"What's happening with BKC?" Topic

To find out follow Pendrakens discussion on Blitzkrieg Commander Rules.

It's been a great discussion. Some great people on there.

Our group really likes BKC II and we've had some great games with it. If they're going to do a bit of a re-write/update they need to fix the one thing that really, really bothers me and that is limit the number of units that can fire at a single target. The command and control system, artillery, close assault, etc., all work great and then you watch as an entire brigade of T-34s fires at one PZIVH platoon, which calls into question the realism of the entire set of rules, which is unfortunate.

No set of rules that I've ever used has limited how many units may fire at a single enemy unit/formation. Provided that you have to identify who is firing at who before any firing takes place then surely this tactic can only benefit the non-firer? The firer risks destroying the target early on and wasting the rest of his firing on an already dead unit. Or does it work differently in BKC, I've never played those particular rules?

deephorse, we do make the players call out the shots, so what you're saying is essentially correct in that you can end up wasting shots. However, it's an effective "steamroller" type tactic where you overwhelm a single enemy unit. My issue is that if a brigade of T-34s(10-12 models) come across a platoon of PZIVHs(1 model) that a few would stop to engage it and the others would press on towards other objectives as trying to coordinate all of their fire would be close to impossible. What happens too often in BKC is that all of the T-34s will stop in firing positions that will enable all of them to knock out the single German unit. Granted, this does not happen all of the time in our games, but from time to time it does bring out some groans.

> Or does it work differently in BKC, I've never played those particular rules?

Yes it does, my largest gripe with the rules is how it handles armored combat. 10 tanks with NO chance of harming a target individually will almost certainly destroy that tank if firing together.

If you've got 10 of your tanks firing at one tank of the enemy, then you're giving NO attention to a lot of other enemy units. That comes with its own penalty.

Thanks for all the comments, we've got a couple of threads going on our Forum where we're taking feedback on the rules: link

A tank that is having lots of little pings off its armour will start to wonder when the big bangs are going to start happening.

In the scale of BKC, you could rationalize that the 10 tank platoons have damaged the single tank platoon sufficiently to render it inoperable, or it fired off enough of its ammo or used up enough fuel in its defence that it needs to withdraw. KOed doesn't necessarily mean dead.

Plus there plenty of examples of heavily armoured tanks being destroyed by a lucky shot from a small caliber gun.

Making a tank fail morale and run, sure, but being a near guarantee of a kill – no. I also pulled the 10 on 1 out of a hat since the same effect can occur at 3 on 1 or even 2 on 1.

Couldn't this be solved by instituting a maximum number of units that can target a single enemy? Trying to coordinate say 6 tank platoons to fight a single enemy platoon seems like it'd be hard to achieve.

Maybe the hits caused a track (mobility) kill followed by the crew abandoning the vehicle. BKC is a bit abstract due to its scale and lack of detail compared to other rules. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Spearhead of course uses a simple target priority rule in to limit the quantity of fire possible at individual units.

I think that people forget the effect of hitting an already suppressed target in BKC. It has to retreat, and if it has to retreat more than a certain distance, it is eliminated. There's more than one way to eliminate a target.