"A few sneak peeks at 5core Brigade Commander" Topic

Coming towards the close of writing the Brigade Commander rules for FiveCore.

So what is this all about?

Play a brigade level 20th century battle on a 3x3 foot table, in about an hour to hour and a half.

Not bad right?

The core mechanics use the well-tested mechanics from FiveCore skirmish and Company Commander but tweaked for a scale where each stand is a full company of troops.

9 different unit classes, ranging from plain, old foot infantry to tanks and helicopter gunships.

To further differentiate your forces, 9 different kinds of attachments are available, which are added to a unit to enhance its abilities, such as additional anti-tank elements, a platoon of heavy tanks or local AA defence units.

To capture the larger battle going on around you, you will also receive assets, which can be called in from off-board. These range from the typical artillery and air strikes to doctrinal advantages like breakthrough attacks or commando raids.

To top it all off, you'll of course get solo rules, a scenario generator, a war generator for imagi-nation players and campaign rules.

The goal is to make you able to play large battles fairly quickly and without too much bean-counting. A tester described it as "DBA for moderns" in principle (not in application).

Release date: Soon. Very soon.

Page count will be around 70 pages at current estimates.

This looks great and I've been keeping an eye on progress on this for which seems like ages now :) Your're leaving nothing to chance obviously ;)

I haven't played Brigade level before so I was kind of wondering is there a suggested scale or basing.

I already have some 15mm that were based originally for FoW. Having said that I was thinking of getting some modern stuff in 6mm or 10mm or even 3mm

I've been watching around for a scale I might use for moderns. I've seen a few amazing examples of what can be achieved with these mini-micro scales at such a low cost:

Photo from Sparkers Site
sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au

Photo's from Thaddeus Blanchette's excellent site

Photo's from Thaddeus Blanchette's excellent site
link

I've been talking to a few pals who don't play war-games at all but after seeing some of these photos they're really to take the plunge. Painting smaller scales don't seem to intimidate as much as the larger ones.

Could be an excellent entry level for newbies.

Anyway I'm really looking forward to trying out these rules; try to release them while I'm on holidays and will have time to read them :)

Looks good; keep the info coming.

I've been looking at 3mm myself. It would seem to be perfect at this scale. My problem would be infantry and what detail you would get with them. Are they decent at least? Irregular leads me to think that they are just human like shapes.

The vehicles look good though.

@Weasel apologies not trying to hijack the thread but I love the idea of this game being played on the kitchen table on a 3x3 space with a few pals over.
Usually to do this we need to retreat to my gamer in the dungeon and well this would maintain a far more social angle to the setup. And I know for sure a couple of my pals are ready to enter the hobby on this basis too.

@Tgunner I've no experience at all and I haven't seen them in the flesh but here's an image of some 3mm infantry:

WW2 US

WW2 falliscirmjager

link

Looking at these images I think I'd prefer larger groups and I'd imagine painting them in exaggerated lighter colours than would be realistic could help set them apart.

Getting back to the actual rules or system. I've been watching Just Jack AAR's for quite some time. Firstly I respect his knowledge of warfare above most that I read here or anywhere to be honest :) We've discussed so many rule sets and systems in the past. He rarely kept with one system for very long…he has being using this 5core system since it came out. (the Company version)
I might be wrong Ivan but I believe he's been on the play test team with this Brigade system? Anyway I've never seen the guy more excited about a game system before (kind of sad actually :) ) but he's been having a blast with them and he reckons they produce a ver authentic feel. Anyway on this basis alone I'm excited to try them out especially with starting out with a whole new and very affordable scale

Yeah, ditto here. Just Jack has introduced me to a lot of great games. I'm really forward to the Brigade Commander game too. It looks like a hoot!

I'm really interested in these too, and echo War Panda's questions about basing sizes, specifically if Cold War Commander bases will work. I have CWC (and have played it a few times) but have trouble getting into the rules.

I'd be doing this in 3mm as well, saving 6mm for company-scale modern gaming, but having worked on some other 3mm projects, I have to say Oddzial Osmy's 3mm infantry is way better than Irregular's 2mm for detail. You can see belts, weapon types, helmet/hat types, and boots.

