"Need Help choosing a Rule Set" Topic

Hi all

My friends and I are looking to do Stalingrad in 28mm sometime next year and I would like any recommendations for battles where you would probably have something like a company a side or there abouts along with maybe some supporting units here and there.

Obviously its all mainly built up so we would like some good infantry action rules where you get a good mix of playability along with realism whilst playing a game in around 3-4 hours

We play Chain of Command for Ardennes but know they just won't hack it for a game this big

cheers

Keith

How about "Big Chain of Command"?

toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=3013

I play Bolt Action and Chain of Command and neither would work for something this big as a casual game. A company per side in 28mm is a LOT of figures to move around. With Bolt Action your turns are going to take forever.

Big Chain of Command easily can handle three platoons per side plus supports.

PBI might be a consideration. Partially because it uses a grid so that smaller details of which door,window become irrelevant. Also the placing of figures within the square can be made to suit your layout rather then prescription of which exact measure and target. for 28mm i would suggest PBI 8" square size.
PBI also has some good assault rules.
Whatever you chose, sounds like a photo report would be in order?

martin

A company per side with supports is absolutely perfect for TFL's "I Ain't Been Shot Mum" rules.
BWW

I ain't been shot mum would be my go to set for this scale, and if you're already playing chain of command the mechanisms will come easily.

I can't imagine doing company a side with 28mm… Are the models multi-based with each stand representing a section?

I Ain't Been Shot Mum or Fireball Forward.

IABSM is card based but many of the concepts from CoC transfer right over.

Fireball Forward is a squad per stand and also card based but much less random than IABSM. You can try a free version of it from their website – the free teaser covers the Brecourt Manor assault. One of the scenarios in the main rules set is loosely based on "The Guards Counterattack" from Squad Leader for an example as well.

Action All Fronts by me. Just the sort of game the rules were designed for.

We even playtested playing urban fighting in a large building, as per Stalingrad.

Yahoo group here
link

You could try Crossfire.

I Ain't Been Shot Mum for sure.

If you don't mind team-bases, Crossfire is hard to beat in urban settings and its a better company game than a battalion game, I always thought.

Thanks guys

Yes we will put up some photos don't worry!

Individually based figures

Will take a look. I don't think we will go for Big CoC as we already play Coc so something different

cheers

Keithej, The group I game with regularly plays CoC with three platoons and support on a side using Big Chain with no problems.

If your still unsure about using CoC I will second using IABSM. We've used it for both Stalingrad & Berlin with everything from a company to the better part of a battalion a side.

I find it curious that some feel CoC is similar to IABSM. To my eye, they are totally different games. Sure, the rules for close combat and tank damage are similar, but the core of CoC is the patrol phase and the command dice, which are utterly different from IABSM. Plus the rules for shooting, activation, suppression and movement are very different. If CoC had been put out by a different company, I would have never thought they were "stealing ideas" from IABSM and would have been content to think of CoC as a completely unique and original game.

Crossfire or FoW (putting your figures on trays). 100 guys is a lot of guys.

As above, if you want to do company sized actions using individual figures, then you probably want IABSM.

Crossfire, Fireball Forward and PBI are all possible contenders, but are all element based.

Action All Fronts is another game where the figures are counted/based individually. So an element of figures just becomes a group of figures on one base.

> Sure, the rules for close combat and tank damage are similar,

Yup, only about 75% of the rules are similar…

Paul, not trying to argue, but I am genuinely curious about this. Close combat and tank damage rules are 8 out of 60 pages of rules in CoC (about 13% of the page count dedicated to game mechanics) and about 10 of the 64 pages of rules in IABSM (about 15%). Am I missing something? The core of any wargame of course are rules for maneuvering, shooting and command and control or morale. CoC adds command dice and IABSM adds the card deck to this as central features of those two games.

