"Points/No points for company-level skirmish game?" Topic

I know the points vs. no points has been discussed in the past, but I hate reviving dead threads. For a company-level skirmish game (1 figure = 1 rifleman) that acts as a transition between GW-style and historic gaming, which would be better?

(A) A game without points, with an army list that provides rifle/mechanized infantry/armored company TO&E with weapon options, crosslisted unit choices, battalion/regiment/division assets, stats for individual men/vehicles/weapons, advice for assembling a force, and strict WYSIWYG? And a pre-game test for vehicle breakdowns to prevent armored companies from overwhelming infantry companies?

(B) Or an army list that provides lists of platoons and company headquart platoons, with options/upgrades and point costs for everything, stats, etc?

Rather than points use force ratios. Say 1 platoon defending and 2 platoons attacking. Ratios of 1.5:1 keep it challenging, to close to even and it stalemates, to high and it is a roll over. Also remember that forces are rarely at full strength.

Personally, I would rather have a well thought out scenario than a points based scenario. If you go with points, they don't have to be even. Defender gets 500 points, attacker gets 850 points, or something like that. I also like the idea of random force cards. Lets say your base unit is an infantry company, so you start with one or two platoons of infantry, then draw a fixed number of random cards that contain units like more infantry, HMG support, mortar support, extra bazooka team, ATG gun, etc.

I wouldn't test for pregame breakdowns; I don't see the need. Armor companies should overwhelm unsupported infantry companies.

Rather than points, each side gets 6 possible orders of battle. Number them 1-6 and roll a die. That's what you have to operate with.

I have always regarded pionts as a guide to help with the construction of a scenario. The pionts being a judgement value of the elements involved but reguiring more thought to complet the scenario.

x42

Historical units and ratios that make sense for defence and attack. Since units are virtually never up to strength we've been experimenting with deducting he difference between two average dice from each section/squad. Doing it at the point when the section first comes under fire makes for some interesting moments without having a devastating effect.

I second x42

Scenarios are good, but sometimes I don't want to make the effort.

With actual company organisations, some will be stronger than others so fighting one-on-one with historical organisations may not be 'fair'. CoC (albeit at a platoon level) sorts this by assigning each platoon structure a force level; the side with the lower force level gets additional support options. And the attacker gets additional support in addition (and the defender half of that taken by the attacker).

…should have said that's what we do with Bolt Action – maybe would n't work well for Rapid Fire or whatever.

Set up the game how you like. Play the game.
Reset the game as you did the first time.
Replay the game with the players swapping roles including which army gets the first turn/activation.

Rather than points, each side gets 6 possible orders of battle. Number them 1-6 and roll a die. That's what you have to operate with.

That could work, but that would restrict people as much as it would give them options, especially if they have to reroll because they do not have the weapon teams required in the order of battle. Another problem would be that it could blow up an army list to hundreds of pages. For example, an 1944-1945 Wehrmacht army list (as it stands now, options for Grenadier, Panzergrenadier, and Panzer companies and supporting platoons from their respective battalions, regiments and divisions) would need to be split up to provide six possible orders of battle for each type, or 18 in total. I'd like to find a comfortable balance between purely random and the à la carte armies of GW, especially if gamers will play meeting engagements, delaying actions, ambushes, defensive battles, raids, etc.

I also like the idea of random force cards. Lets say your base unit is an infantry company, so you start with one or two platoons of infantry, then draw a fixed number of random cards that contain units like more infantry, HMG support, mortar support, extra bazooka team, ATG gun, etc.

I like that idea, but would GW players be interested in that kind of force selection?

I wouldn't test for pregame breakdowns; I don't see the need. Armor companies should overwhelm unsupported infantry companies.

Personally I think that could add a bit of flair to a game, if players have to consider if they might lose a tank or a transport, especially for players whose army would not have adequate air cover for their convoys and trains.

I don't actually hate points systems even though I never write them (almost never, anyways).

The biggest problem I see is that a game with no points system won't deter many but a game with a BAD points system will get people super upset.

There are lots of ways of generating forces for games, DBx style army lists with options are one way to go.

Any approach which involves picking from a list, whether it involves points or not, will result in min/maxing and ever more complex exceptions, special rules etc.

So, you need to have a really hard think about what your game wants to be about.