3mm, like 2 and 6mm, suffer when looked at super close up, but from a reasonable distance everything looks great. I based these 3mm Vietnam War figures pretty simply (it was a B project), but I like 'em lots:
link
link

Very helpful info boywx. And great links…I'm really loving this stuff :) And I have a feeling these are the rules to get the most out of this scale

My gaming recently has been dedicated to 28mm skirmish and I've found that even adding some small details to the table can take an enormous amount of time and sometimes expense.

What strikes me is how amazingly easy and quick it would be to create whole terrain features for different scenarios that otherwise would be a several month project.

I was thinking of recreating the Operation Biting scenario but the prospect of creating the cliffs and terrain was very off putting. But looking at this picture I realize how with some foam board and very limited terrain resources how quickly and effortlessly this all could be done…

Yes, 3mm terrain is a lot of fun and pretty easy to scratchbuild, my blog has some of my stuff for bamboo forests, huts, and other Asian terrain from that Vietnam project.

There's more out commercially too, Gamecraft has city buildings, TBM has a Napoleonic town, and Picoarmor has the old Simply 6 stuff plus O8's. There's some decent free paper terrain too for modern buildings (I'm doing Godzilla in 3mm). For a game like Brigade Commander I'd probably build urban areas a scale smaller, so Irregular and particularly Brigade UK's 2mm stuff.

Yes I'm having a "field day" with the terrain on your blog <groan>
and I'm excited about how being able to whip out a game and finish in an hour and a half (or longer if desired)

Most of you might be used to the scale but I'm flabbergasted with the images I'm finding. Look at the size of the AA batteries (not gun batteries..the flippin' batteries on the side of the table!

Could play a game on your lap :)

Don't worry about hijacking the thread :-)

I've been buying 3mm troops and they are fantastic. Even the infantry is pretty decent. Obviously at that scale, the detail is going to be a little limited but you can pick out faces, rifles and whatnot.
I've mounted mine up with a pair of APCs and a few infantry figures in front of them.

I'd imagine 2mm terrain would work jsut fine with them?

As far as 3mm vs 6mm? That's a tough call and probably one more on personal taste than anything else.

The main benefit in 6mm is that there's a lot more companies doing it, so you have more choices out there.

I will say picoarmour is fantastic to deal with: Super fast to send out the orders and they send a confirmation when they do so too. Outstanding little company.

Oh, as far as basing:

I aim at 1x1" to 1.5x1.5" BUT the game isn't really that tied to a particular basing method.
Some of the testers have done 2x1" bases I believe.

From what I've seen of Cold War Commander and Blitzkrieg Commander, I can't imagine using those troops would be an issue at all.

The one thing you may want to make is "Attachments".
These are platoon level elements you can add to a unit.
I do them by putting a single vehicle on a smaller base.

The attachments are put next to the company-stand to indicate the presence of extra support.

You could just keep track of them on paper or with markers though.

Thanks for the basing info, that helps and I can start doodling with ideas before seeing the book. I have 3mm Cold War Canadians and Warsaw Pact on hand, and have been eyeing the recent Chinese releases.

2mm terrain would work as urban areas, but it is definitely smaller than "proper" 3mm terrain, which would be good for "go take that farmhouse" sort of situations.

On that note, what's the best source of trees and other "natural" features for either 2 or 3mm?

For big battle scales (like this), I've used rolled cork (like the 2mm thick stuff), painted dark brown/grey and glued to green scrubbing pads for entire forests:

{Edit – I give up, I don't know why TMP won't accept this picture when it accepted the one above from my blog… – anyway, this post has my cork forests in pic #3 link }

You could also use different coloured foliage clusters glued to the cork, and for 6mm some people use nails, cardboard and foliage clusters to do bigger forests. That should work for 3mm too.

I think the pine trees in War Panda's photos above are probably unfurled pipe cleaners, which is another technique I've seen used for 6mm.

Irregular sells metal trees for 2mm, and Oddzial Osmy for 3mm, but they're pricey and I would say better for representing tree stands at a smaller scale of game. Irregular sell a lot of other 2mm natural features stuff too.

There's a guy on here, Forwardmarch, who's done ACW stuff that's incredible if you can dig it up. If you search for "4mm" (that's what he called 3mm for a while), you should find it.

