, they are removed (you don't even need to hit them). If they are attacked by mechanised units in Mobile mode, they are overrun in the movement phase (see overrun attacks).

"What is the range of recce?"

Again, it says you can recce a stand or group of stands or a terrain feature. It doesn't explicitly say what the range is, but you need to park your recce units fairly close/next to the things you are recceing. There is however a table of spotting distances which might give a suitable indication. I usually give a spotting distance bonus to units on hills. The vagueness more relates to situations whre you are using hidden movement as it seems a little unfair to make players guess with millimetric accuracy where the enemy are, so reccing an 'area' is fine.

Essentially they are just a marker showing where your recce and counter-recce efforts are anyway. I sometimes actually get people to place them after the normal movement phase, but is is quicker to move them as part of normal movement.

"There appear to be no restrictions on moving near enemy stands"

No, although if you carefully position your units 0.99 base widths apart there aren't any gaps…. I usually specify a 1km ZOC around units in combat mode, which stops any gap slipping nonsense.

"The rules on supply use are far from clear."

Yes. I had to work through these a number of times until I came up with an interpretation of the model which was consistent to my satisfaction. I've added a few more rules here (mainly to do with road capacities and off-table resupply) which appear to be internally consistent and to work. I like giving players blocked/damaged roads to deal with, gives their engineers something useful to do.

"I also think use of an umpire is pretty essential for the game to flow smoothly."

Yes, an umpire is very useful, particularly in larger games. It is possible to play it 2 player as I've done it, but it requires a gentlemanly approach to rules interpretations.

Thanks Martin.
I'm sure there's a really good set of rules in there….

Yes, although it can take a bit of work like all scenario driven rules. I seem to have finally got the hang of designing Corps-ish sized scenarios suitable for club night games. Sometimes a bit of light relief is called for though, which is where KISS Rommel steps up…..

Has anyone tried playing Megablitz on a hex board?
Strikes me it might simplify the rules and speed them up, too.

I did some work on a hex/square based version (imaginatively called 'Martinblitz') but in the end gave it up as a bad lot. For some reason I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to finish it as I was trying to turn it into a simulation and I realised in the end I was just plonking a bit of Dupuy and an awful lot of the 1956 British Army Tactical wargame on top of MB. I could never settle on a satisfactory grid size to make the game work and still retain its flavour.

My higher level operational rules which use a lot of MB mechanisms work fine on a grid though.