"Which WWII Rulesets Do You Like The Best?" Topic

This is not about what you use the most, but what ruleset or rulsets you would rank the highest.

Your opinion might change for depending on the scale, and you might have one opinion for skirmish and another favorite for larger scale engagements. So if you have more than one opinion, let's hear it!

After we get enough votes, I'll tabulate it on a spreadsheet like I did the last one. If someone did this already, we'll let me know and we'll move on.

Right now…

Flames of War for a company-sized command, but I bought Poor Bloody Infantry, so you never know how long that will last.

Memoir '44 for larger than that. (And yes, we consider it a miniatures game as we use Flames of War miniatures for it.)

Flying Lead for skirmish.

There was just a poll that virtually asked the same question -- what WWII rules set was the most popular.

I Ain't Been Shot, Mum

Battleground for Skirmish.

Blitzkreig Commander II for larger scale games.

Arc of Fire and Disposable Heroes in a dead heat for skirmish.

PDF link

combat captain

Look Sarge No Charts for large scale
and
Force on Force for skirmish/platoon games

I think this topic has been done to death, but here goes:

Mein Panzer, Schwere Kompanie, and Battlegroup PanzerGrenadier for tactical
Kampfgruppe Commander II for higher level

What Chuck05 said:

Blitzkreig Commander II for larger scale games.

Arc of Fire and Disposable Heroes in a dead heat for skirmish.

Battlefront WWII

IABSM, hands down the best in my opinion.

jdg

IABSM

I like Rules of Engagement for platoon level games, with FoW a close second at the company level because it's popular and therefore easy to find opponents.

Grant tactical, Spearhead

Skirmish, Disposible Heroes

Battlefield Evolution World at War

Rules of Engagement and Arc of Fire are my two favourite WW2 rule sets.

IABSM for company level, TW&T for platoon level and Crossfire for battalion level.

IABSM if I had to pick one. :)

-Mike

BGWWII for all my gaming.

Brian

BKCII and Battleground WW2

Rules of Engagement for platoon level, Face of Battle for squad level.

Stargrunt 2 adaptions

IABSM for company level

My favourites as opposed to ones we play? Ummmmm

i) skirmish. Paragon Skirmish Rules.

I don't really do a lot of skirmish gaming, but I have very fond memories of these old rules from the 1970s. These have to be played with badly painted Airfix 1/32nd scale figures, ideally in the garden with the Airfix 'Command Post' as the objective. I've still got my figs for this.

ii) tactical (company/reinforced company/light battalion). WRG 1925-50, 1973 ed.

What a great set of rules, brilliant for the time, still work well today. Our homegrown tactical rules are based on these (and DBA!). Shoot then move, what an original idea (well OK, Panzerblitz got there first).

iii) grand tactical (battalion/regiment/light division). Spearhead, accept no subtitutes.

One of the most realistic yet simple command/order systems I've seen in a game of this level, for all of its other faults. Arrows and goose-eggs. I might be willing to add TAC:WW2 for battalion level games.

iv) operational (division/corps). 1956 British Army Tactical Wargame.

There is so much choice in this sphere, it is hard to pick one, however the BATW does actually make you feel like a Division or Corps commander (or at least their Chief of Staff:) and it captures the cycle of combat and replenishment perfectly. Suddenly dawn and dusk attacks make sense etc etc. I suppose it isn't surprising as it is a military wargame. Does take a lot of effort to set up and run properly.

v) operational (corps/army). KISS Romel.

I suppose I should really put Megablitz here, as we've had some really fabulous games playing that, but KISS Rommel is such a brilliant concept. It looks totally daft but hangs together very well as a game and you can resolve a multiple corps sized enagagment in an evening or a whole campaign over several evenings. We've done North Africa and an Operation Bagaration campaign I wrote myself.

BattleGroup PanzerGrenadier

IABSM
Troops, Weapons and Tactics
Battleground from Easy8

Stargrunt2 www2 for skirmish.
WRG 1925-50 and Battlefront ww2 for bigger games.