Nice, I'll take a look at some of that.

Weasel/Ivan you have me in a frenzy looking at 2, 3 and 6mm now :)

I have a rule question regarding friction in 5Core Brigade Commander.

I love friction. One of my pals does not :)

Do you intend to have much friction? If so I wonder would it be possible to have options (maybe even a chapter on optional rules)

I know in the past I think you may have mentioned an option of a d20 being used as a possible way of randomizing effects. After having a chat with a pal of mine I think this would be a great idea. I was just wondering if there was any intention of something like this available. I'd love the idea of a d10 or d20 with even more random options…but then again I'm crazy ;)

Also Ivan (sorry…I'm off today so lots of time on my hands :) ) but at this level is there need for differentiating between WW2 or will it be handled more simply with Light Tanks vs Medium vs Heavy each according to the proper theatre. i.e. Will theatre rules apply: WW2, moderns etc

I'm actually looking at Early ww2, France etc…(probably inspired by Just Jack's early war AAR's I've been watching some documentaries and ordered some kindle books for the hols.

I've never been interested in wargaming early WW2 in skirmish or lower level but Brigade does.

Trying to cram 70 years into one game means making some sacrifices :-)

Essentially, you just estimate whether a tank is equal, lower or higher "tech' than the opposition.

So a 50mm armed PZ III might be higher tech than a British Crusader tank but equal tech to a T34 (depending on player perspectives).
I'll add in notes on how to judge that but since tanks tend to come in generations, it's not super hard to do.

You can fudge with that a bit more too: A British Valentine tank might be "high tech" when fired upon by the Germans but "equal" when firing at them.

You can think of it as "light", "medium", "heavy". I used "tech" as a term since that seemed to fit better for the post ww2 world.

edit:
There'll be optional rules in each chapter, like I did for FiveCore 2nd edition. I'm a big fan of providing options.

Brilliant Ivan thats what I was hoping for on both counts to be honest. I prefer to think things simple if I'm switching between modern and WW2

I've already got a load of 2mm stuff based up for this level of action, so looking forward to it. Prob use my 6mm stuff for ww2.

@Martin since you game in both 2mm and 6mm would you have a recommendation for someone looking at both scales. I like the added detail with the infantry that 6mm seems to have but in the end I don't think for this level I'm all that pushed about detail as long as I can determine which side is which :)

Any recommendations on manufactures?

Choice in 2mm is pretty limited – Irregular are the only manufacturers, and for some vehicles you have to do really horrible conversions (so e.g. my Shilkas are filed down Hummels….). The infantry are distinguishable though, sufficient to paint on hands, faces, weapons. I have tons of 2mm Horse & Musket stuff which is really nice.

Irregular 2mm terrain is way too small,I just use 6mm trees, my generic fields etc and for modern era buildings, I find left over blocks from Command and Colours Ancients look quite convincing. They are grey and brown, varying shapes and sizes so look OK.

For 6mm I am a complete cheapskate, my stuff is primarily Heroics & Ross or Scotia. GHQ is for more generous people than I. Some of my H&R infantry are over 40 years old, but I like them:)

For 2mm I sometimes find it necessary to colour code the rear of the bases to figure out who is who, although it is easier for moderns as the vhicles are quite distinctive.

6mm is easy to make out, as long as you don't plan on playing standing up in poor light. With the small fivecore tables, you can easily play sitting down, much better for my poor old back and ancient eyes. 6mm stuff looks positively huge compared to 2mm.

Sorry, not a huge amount of help, other people cna chip in with their favourite 6mm manufacturers (I expect GHQ and Adler will get numerous mentions).

Anyway, here is some of my 2mm stuff on my Hexon terrain. A couple of Warpac Regiments fight their way across the Mittelland Canal outside Braunchsweig in 1981.

link

Adler is really popular. I don't own any but I've seen them and they are decent.
Super big helmets but it does help the infantry look more distinct.

As Martin says, GHQ is super nice but they are pricier than the competition. I find their infantry can be a bit too spindly and prone to breakage but maybe I am just bad at storage.
Their vehicles are fantastic though, almost as detailed as 15mm ones.

Those 2mm pictures are great Martin. Still looks very clear what is what.

