"Near-future modern combat rules" Topic

I think Force on Force deos a good job of what you want at the squad commander level. Not so much for the platoon commander level. And no points system, either.

Tomorrow's war is the Sci fi of force on force . Good rules .
Two hour has decent rules

+1 for TW.

Its not clear what you want. Real actions with moderm weapons or a 40K type game. Rarely if ever in moderns will you get two even sides. A in real near future, if by that you mean troops with what is just about available, not what is in normal use now which is basicaly what was avialable was available 10 years ago, a platoon game is going to be in very dence terrain. In your period most guys are going to have Battle managemet systems, Drones at platoon level and access to fast reponce artillery. Most by definition will not be far from their armoured vehical be it Boxer, BMP, Marder, CV90 or even up armoured M113 as that the only way they can move their stuff. Maneouver Group will do it easily but by definition it will be a complex task and not easily done with just a few bits of terrain and a points system. If a 40K type game with diffrent troops, but no realtion ship to reality, then I can offer no suggestions as it not what I play.

We've started using Bolt Action with a load of house rules for near future games. It seems to work quite well.

Are there any sets of rules that provide the feeling of being the platoon and squad commanders well?

Its not clear what you want. Real actions with moderm weapons or a 40K type game.

I don't think you're going to get the feeling of being the platoon and squad commanders with a 40K type game.

Rarely if ever in moderns will you get two even sides.

Where did the OP say he wanted two even sides?

Major Bbumsore,
All the game I know of that have points sytems also have simplified terrain and hence you tend to get equal sides. Our experience is that not all gamers want it to be that realistic or spend the time generating scenarios. We are a bit extreme. Just spent 3 hrs planning a game(s) at 1:144 and having a wale of a time but its not for everbody! Thats not the rules just a very complex board and working out after 8 hrs game time some stuff will be out of fuel and ammo. Nothing wrong in any of it its about what you want as a player. Even a platoon game can start to be complex if you want it too. Try moving a platoon (admittedly better at 15mm or even 1:144) down a 6km road that has baddies somwhere.

Force on force or tomorrow s war….

I'm doing 28mm space insurgent bashing as a long term project… so I can retheme any actions from the last forty years of historical combat… in space.

Lots of asymmetry and home field advantage, and lots of hearts and minds and embedded reporting and private news- media.

All the game I know of that have points sytems also have simplified terrain and hence you tend to get equal sides.

That's a strange argument. ALL games have simplified terrain, so what you are really saying is that points systems tend to give equal sides. IMHO points systems are broken and I gave up using them years ago.

Can't say that I have. I have a huge preference for the Ambush Alley/Tomorrow's War rules.

Showed them to a friend of mine (platoon leader in Afghanistan, now working on getting his company), and he ended up using them to train some of his guys. He agrees with most of the design decisions that were made.

Major Bumsore perhaps I should have said over simplified terrain. At MG we try to get typical UK contryside detail as follows. Approximately the correct number of linear features (roads, tracks, hedges/ditches small stands of woodlands) for the type of area we are representing. In urban areas like villages we represent the corect ground scale area. Obviously difficult in urban, but typicaly we get the number of roads somewhere near in vilages, but accept that houses do not have gardens on table. this gives a reasonable look and closely space houses get tight sight lines. not untyupical of villages.

Such areas if a significant area of the board massively disadvantage tank heavy forces so unbalance games using a points system.