"Looking for Rules to play Ardennes 1944 with 3mm miniatures" Topic

Hi,

I love the 3mm miniatures from O8/picoarmor and want to buy some WW2 miniatures for a Battle of the Bulge game. In the 90s I played a lot Talonsoft great Battleground Ardennes game and now I want to play KG Peipers race to the Meuse. In the pc game the uits are platton sized. Is this to small for 3mm minaitures or should I use a company as the maneuver elemnt?
What rule systems are good for this kind of scope? So far I only know Spearhead. Field of Battle WW2 sounds interesting….

Any suggestions are welcome!!
Greetings from Germany
DF

The only other platoon per base game I can think of is Blitzkrieg Commander.

Mike

Ah, I forgot, I own Blitzkrieg Commander, but I think it doesn´t fit.

Command Decision are 1stand=1platoon. I've used them often for Peiper with outstanding results. With 3mm figures, I recommend bases with 3-5 tanks per. Should look good.

"Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII" is 1 stand = 1 platoon.

link

There's also GHQ's Microarmor: The Game. Forgot about that one too.

Mike

Kampfgruppe Peiper was a roughly brigade sized force so any of the main 1 base = 1 platoon rules would work OK.

I think many of them have been mentioned already, I would only add TAC:WW2 as being worthy of consideration.

As suggested above, just use standard base sizes and ranges with multiple 3mm models on the bases. Ground and figure scales don't match anyway.

Thanks Martin!

Free, easy to play, and fun. Pz8 rules

PDF link

PanzerKorps has 1 srand = 1 company…

Command decision or Spearhead. Command decision has a Bastogne scenario book that is excellent.

CD would be a good choice. Also consider converting a suitable board game to miniatures.

I would also put in a vote for Panzer Korps, if you want to use a brigade sized force. Those rules use 1 stand = 1 company, and 3mm is perfect for that. If you try to build a brigade at 1 stand = 1 platoon you are going to be doing an awful lot of micro-management.

I would have said Panzer Korps as well, love the game, but not for what the poster wants. While it is true a stand equals a company you maneuver battalions. For example you keep the 3 stands of a company together and maneuver and fire as one unit, not 3. While you can break up a battalion into individual companies those companies must be attached to a battalion. An example would be an infantry battalion made up of 3 companies with a company of armor attached. You move that as one unit. Further you fire the battalion with one die, the tank company would modify the die depending on circumstances. So the maneuver element is the battalion, not the company as poster is seeking.

You are quite correct – that's one of the things I like about Panzer Korps, you avoid all the fiddling about with elements that should be below the horizon for the level of commander you are playing as. That's one of my gripes with Spearhead – you direct your battalions with the attack arrows and so on, that's fine, but then you have to fiddle around manouvering and attacking with the platoons. But the OP didn't say he wanted to use the company as the manouvre element, he asked if he should. If that is what he really wants then Panzer Korps is at a level one to high for him.

The GHQ Rules, Field of Battle WW2 and Command Decision are looking good. Now I have to choose….

I have been looking at creating a Wacht am Rhein playing area using a figure game version of a boardgame set of rules and using the playing area from the old SPI Wacht am Rhein playing area. The playing area will be 4x6 feet, or 120cm x 180cm and using four flocked MDF sheets. Its going to occupy the rear of my existing Napoleonic Leipzig playing area. The rules are the old SPI Modern Battles game system and the element scale with be battalion, with some of the weaker infantry regiments being depicted as a single element.
I had no specific intention of copying on this battle, but for a major offensive its size is not too large as to be unplayable by figures. Most the eastern front battles require a very large playing area, even at 1:30000 scale, which is what I am using. Ardennes is a good battle to target, but few rules can handle the scale.

Or you could use a single 3mm vehicle per platoon, as with 6mm, and have an effectively bigger playing area.

To my eye, the multiple vehicle bases, although they look OK as mini-dioramas off-map are visually obtrusive on-map. Hence I prefer un-based single vehicles.

I tend to agree with you. I see the main benefit of 3mm figures is smaller elements, thus i suspect a 2 cm sq base may be viable for 3mm, allowing me to have a larger battlefield for the same playing area size.

As for bases v no-bases, as WW2 has a lot of infantry, you are always going to have bases, so i tend to base everything. I also find the figures look nicer on as base, if the base has some diorama on it.

I use 3mm on company size bases and the bases can be made into little vignettes.
The rules I use are Sam Mustafa"s Rommel, really good set of rules. Good for Corps and Division actions with combined arms actions.
You can look up Rommel scenarios on the Hexes and Miniatures web site which has a scenario for the US 35th Div holding off a German counter attack.

I use 3mm on company size bases and the bases can be made into little vignettes.

I think that is a good idea. I am currently putting together a 6mm Napoloenic army and my plan is to use 3cm sq bases, which can be placed on a movement tray to represent a 6cm base, which is a common base size for 6mm Napoleonic. For my 6mm ancients I am going for 2cm sq bases, which can be placed into pairs to create a standard 4cm wide base. You do need to keep units down, as if you have 100 movement trays, each which consists of 2 or even 4 bases, you spend a long time filling your movement trays.

The GHQ rules, Micro Armor, The Game (MATG), seem to be pretty well regarded by those who play it. I have read several AARs of gamers who say they play fast and fun, and give results that "feel" realistic.

I play at one-to-one unit scale, so I can't offer up my own personal experiences. But I have often considered that if I ever do change to one-to-platoon or one-to-company scale, I will want to go to PicoArmor so that my units can look like the units they represent (a few tanks on a base) rather than just abstracting away the masses involved (1 tank, but saying it represents a platoon).

I love the 3mm miniatures from O8/picoarmor and want to buy some WW2 miniatures for a Battle of the Bulge game.

Your post has inspired me to complete my Wacht am Rhein playing area. Its 6 x 4 feet in size and uses a figure game conversion of the SPI Modern Battles game system and uses the SPI Ardennes units, which are Battalion/Regiment per element. I use 6mm, but I must admit I am thinking for trying out 3mm figures to see what the effect would be.

I always thought about this idea in the past but always though it was ludicrous, however if someone else has the same idea I am certain the idea has merit. Make sure you do some posts concerning the results of your game; it will be of great interest.

Pf,
Every hobbiest should have a quest project. Your sounds great. No more ludicrous than playing g with toy soldiers in the first place; enjoy!

Joe

I have completed my Wacht am Rhein playing area and so far its working well, apart from the fact i can never get to the Meuse. I am also using part of it from a 6mm ancient game, which is a bit odd but does seem to work as well.

Fistful of Tows includes WW2 and modern with patoon elements.

Lightning War – Red Storm has both WW2 and modern using company elements

FFT3 works well. But our group prefers Rapid Fire, especially the new Rapid Fire Reloaded. And I believe Rapid Fire has a Bulge book also. Plays fast and gives believable results.