Battlefront: WWII by Fire & Fury games: fireandfury.com

If I played skirmish games in WWII, I'd also use Stargrunt II.

Missing some important games so far.

Nuts!
Baptism of Fire III
A Leader of Men
Crossfire

IABSM. BKC. IMHO.

Now isn't that wierd, I didn't list Crossfire under my 'tactical' games section. Not sure why. Maybe in my heart of hearts it isn't a favourite, but I don't think so.

Thinking of it doesn't give me a warm glow like the others.

Rapid Fire, especially for cons, for battlion and up.

Larger, Bltizkrieg-Commander 2.

Even larger, Panzer Korps.

Havent really settled on skirmish level yet though have plenty to look through.

BKC II – Battalion

FOW – Company

BG:WWII (Easy 8) – Skirmish

Top ones at the moment (in alphabetic order):

BattleGroup PanzerGrenadier (2nd Edition)
Disposable Heroes/Coffin for 7 Brothers (2nd Edition)
I Ain't Been Shot Mum
Rate of Fire
Rules of Engagement
Troops, Weapons and Tactics

IABSM

Blitzkreig Commander II Big Games and Rules of Engagement skirmishes.

Flames of War for company to short-battalion actions (4 companies is pushing it for FoW).

Force on Force for less-than-company actions.

Disposable Heroes for Skirmish level games.

No choice yet for company level.

Disposable Heroes for skirmish.
FOW for company level, but would like to get away from them…

regards, Bill

There was just a poll that virtually asked the same question -- what WWII rules set was the most popular.

Schogun-San, I checked back to Nov 2009 and could not find what you describe. There was only one about which ruleset you have the most experience with. Perhaps you can give me the date the poll close? Thank you honorable Schogun. I

(Is that the Yiddish version of Shogun?)

Hi

Current favs (I am so fickle !) in no order of merit:

Piquet Field Of Battle WWII
Piquet Point Of Attack
Battle Group Pz Grenadier II
Blitzkrieg Commander II
Spearhead
Operation Warboard (for those nostalgic yearnings)

NUTS!

Doing up some 6mm to replace the 15mm collection I sold years ago for Crossfire and BKC.

AE-WWII, which is a Weird War II game, but can be played straight historical.

For in the air: Bag the Hun 2 (best game EVER!)

For stuff on the ground:
Blitzkrieg Commander II (10mm)
IABSM (10mm)
Disposable Heroes (28mm)
Nuts! (28mm)

Haven't settled on anything for my naval fix yet.

I love Command Decision.

For Skirmish and Company level Disposable Heroes.

For Company to Battalion Level Crossfire

Company Level: IABSM
Platoon Level: Battleground WWII
Skirmish(1v1): Nuts!

Air……

Bag the hun 1 and 2

Sea…

big ships….. General Quarters 3 after 2 and 1
Smaller ships is 'Damn the torpedoes'

Land
Brigade/division level. Spearhead….Heavily modified

Battlegroup level: Battlegroup panzer grenadier 2…a few recce modifications that we should have told Dave Brown about!

company Level: PBI, ww2 metalstorm and IABSM..The first and last with (some sacriligious!) mods.

Skirmish Level: I don't like skirmish games generally in any period at all, but have played Disposable heroes and it went okay for a game. ROE seemed okay as well, but spotting was a peculiar deterministic method for a skirmish game.

I do exclusively 'skirmish' in FPS computor games and never do 'stratagy' PC games. I think it is because skirmish should be fast and frenetic which computors can acheive with instant 3d visual awareness, while figure games at skirmish level just seems too slow and considered…..and this is the same reason I dont play computor stratagy games because it tends to degenerate into frenetic mouse clicks and chaos….I can get that playing 'tetris' and 'Asteroids' ….And because the computor AI is generally pretty crap.

TW&T and IABSM

Crossfire and ROE for me. (both in 6mm!)

Steve
simply-6.com