"Meeting Engagement in Poland - Battlegroup Blitzkrieg" Topic

Myself and Warwick gave the new Poles their baptism of fire last night in another playtest for the Battlegroup Blitzkrieg book. This was a meeting engagement with the Germans advancing up the road and the Poles heading down the road to stop them. A sudden thunderstorm grounded aircraft and Warwick lost the Timed Stuka Attack he had bought, not a good start…

It began with just recce troops on the table, the Germans going first rushed forward, the Sdkfz 222 spitting cannon shells at the littke TKS Tankette, only to see the rounds ping off to everyone surprise. In the return of fire the Germans didnt fair so well, the 222 crew took several hits from the TKS, and though none penetrated the armour, the crew bailed out and fled! The Polish Wz34 armoured car also opened fire and cut down more recce troops. With the table almost clear of Germans, the Poles made a dash for objectives and secured three out of four before the German main force began to arrive.

The Poles once more gained an advantage as a lucky roll saw the table flooded with Polish troops and Tankettes. As the Germans arrived piecemeal the Poles took up residency in the village and the treeline, as guns and other support arrived. From here it became too much of a hard nut for the Germans to crack.

Try as they might, they couldnt force a breakthrough. The Panzer IIs tried to rush the road, loosing one tank to a mine strike before taking an age to finally knock out the recce tankette. But in return the remaining two Panzer IIs were both knocked out in one round of shooting by another Polish TKS in what was a series of sixes on the dice. A Polish ace in the making. The German infantry tried to attack the village but rifle and MG fire saw them off and the German infantry that tried to outflank the Poles by going through the woods ran into a Polish unit on ambush and were badly mauled, so badly that the unit retired from the battlefield. The Panzer Is stayed well back from the houses as the 75mm gun and the 37mm AT gun were both taking pot shots at them. Even the German artillery failed to give them an edge and it managed very little (though the Poles managed to mortar one of their own tankettes).

In the end the German battle rating broke, having taken 13 points from the loss of the Panzer IIs alone and the need to keep unpinning the units. A Polish victory for their first time in action!

The book is due out at Salute in April.

Nice. =)

Exquisite :)

Tremendous visuals as always. Except that it makes me realize how pitiful my tabletop set ups look by comparison.

yay Poland!

Interesting that when you look at those trays of troops, it's clear that you don't actually have to amass a huge collection in order to play in a new WW2 theatre.They are forces that are within reach of a modest pocket.

Yes, I tried to keep the scenarios in the book to sizes that will be within most gamers reaches, but the nice thing with early war is that you dont need masses of stuff for an evenings exciting game.

As always, so beautiful to look at. Thanks for sharing.

Nice kit! What scale is this?

Its all 20mm and 1/72.

That's an interesting question on points actually Piers – assuming that the points stay relative to the other Battlegroup books (which would make sense as FoTR for ex lets you use other books units) – then do you need much larger forces to play at the same overall points level (how many pz1 and 2s for the cost of a Pz4H?) or do you suggest playing at smaller points values?

Points are constant to the degree of Warwick's whim and reason on any given day…;) They are fairly constant but we do tweak here and there.

The books are themed to work mainly within themselves, though the late war ones crossover lists ok. Im waiting for Blitz to add a 35t to my FotR kampfgruppe!

With early war, things are cheaper, but those armies above are 500 points so not small. I'd say they play in a comparable time to a 650 point FotR game, though our game was over in under two hours… we play fast as we know the rules quite well!

I tend to have point levels I favour depending on the book. Early war is between 400 – 600, same for Overlord, though sometimes up to 750 and the same 750 for FotR. Anything bigger is a day event as my 7 x 5 gets cramoed and these days I find less is more… indeed with Overlord and again with Blitzkrieg, I have found alot of fun and enjoyment with small gsmes as well as big. Dare I say it, more perhaps as you really have to make all your assets count…

Very nice terrain.

Cheers Don!

Just heard there is gonna be a good pre-order deal for this book… Two prize draws and two freebies!