"First Battlegroup game" Topic

We played our first game today using my friend's 15 mm FOW minis, a simple meeting engagement set on the Russian Front in mid war. A couple of observations: firstly the orders system led to anachronistic situations where some units sat out the battle in sight of the enemy, while others – individual tanks and spg's – took off on lone wolf attacks because there were not enough "orders" to send them all in. Everything I have ever read about the Soviet army with it's highly centralized command structure mitigates against this.

Secondly we had the old familiar '88s on a hill' situation where the German player moves a flak unit onto the first hill and sits there for the rest of the day dominating the table. Said unit was hit repeatedly by 76mm HE shells but a combination of save rolls and large crews meant the damned things stayed in action unscathed. Apparently HE shells can kill gunners but not damage equipment!

Other than that, the movement, firing close assault and morale rules seem to work very well and with a little experience we should be able to have some fast moving, enjoyable games.

Oh yes, the Germans won this one because the last morale chip they drew on the last turn turned out to be a devastating Stuka attack that wiped out a whole company, 50% of the Soviet infantry!

HE shells do damage guns in the rules (page 30 – Damage to Deployed Guns), any to hit rolls of 6 go on the gun. Also gun team morale is very fragile, one casualty can cause problems. Also what save did it have on the hill? Was it dug in?

Why did the Soviets not use Stal! Stal! to move en masse? Its there special rule to do just that… in Kursk, both tanks and infantry have special rules to use mass moves for single orders.

One Stuka wiped out half a company in one turn? How? It doesnt have enough fire power to hit 8 units in one attack unless it dropped 8 bombs, and rolled 8 sixes to get eight direct hits on each… and each unit would have to be within 10" of the target point.

You may want to consider our BG forum if you have any questions…

Www.guildwargamers.com

Cheers,

Piers

I like the rules, especially for the decision-making that a commander has to do, and for the slow drain of your BG rating. Also like the area fire and aimed fire difference; brings a different flavor thethe mix.

But the rules do have a steep learning curve for some of the "one-off" kinds of things that gamers can dream up. The rule cover them all (so far), but you have to look for them until you become more familiar with them. At least, that's been mu experience.

Glad you guys gave it a go, but it does sound like you did a ton of things wrong on your first go (which is completely normal!). Join The Guild and read some of the battle reports and Q & As there and you'll see that many of your concerns are baseless.

Welcome to Battlegroup!!

Jerry

Hi and thanks for the welcome! We were using the mini rule book and the Barbarossa supplement because our other friend who has Kursk had to cancel at the last minute so it was case of going with what we had. I haven't read either book (the only one I've got so far is Overlord + mini rule book) so not aware of the Sta!Sta! rule – is it in Barbarossa too?

That gun didn't have time to dig in but by virtue of some vegetation on the hill top was able to claim soft cover and the GM declared it only vulnerable to Area Fire – I'm also pretty sure there was some 'creative' die rolling on the part of the owner (another player's teenage son)

Yep, the Stuka had three bombs – one heavy and two light; remember, my friend's figures are still on their FOW bases so there were six stands of four figures in an open wheatfield. So that's potentially 9 dice hitting on a 2 or better for the large bomb and the two smaller bombs combined made 14 dice hitting on 3+ Correct?

The first bomb rolled two 1's and seven hits. All fourteen dice rolled for the small bombs rolled at least a 3, and I seemed to have used up all may sixes earlier in the game and failed to make a single cover save. 21 out of 24 potential casualties were KIA – pretty devastating but from what I've read, pretty realistic too. EDIT: what we didn't do is roll for accuracy of each individual bomb – but with the 'creative' die rolling mentioned earlier, that would likely have been academic.

I've tried to get on the Guild but seem to be getting the same internet glitch as other for them moment. Bear with me!

That Stuka shoulda roll three dice… one per bomb. Sounds like you were using the HE effect dice as to hit dice. I have a pictorial tutorial on The Guild that will help you out with that, its an easy error to make.

Sounds like your GM may have liked 88s a little too much… cant blame my rules for creative GMs! LOL!

What ya username on The Guild and I will check its been changed to active.

Number 4, just activated your membership, you should be able to log in now.

Thanks Piers!

Welcome to Battlegroup, my favourite set of rules!

Cheers.