"Good rules for 6mm North Africa" Topic

I like the price and look of 6mm minis for the Western Desert battles, good looking models from GHQ and the infantry doesn't look too bad either. Cheap too.

What ruleset would allow me to use my 8ft by 6,5ft table to the fullest using North Africa as the theater of ops? I'm looking at 1940-41 for starters (Italians, early DAK).

I'd like full equipment/OOB info and the chance to expand into other theaters with the same ruleset.

Command Decision: Test of Battle testofbattle.com
Battlefront: WW-II fireandfury.com

Blitzkrieg Commander 2 – really helpful forum at link

I found something called Panzer War freeware rules, but they lack information for armored cars of the era.

I've been playing Jagdpanzer for 30 years or so now. It was originally designed for Micro Armor (6mm).

The new Jagdpanzer 2nd Edition rules have much improved Infantry combat and can be played from 6mm to 20mm scale.

All the OOB and vehicle stats are in there and it is quite extensive. Check out Jagdpanzer.com

I believe there is a downloadable version, or there may some rulebooks left.

Spearhead? ww2spearhead.wordpress.com

Take a look at us.

link

Firstful of Tows, despite the name it covers WWII as well. TONS of unit and formation data from WWII to the present as well.

fft3.com

The KISS rules are pretty good.

link

And they are free.

Panzer Leader converted to minis. I use 4" Terrain Maker hexes, but a hex map or a hex-less conversion of the unit stats would also work. The desert kit has been covered on various fan sites and that includes the early North African campaigns. Check Boardgamegeek for details. Another option that has worked well for me is to convert Lock N Load's White Star Rising rules to minis. Desert Heat covers North Africa (not early war, but not hard to come up with stats on your own). I use two minis per unit. Remove a mini to indicate a step loss….or put out a flaming wreck using colored cotton tufts. Both systems provided fast, enjoyable and easy to teach club games.

Spearhead is designed for brigade to multiple divisions and works well for North African engagements. The rules include TO&E. There is one scenario book with a number of ready to play scenarios.

Command Decision looks good. Do I have to field entire divisions in each game, or can I field a couple of battalions (say nine to ten models of armored cars or tanks and an infantry battalion)?

"Do I have to field entire divisions in each game"

No, CD creaks quite a bit at divisional scale, it works best for battalion-brigade. The Benghazi Handicap scenario book is stuffed with great desert scenarios, mainly pitched at brigade level.

Even Spearhead creaks at divisional level.

Mein Panzer from ODGW works quite well in the desert. It was originally designed for micro-scale, each model=one vehicle, and despite its name MP works quite well for infantry combat. check it out at odgw.com

Jim Day's Panzer is a really nice set of 1:1 microarmor rules. They're a pretty crunchy set of rules-somewhere in the same range as the original Squad Leader. In fact, the game is often described as Squad Leader, if its focus was on armor instead of infantry. I will say that the crunch/chrome of the rules really works for the game, and adds to the fun, rather than getting in the way. Panzer moves along at a pretty good clip, too. You should be able to finish a company + level engagement in 2.5-3.0 hours. The game is fairly counter/marker heavy, which can be a distraction or annoyance for some people.

There are multiple iterations of the rules in board and miniatures form. GMT reissued the Panzer board game in 2012, and the Panzer Miniatures rules are available in PDF/POD from Wargames Vault.

The only catch (and it is, admittedly, a large catch) is that you'll need to pick up a copy of '88, which is the only version of the rules to cover the western desert. And they're made of unobtanium. About $150 USD worth of unobtanium, at this link

You can get a look at a half-arsed game of Panzer that I played in this past weekend, that was nominally set in Tunisia in 1943, but unfortunately our terrain efforts are lagging behind our microarmor painting. link

No need to get 88, Panzer was redone (a couple of times) and Jim is selling the miniatures version online through Strikenet Games.

link

This would be a bit too low level for a Battalion level game I would think.

I went with Blitzkrieg Commander II. Seemed to offer my favored scale within a reasonable sized book.

Have fun with BCII.

Just so no-one is confused, the only version of Panzer that has the necessary data cards for North Africa is 88. Trust me-I've looked!

BCII offers the choice to field platoon-sized elements, which is what I was looking for in 6mm gaming. Gives a more epic feel for the happenings. I'm going to use GHQs (slightly big) infantry and vehicles since what I'm looking for is a representation of the action, not necessarily a 1:1 scale simulation.

I decided to switch into the Burma theater of war, since I've got the green mat o' war already and interest towards the period. Just need to build some jungle in 6mm scale. I'm thinking the finished product could be quite epic. It's a pity there isn't much gaming material for the Burmese conflict though.

Losing focus, getting drawn into rule sets with huge collection of data :

Fistful of Tows 3 and Mein Panzer data books look quite amazing.

:)

Does FFT3 have tables for Japanese and Italians available now?

Rapid fire and it has pdf dedicated to the campaign in North AFRICA.

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Nothing new for FFT3 that I am aware of.

Battlefront WWII it has a separately sold set of cards for North Africa. There some OOB's here which include North Africa.
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