"Stand=Company games (besides PanzerKorps)" Topic

I've investigated PanzerKorps a bit and it looks interesting; but for comparison's sake what other WWII rules are in the approximately stand = company range?

Weltkrieg – link

Anyone have any opinions about Weltkrieg?

I suspect that Field of Battle comes into that category too…

link

FOB WW2 is indeed 1 stand = 1 company.

There is a free wargame called DivTac using 1 stand/company.

The Great Battles of WW2 series of three games is also 1 stand/company. You can buy a downloadable PDF of the third game called "Invasion '40" from Bruce MacFarlane's web site, but the first two games (Vol 1 "The Canadians in Europe" and Vol 2 "Drop Zone") are available as hard copy only and must be ordered from the the CWG site. All three use the same core rules (complete with uncorrected editing errors) but have different background and scenarios, so you can see how the mechanics work by just getting one of them.

The game Not Quite Mechanized seems to be mostly 1 stand/company, though it says armor stands might be more. The rules are free on the web, but in html format, so might be difficult to print.

- Ix

Weltkrieg does have a free download version which looks interesting. I will probably mess about with the rules on the weekend. And I like the price-point for a download.

I am not sure how well it will adapt to my 10mm forces.

I just bought Weltkrieg and took a glance.

The "standard" stand size is 1.25" square, so if you conform to that, your 10mm minis will fit very well.

The rules also say the usual "use whatever basing you want, as long as all your bases are the same, yadda yadda", but measurements are all in inches, so you wouldn't want to make the bases much bigger or smaller than 1.25" or you'd be either making special measuring sticks or making your own charts. Bleah. All my micro scale stuff is on 1" square stands, but for a test drive of the rules I'll call that "close enough".

On Wargamesvault.com, Weltkrieg is only $8.50 USD, and it comes with more than enough to start playing East Front games – it has TO&E and data cards for Germans and Soviets. Since some of the Soviet equipment is Lend/Lease (Shermans, Stuarts, Lees, etc.), you could also extrapolate some American and UK/Commonwealth forces, but you'd be making up values for the infantry, British tanks, Western artillery, etc.

I'll have to take a closer look at Weltkrieg sometime soon. It looks nearer to what I've been seeking than the other rules mentioned above.

- Ix

Along with those mentioned above there two other free sets – Lightning War and Incoming (the later is a bit more abstract in its representation). Tim Gows NATO Brigade Commander also works fine for WW2.

Weltkreig doesn't look hugely different to Lightning War, the latter used to be on freewargamesrules.co.uk.

Weltkreig and Panzer Korps are very similar in their representational scale. In both the unit of manoeuvre is the battalion, with individual stands representing companies. A battalion consists of three core companies, with an option to add other company-sized attachments represented by extra stands. But fighting is done by the battalion – it has just one "shot", whose strength and effectiveness is based on the core company equipment, with modifiers supplied by the attachments. The battalion also manoeuvres as a single unit, though the constituent companies can take up different configurations (column for road march, "line" for normal fighting). Both sets of rules work best with 6mm or smaller models; I have mine on 1" square bases, Weltkrieg recommend 30mm square. Either way I think they look good on the table and give a battle that looks more like a divisional clash than the usual small scale skirmish.

I second Martin's comment on Lighting War. It is a free download from the Yahoo group LWRS. Both it and GBWW2 have interesting mechanisms that gradually wear down forces until they can no longer fight effectively.

Assault gun is another free set, but I have not used it.

Kind regards
Andrew

Brigadier General equates to one company per stand.