If it is about historical scenarios then forget points, lists etc and don't even worry if a 'tank company' is more powerful than an 'infantry company', that much is blindingly obvious, let the players sort it out.

If it is about even games and min/maxing then why not go the whole hog and do points rather than a convoluted army list approach.

The failure of points systems is due to the fact that real world terrain can vary enourmously. How effective a company typeis is dependenton terrain. Tanks are useless in boggy terrain and/or in built up areas. Infantry unsupported are hopeless in attack in open terrain. Most armys in a period do not have that much felexibility apart from what is built in. In reality this will be a no brainer in most cases given the scenario there will not be that many plausible options.

I dislike the modern trend for points systems because they are meant to produce 'balanced' forces for games, chess on a larger scale board. Real warfare isn't like that – the so called 'meeting engagements' beloved of wargamers are rare and most actions revolve around one side attacking another.

Now if you attack an enemy position with less than 3-1 odds then you must have skipped a few classes at officer training school…and if you try it with understrength, run down forces, well you might be in the Soviet armies of 1941/2 (don't expect to see home again), or in the Japanese forces on some forsaken Pacific atoll. But even there, they attempted to have some local superiority at the focal point.

While points might be helpful in some cases, I much prefer standard TO&Es for units, and then perhaps a few extra items suggested to give to one side, or the other, in order to balance the scenario out, if that is what is called for.

I have always regarded pionts as a guide to help with the construction of a scenario. The pionts being a judgement value of the elements involved but reguiring more thought to complet the scenario.

Exactly.

Points gives you a quick reference for how close the two forces are. The problem is getting appropriate costs for constructed field defenses (and attaching them to the army list appropriately). Maybe two different army lists for attacker versus defender?

Something I think could/should be tried as an army list would be a fixed number of heavy weapons (as the historical TOE) and a semi-random number of plain riflemen to represent field strengths as opposed to paper strengths. Probably a platoon so in plain rifles, plus whatever random number generation method would give you another half to full platoon. Sure, you're about a third understrength (with all the heavy weapons of a full company), but that seems to be about accurate for forces in combat.

The real challenge would be figuring out the proper support levels. Battalion or regimental weapons platoons should be pretty readily available, not so sure about Division or Corps support.

As a simple matter, I'd make the observers the required part of the artillery model, and not worry too much about guns on table.

Absolutely; those TO&E's were there for a reason.

Bear in mind also that a unit assigned to an attack mission will be made up to full or even over strength by consolidation and reinforcements to achieve local superiority at the focal point. This is done if necessary by stripping units in adjacent sectors and rear echelon troops to provide the extra manpower.

Such units committed to an attack are also allocated more firepower from Division and higher than most wargamers would ever dream of, usually in the form of artillery fire plans scheduled with the timetable of the infantry advance.

Conversely, (and if you've done your econ right), you hope that your attack falls one one of those typically understrength units across the lines ;)

I might add that having forces always be exactly at perfect TO&E strength, as we tend to do in games is as unrealistic as "2000 points" :-)

It almost sounds like it would be easier to just translate the company TO&E to the game mechanics, along with battalion, regimental and division assets, and just let the players decide how to use them.

Here's an interesting thought:

I've seen a lot of games with pretty bad points systems that were clearly an after-thought. Yet, the games still came out roughly okay.

I think the amount of chaos in an average game tends to even out the problems a little.

We tend to use ful order TO&E's as a basis. We then juggle them a bit to get a good scenario. Random elements to a force is in theory an excelent idea. However its can result in spoiling a game by adding or taking away key components. To us the perfect scenario is when the players achive there overall objectives aad the decision is how efficiently it can be done.

Our current campaign expects to get the attacker to the end. The price of that so far has ment to me that, with a few exeptions the prize goes to the defender. The cost toi the attacker (me) has been horredous. Carful use of terrain and engineering has made me pay an unbeliveable price for the ground (Dismissing the superb genralship of the defender of course, as mere "luck" ;-) )

Any value of a fighting force has to be is based on terrain. In a swamp a tank is useless, how would a points system cope with that?

Typically by not having the entire table as swamp, but instead smaller areas of not-really-passable-to-vehicles terrain with the majority of the table assumed to be open country.

So just like in the real thing, tanks stay out of bad ground.