I'll add that regardless of whether you go 2mm, 3mm or 6mm, it's pretty affordable.

I spent some 40 bucks to get 3mm soviets and ended up with probably 60 vehicles of different types, more infantry than I knew what to do with and a few planes and choppers.

In 6mm, it'll be a bit more limited but it'll still be pretty affordable.

That's lots of help Martin thank you :) Great looking game and site by the way

And thanks Ivan. I really think it's such a great way to approach starting up in wargaming. Doesn't feel nearly as intimidating as with larger scales

I think at this stage I'm moving slightly towards 6mm

Yeah, I feel the "start a game for 50 dollars" mark is a pretty good one. Same reason I tend to stick with 15mm for platoon skirmishes.
Makes starting a new project very accessible.

As an aside, just finished writing the random force generator. It's based on the one from Company Commander but expanded to account for various support elements and off-board assets.
Quite the beast to make too.

Used 2mm and 3mm and find them too small; 6mm size of choice. Companies three on a 3 inch company base or one on a 1.5 inch base. Scatter infantry on a base to a density you like but some max out on simplicity: use half-tracks as infantry and remove need for any infantry figures.

Looking forward to learning more about these rules.

Hagen – I like the look of both APC and infantry on the same stands though I totally get why people just use the vehicle model.

One of the benefits of the smaller scales is being able to make small diorama's out of them.

As an aside, just finished writing the random force generator. It's based on the one from Company Commander but expanded to account for various support elements and off-board assets.
Quite the beast to make too.

That sounds great Ivan! I'm really looking forward to this. As I've mentioned already I'm new to Brigade Level and for some reason I'm only interested in this level for certain theatres.

War of France for example. In skirmish I've hardly any interest at all. Yet I can't wait to try out large tank battles involving off board artillery. I feel the same about Russia…no huge interest in skirmish. But large scale battles…Yes. At the price and ease of painting and acquiring terrain I can justify fighting a war on all fronts …North Africa, Barbarossa, Early War…

I'm really excited about starting what I view as a few very achievable projects. And I know your rules are extremely accessible and understandable. Simple to understand and in operation yet you have a talented knack of giving a lot of flavour and detail to your rules; enough to feel like there are two very different armies fighting each other. Kind of a cliche now and applied to too many games but you do find yourself forgetting its a game and instead you can immerse yourself in some exciting decision making. At this stage if the game isn't allowing me to do this I don't get much use from it. I honestly went through a few years where a lot of my games seemed completely lacking in any real decision making.

Anyways I'm rambling but best of luck finishing it up!

To be honest, if I was starting from scratch I'd do my modern stuff in 6mm. I've got tons of 6mm for WW1 and WW2 and it works fine for this level of action.

I went with the smaller scale because having a generic T54/55/62 model and a generic T64/72/80 seemed vastly preferable to actually having to paint up whole regiments of almost identical vehicles for what is (for me) a peripheral period. But they are really very fiddly to handle when you are painting and basing them, especially for my big fat fingers.

3mm is only cheap if you aren't crazy and go 1:1.

I was going through my stash in preparation of Brigade Commander and realized I needed about another $30 USD – $40 USD of picoarmor to round out to the correct four company battalions, and for engineering/arty that I didn't buy when I was going to play with Cold War Commander.

1-to-1 would look AMAZING though :-)

I went cheap and just used 2 vehicles per stand, but I do wish I had used slightly bigger bases and done 3, to get a more massed look.

Well that is next next question I suppose…is there a consensus on how best to base…
I would like a more massed look I suspect

Hagen – I like the look of both APC and infantry on the same stands though I totally get why people just use the vehicle model.

Yes but I cheat and just use standard infantry of 3 six-man platoons on a company base. To show the troop type I add a half-track for armoured infantry or lorry for motorised or horse for mounted!

One of the benefits of the smaller scales is being able to make small diorama's out of them.

Yes but I confess that pico scale can be useful if you go that way.

3mm is only cheap if you aren't crazy and go 1:1.

Agreed. As I recall 3mm costs half the price of 6mm but you really need to use more so you do not save money but get a slightly more impressive look in terms of numbers but not quite as much detail on the individual ones.

