"Modern fastplay rules for company and battalion actions?" Topic

5core company or 5core brigade are quite interesting, easy to play.

Not sure about electronic warfare or air though.

Sabresquadron, can down load a free sample from the website. Handles a couple of companies per side.

I'm a fan of the 5core stuff too… my main requirement for gaming these days are rules that are easy to pick up and play with reasonable results. Unfortunately, I have so much going on in my life that large chunks of rule book matter come spilling out of my brain to make way for remembering to take the kids to soccer practice.

I'll third 5Core Company Command and Brigade Commander. I've played over 100 games with 5Core, spanning WWII to present, from skirmish to battalion, and had a great time.

They are the most flexible, adaptable rules I've ever seen, they're quick, intuitive, have built in drama (via the activation process) without making you feel like a spectator, and they give (in my humble opinion) realistic results.*

*Of course I "Hollywood-ize" my games a bit; I like to follow characters through campaigns, so I tend to make the action even more dramatic, so keep that in mind if you look at any of my batreps. That's me, not the rules ;)

V/R,
Jack

Author-bloke here.

Company Command does not touch electronic warfare or air pretty much at all (the former since the emphasis was on cold war and ww2, the latter since I find that air support tends to not result in good scenarios for company level gaming)

Brigade Commander covers air strikes as part of the support, though its somewhat abstracted (we assume that air superiority must be present before air strikes are an option, so there's no air-to-air rules)

Other factors are covered through "assets".
Assets include things like doctrinal advantages, radio jamming, deception and so forth and can be single use or available repeatedly throughout a battle.

So it's placed in a supporting role, since players generally want the miniatures to be the primary thing.

Hope that helps!

I should add that Company Command is being revised currently and has a new, shiny activation system while Brigade Commander will be revised in the fall. (but you could carry over the activation system no problem).

Both cover campaign play and random armies.

5Core, despite what Weasel says

Yes, despite my strong dislike for the author, I highly recommend 5Core ;)

And he hit all your questions I believe. So, as usual, I'm a bit of a third wheel ;)

V/R,
Jack

Jack is forced to hide his great love for me in public, or it'd be weird. :D

Personally I like Cold War Commander, I find it presents the command decisions well, models friction, and models the combined arms aspects well. Other people have some trenchant criticisms. YMMV.

Oh, ye bastid, it's definitely gotten weird. I'll now formally request you stop putting those photos in the back of my custom rulebooks. You made a very handsome ballerina, but the animal stuff was just going too far, and necrophilia is really not my thing ;)

Oh, and I'm a big fan of Blitzkrieg Commander. I would love to pick up Cold War Commander, but the PDFs have been off the market for over a year now. I know they're being worked on, but I want it now!!!

V/R
Jack

Now now, on hte west coast, we're more relaxed about things. And honestly, after squeezing INTO a ballerina outfit, there was no way I was getting back out of it, those things are snug!

You know, its weird, we played a fair bit of Blitzkrieg Commander a long time ago, but we always used it for russian civil war, so I never actually got to play a tank battle, I think.

I'm not judging brother, to each his own. Just lettin' you know, you're barkin' up the wrong tree ;)

Yeah, I had quite a bit of fun with BKC, just can't seem to find CWC (I don't want a hard copy).

V/R,
Jack

QC,

Yes. Well, I guess. I never played Warmaster, but that's what I've heard.

I can explain quickly though: when it's your turn you have a HQ, and it has a command value, usually between 7 and 9. So if its CV is 8, you give orders (point to this group of tanks and say, "I want them to move over there") then roll to see if they do it. You roll 2D6, trying to get at or under the CV (8 in this case). If you succeed, the tanks move, if not, they don't.

Also, if you succeed you can try again, but the CV is -1. So, now you point to that same group of tanks you just moved, and you say "I want them to shoot those bad guys over there." You roll 2D6, and this time you have to get at or under a 7, then a 6, and so on. And if you roll double 1s you get two actions, if you roll double 6s you get a random event where something bad happens to you.

I always thought they were quite ingenious, and a lot of fun. The major complaint I've seen (and even had myself every now and again) is that if you've got particularly cold dice that day you're troops aren't going to do anything as you keep blowing the command rolls.

The rules handle this in two ways: aside from having several headquarters that can issue orders to their own troops (let's call them company commanders), there is also an overall Commanding Officer (he would be the battalion commander, in this case) that can give orders to any troops whose HQ failed that turn. Also, there are certain, limited initiative actions that can take place, i.e., if any enemy unit is very close to our guys, our guys get a 'free' action to do something.

I've also played a house rule where we simply lowered everyone's CV by 1, but every unit got one 'free' move. So when your turn started, every unit got to act once for free, and then you simply began the normal order roll process after that.

Dammit, this is making me really want CWC now!!! It's a fun game, with great swings, which is what I love about it. Gone are any illusions of control, or foreknowledge of just how far a unit is going to go in a turn.

V/R,
Jack

Its a game like Crossfire that people tend to either love or hate.

I like the idea of one free action. sometimes it gets a bit rough, especially if you are playing an army with bad stats (or just have crap dice that day).

If i remember right, there were some "free actions" you could do if you were close enough to the enemy.

As an aside, if you ever do ancients, do find an old copy of Warmaster Ancients, its really keen.
The only game that ever made me ponder building some roman armies.

QC,

I wouldn't say it's not realistic, it's just not a lot of fun in a game if your forces never move.

I personally like it, though it doesn't make sense. I'm not a big fan of "I Ain't Been Shot Mum," for the same reason. It's a different mechanism, but it can be difficult to get your troops moving in IABSM. I complain about that and buddies say, "they didn't move because they were taking fire, or were preparing equipment," or some other reason. I'd reply that I don't like the idea of an effect, then I have to supply the reason for it.

But that's exactly what I do for BKC…

V/R,
Jack

Queen – The non-vehicle and non-campaign bits are already in there.
I'm basically updating one chapter at a time, so if you buy it now, you get half the revised book and the rest at no cost whatsoever.

Good call on the page count, it's supposed to list it automatically but it doesn't always do that.
I'll update in the next upload.
It's 61 pages at present, thats including campaign rules and the various random generators.

Yeah, hold off on printing for right now.

Vehicle rules should be done this week.