"Reviews for Big Bloody Battles?" Topic

Does anyone have any reviews for BBB? Also is it really suited for 2mm/6mm figures or can 10mm figures be used?

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Thanks for the shout out. There are more out there beyond mine. There is also a blog by the creator bloody big battles.com and a yahoo group. Suffice to say these are my favorite rules right now. They work well with 10 mm figures.

Thanks for your interest in BBB. I have collected quite a few reviews, or excerpts, or links to reviews on my BBB blog, tagged with "Review of BBB". You can find them here. Be sure to keep clicking "older posts" to find them all:

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Chris
Bloody Big BATTLES!
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And as for scale: 10mm works well enough that that is the scale we're using for our BBB demo game at the Warfare show in Reading UK this weekend. 15mm is OK too.

Chris

Here's my review link
I use 15mm (and sometimes 10mm). These have become my favorite rules.

If you like Fire and Fury Brigade, you will probably like these rules.

Dont forget 28mm, I am engaged in a project in that scale

Doing BBB in 28mm? Do take pictures when done (or nearly so).

Thanks for the info and links!

We've played it successfully (at WAR in Reading) in 15mm, 6mm and 2mm. I used the latter for a Balaclava demo game at Warfare earlier this month too.

If it is any help, I used them as a tool to teach decision making to army officers at Fort Leavenworth, and will be using them at the Naval War College in RI when I establish the elective class I will be teaching there.
Nick

@NickinRI … that IS interesting; keen to here a bit more about this.

Royal Marine I just saw this. Our school year has started and I've been a bit swamped.

I used to teach a course that used wargaming, in a variety of forms, to teach decision making and to understand history.

I used BBB for the section of the course that dealt with the mid-late 19th C. I would break the class in two (typically eight officers) and have them fight Froeschwiller using Chris' rules. They would receive the original situation report and orders (translated), and they would have access to their own force list and an intelligence estimate of their opponent's strength. With that they would create a plan for their corps and division level units, and they would write orders.

I would take these, and war game through the battle until around 11-12 when most units have arrived, and then the officers would take over from there. The transition from the map was always entertaining, and the commander of the Bavarians invariably ended up getting stalled because he thought it would be easy to move around dense wooded terrain (it is if one has tracked AIFVs).

The other classes looked at the tactical and grand tactical (operational) levels of the Napoleonic period, and WW2. We used the campaign in Italy in 1796-97, and the WW2 battle of Troina in Sicily, along with the Defense of Duffer's Drift. So it was a mix of board wargaming, tabletop gaming, decision exercises, and map exercises. All with a focus on understanding the changes in warfare and making decisions.

Nick

Did you get any feedback from the students? Would be good to know if it helped with their OODA loop processing and thinking. I played a Volley and Bayonet game a few years back in the Officers mess at the Commando Training Centre, purely social, it caused some interest and quizzical looks at the same time. Wargaming is tool much used to educate and inform military personnel, I've looked into developing it for generic Leadership and Management training and education although haven't put it into effect – yet. Too busy playing games ;-)

Very interesting

And another review…

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My review, referenced immediately above, was flawed by some fundamental misunderstandings. I've since revised it. The new version can be read here link

Please take a look, especially if you read the original.