Well that is next next question I suppose…is there a consensus on how best to base…
I would like a more massed look I suspect

Our goal was to have 1 to 5 on the bases. Three-inch wide company base with three vehicles, with depth of one and a half inches; support platoons on one and a half inch square bases. Perhaps for 2/3mm you could use the same size bases but double the number of figures.

As an aside, a 3" wide company base is proably the most realistic when it comes to frontage (roughly, kinda, sorta, close to 300 meters'ish) but I find them too wide for my personal tastes.

That's just me though :-)

I'm using Flames of War bases. One platoon per medium base (I want my basing to work for other 1:1 platoon level games), with attachments on small bases. Infantry and APCs get separate platoon bases (I want to be able to form a Bronegruppa).

That gives a company frontage of 6" or about 500 meters at ground scale.

It'd depend on what 6mm you compare them to, but vs. GHQ (which I love and am using for my company scale WWII and modern projects), 3mm is about 1/6th the cost of 6mm. You can get 5 6mm tanks for $10 USD or 30 3mm tanks for about $8.50 USD.

As an aside, a 3" wide company base is proably the most realistic when it comes to frontage (roughly, kinda, sorta, close to 300 meters'ish) but I find them too wide for my personal tastes.

Yes – use an inch to 100 metres/yards approach. I suspect war gamers generally do not use wide enough bases and think turning unit frontages easier than it is in reality.

It'd depend on what 6mm you compare them to, but vs. GHQ (which I love and am using for my company scale WWII and modern projects), 3mm is about 1/6th the cost of 6mm.

True – GHQ is the best 6mm that money can buy … but you had better have a lot of money. We have one gamer who uses them but otherwise we use less expensive suppliers who still give good quality products (mainly Heroics & Ros if truth be told).

Hagen – I fudge it a little for my own games by assuming the units are under-strength from being in the field but yes.
Most people would be shocked at seeing what realistic unit frontages, dispersion and such would look like on the field.

I've jumped in with these. I have the skirmish and company sets and this is just what I wanted something quick that lets me get the toys out with out too much hassle.

I am reusing my 6mm forces which are based for MSH. 2 stands to a company so i have the flex to manoeuvre around terrain etc attachments are then single bases. Means that forces still have some heft to them. I could just use one base per company but that would have needed modelling.

Thanks for buying and yeah, pushing 2 stands together should work fine.

Courtesy of a fan, should have some sample cold war army lists up with suggested Tank ratings too.
Probably tomorrow unless I come out of the cave tonight.

Just doing the same thing now. Trick is deciding if attachments should be intrinsic capability or whether an asset would be more appropriate. Arty support needs some thought as well for historical forces. Spread the NATO jam or masses on soviet fire to the success. First couple of run throughs have been fun.

Indeed.

It's easy to get caught up in trying to portray every single thing on the table and that way lies madness. Pick and choose the parts that are most important :)

@Weasel apologies not trying to hijack the thread but I love the idea of this game being played on the kitchen table on a 3x3 space with a few pals over.
Usually to do this we need to retreat to my gamer in the dungeon and well this would maintain a far more social angle to the setup. And I know for sure a couple of my pals are ready to enter the hobby on this basis too.

@Tgunner I've no experience at all and I haven't seen them in the flesh but here's an image of some 3mm infantry:

3mm alloes you to put a number of minis on each stand, giving a good representation of higher level organisations.

paperterrain.com has some 3mm buildings.

Cheers,
Gregory

Thing I haven't quite got my head around yet is creating combat teams, or to put it better adding AT attachments to mech infantry. You only gain 1S benefit and tanks don't draw off fire from the parent unit which then gets ripped apart from pure tank company fire. Need to read a bit more.

The way I reasoned is that in a straight up fight between a mech inf company with a platoon of AT vehicles versus a full tank company, I'd still put my money on the tank company.

Though with 2 Shock dice, the mech inf will have a decent chance of driving them off, if they get the first shot. Movement becomes pretty important there and being the person initiating the attack.

I find that the mech inf does fine if they get to pick the engagement and bring some friends but they tend to fare poorly if they are on the receiving end of a tank assault.

If you want them to draw the fire, you can use the "heavy tank" attachment instead, which lets them survive longer though at the expense of fire power.