In comparison, the rules for spotting seem to be totally different, the fire combat system is different, casualties and damage effects are worked out differently, activation and command and control are different… The rules for movement in CoC are reminiscent of IABSM, but CoC replaces the dice pool system for movement/shooting/spotting with a "stances" system that is closer to Bolt Action. Morale is also vaguely similar, if only in its end result, but it gets to that outcome through a different route that IABSM.

This is all to say that CoC in my mind is a pretty unique game! Not better or worse than IABSM, but certainly creative and innovative mechanically (to the Lardies' credit—they are clever game designers and still put out new ideas even in the system-rich setting of contemporary wargaming). I would recommend IABSM to the OP if they are looking for a different game than CoC, and vice versa.

In my mind they are very much the same. One with a greater focus on teams while the other is on squads/sections.

I was able to skim through the changes (after doing some playtest/proofing work on both systems) to get the gist of one system versus the other. It really boiled down to three things.

1 – Activation is rolled instead of cards.
2 – Infantry fire is by weapon not section.
3 – The patrol phase, which was inspired by a variant for IABSM in one of the Lardie specials but the methods in both were a good bit different. The one in CoC being much more refined.

Company size? I highly recommend I Ain't been shot mom. IABSM.

Or PBI by Peter Pig.

Both are excellent games.

@Paul, that's interesting, I never knew about the patrol system for IABSM! I really should pick up more of those special issues—they really are fantastic and add a lot to the game.

played a stalingrad game with tractics with over 200 figures per side about 5 years ago. easy as pie

warhammer WWII. there was a yahoo group on this game and not sure what happened to it but I can modify 40k rules for you for wwii. its super simple

take any rule set and make sure movement is simultaneous otherwise your games will take forever

you could try the battlegroup rulesets/ I didnt like them much but maybe you would.

I can send you my infantry weapons table and basic rules if you are interested as well.

I plan on doing stalingrad in the next couple of years. got a lot more buildings to paint.

Well Phil Yates did a mod of 40K for WW2. It became Flames of War. Nice chap, he and his mates had me over for a game when I was visiting NZ.

Thanks All

I think there are a few of sets that stand out IABSM, Crossfire, PBI and Battlegroup

I'll certainly look at those and come back to you all

Thanks for the advice

Cheers

Keith

Phil's version was "Warhammer Panzer Battles" I think, If I am remembering right.

We used to play it a fair bit, it qas quite good.
I remember toying with making a 2nd edition mod but we never got very far.

Yes it was Warhammer Panzer battles. Take the current 40K rules and mod them. The story goes that Phil offered it to GW and they turned it down.

There were rumours that GW Historical were coming up with a WW2 set but I don't think it ever saw the light of day (at least under the GW banner).

I think this is a more complex issue. A company a side is very large for a built up area.
It depends on how you do the game. If you take M/Grp for instance its ground scale is 1" to 10m at 1/72 or 28mm scale. Our rule of thumb is that you need at least two model buildings for each element (say 4 to 8 figure per element max). So a company at full strength would have at least 12+ elements. If you operated with half squad elements that would be 24 elements hence 28 buildings. Less buildings and its not really a tactical game you know every building is occupied. That is a lot of buildings even when each building on the battlefield takes up the area of at least 25 real buildings.

So the question is the level of abstraction. Soon you get to a point that its just a built up area where the buildings have no relevance and in reality you fight like you are in a brick Forrest. With MG/Grp you may have a company on the attacking side and a platoon in defense. that would take 3 to 4 hours. Equal numbers in a Built up area is a stalemate situation. The moving side dies much quicker, as the defender can fight and run away. So a company a side will be a boring game. Unless you have open areas where one side can deploy Armour out of range of small anti tank type weapons.

We made fold flat buildings as the storage requirement for a credible number of buildings is huge.

I suggest you formulate more clearly what you want to present and how you want to do it. A platoon in defense against a company will take a lot of maneuvering and hence time to come to a conclusion.

I wish you well in your endeavors.

"There were rumours that GW Historical were coming up with a WW2 set but I don't think it ever saw the light of day (at least under the GW banner)."

Of course I was wrong, it was Kampfgruppe Normandy.