Bear in mind also that a unit assigned to an attack mission will be made up to full or even over strength by consolidation and reinforcements to achieve local superiority at the focal point. This is done if necessary by stripping units in adjacent sectors and rear echelon troops to provide the extra manpower.

Such units committed to an attack are also allocated more firepower from Division and higher than most wargamers would ever dream of, usually in the form of artillery fire plans scheduled with the timetable of the infantry advance.

Which kinda brings me to the method Sam Mustafa used in LaSalle. Your entire command (a division) is pre-defined for you (unless you attach additional brigades and even then the additional brigades are pre-defined), and if you are the attacker you get a few more units. The player chooses the type of Division he is commanding and gets exactly the same mix of units as anyone else selecting that type of division.

To mix that up a bit, start with full TO&E of support weapons and their crew, add a number of basic riflemen to fill out one whole platoon and maybe part of a second, and an additional random quantity of basic riflemen. And that's regardless of attacker or defender. The Attacker then gets a whole pile of additional support items, and the defender gets a whole pile of defenses.

Lion in the stars, Some bits of the world do not have any roads or open ground. We like to add variety to our games.

Random additions can very rapidly chgange the ballence of a game. That can take the fun out of it. All possible combinations need to be able to support the achievment of objectives in either defence or attack. Too much or too few makes for an un-intersting game. Pehaps realistic, but not in the set of interesting games.

The problem I'm seeing is that as others have said, forces would be understrength due to losses, especially the Germans during their fighting retreat. The TO&E-based system would have to be loose enough to accommodate missing squads. If a point system is used then naturally it should reflect the likelihood of a platoon assisting a company (i.e. it is more likely for a battalion-level MG squad to be attached to the company instead of an AT platoon from the division's artillery regiment, so one should cost less than the other). Likewise an AT platoon of 3 PaK 40s at a regimental level's should cost less than an AT platoon of 4 PaK 40s at the divisional level. Perhaps then points could be assigned at the platoon level: one point per platoon in the company TO&E; two points for a battalion level asset; three points for a regimental level asset; four points for a division level asset; five points for assets outside of the division. But in order to do that and avoid mass confusion, the army lists would have to be divided by type of division, which would create 6 different lists for 1944-1945 Germans (Infantry/Luftwaffe Field/Grenadier; Panzer/Panzergrenadier; Gebirgsjaeger/Light/Ski; Volksgrenadier; Fallschirmjaeger; SS Panzer/SS Panzergrenadier). Or am I just overthinking it?

I play Battlegroup Kursk (and it's cousins), but don't have to mess around with points because some wonderful and gifted person has produced an excellent on line program that does all the hard work for you gregfarrell.org/builder/bgb.html

Points systems are like umbrellas: you don't have to have one all the time but if you don't have one when you need it then it's a real bummer.

If you enjoy scenario-based gaming then whether or not a game system includes a points system shouldn't be a concern. Just play the game as you like.

But if a game system lacks a point system then it's much harder to arrange well balanced pick-up games with friends or even strangers. And point systems, with their flexibility, can sometimes be more "realistic" than fixed TO&Es.

As RebelYell points out, one must ask the question, "What is a historically accurate TO&E?"

Full strength paper TO&E based on doctrine?

Campaign TO&E based on losses, leave, etc.?

Real-world TO&E based on battlefield practices or mission requirements and not captured in training manuals and official documents?

Any of those could be "historically accurate" at any given moment during a conflict. A unit enters the campaign at full strength organized and equipped according to doctrine, it suffers losses and is under-strength, the realities of combat force troops to develop their own unofficial TO&E not reflected in official documents, and leaders attach and rearrange troops based on mission type or situation.

Suddenly your platoon with its three doctrinally homogenous squads ends up with all the MGs concentrated in one group to provide suppressing fire for a second group with the remaining riflemen…and the whole thing is at 60% strength for most of the campaign.

We published "Warfare in the Age of Madness" with a points system. And now we have received emails from players who say they're using the system for other periods (e.g. WWII) and they mostly ignore the points system but sometimes they use it. Others tells us how much the enjoy the "meta game" of designing armies with unique backgrounds knowing they can play points-based pick-up games with friends.

My advice: provide a points system knowing that it can always be ignored. It's simply really nice to have as an alternative or even supporting mechanism for historical TO&Es.