"Best ruleset for grand battles?" Topic

Hello,

New to wargaming but have been looking for a while to get into WW2 grand battles.

I have been looking at FoW, BC2, Battlefront WW2 etc. but it is hard to grasp what the differences in all of them are.

I am going to build a massive custom terrain in XxX inches, and I want a massive grand strategy feeling where strategy and tactics matter. Not just throwing dice.

The important aspects:

- Mid or late years war
- Grand strategy feeling, where holding and securing key positions will be important, such as hills, choke points or towns
- Moving from one side of the terrain to the other should take a long time and not be done in 2 turns, making it more important with unit placement and transports
- Logistics, having reinforcements driving on secured roads, fields etc. to reinforce with new units
- Support vehicles such as medical, engineers, transport and other interesting things regarding logistics
- A mix of infantry, tanks and air
- Possibly corps or divisions level
- Ability to utilize recon units to support artillery or other units with spotting using strategic locations such as hills
- I do not care much for historic scenarios since my terrain will be custom made
- Ability to pin down, suppress and support your platoons
- Possibly a fog of war mechanic (not required)

Size of the table, time spent per session, and the amount of unit cost does not matter, since I will be playing using Tabletop Simulator on PC where it allows a massive terrain, a lot of units and saving between sessions which should result in a massive campaign.

I have been looking at Warhammer 40k too, but it feels like that game is mostly full head on in 2 movement turns and then dice rolling galore, and little positioning mattering, no flanking tactics or anything like that.

What ruleset should I invest time in learning for this?

Thanks.

Spearhead is worth a look. Platoon sized elements, battalion sized manoeuvre units and can handle a division and up if you have all day to play.

Bear in mind it's perspective is as a divisional commander, so the actions of the individual battalions is somewhat abstracted.

You should have a look at the Panzer Korps rules (by Hoplite Research) – they pretty much cover all of the things you have listed. Check out the reviews on TMP.

I use them for an early Eastern Front campaign.

Lightning war indeed.

Blitzkrieg Commander, where you play up to division level games.

But from the sounds of it, I would go straight to a computer game, Blitzkrieg
link

That gives you everything you want from the game without the effort.

Rules including the items you listed are

PanzerKorps from Hoplite Research – available from Caliver Books in Uk, On Military Matters USA, and online from LULU at lulu.com/spotlight/HRGWORLDS Yahoo Group link has additional free scenarios, etc.

Megablitz currently out of print, but copies can be found online and a revised edition is in the works. Yahoo Group link

Division Commander canuckwargamer.wordpress.com
Yahoo Group link

All three use battalions as the maneuver element. The last two have one base per element. Panzerkorps has three company bases per element and may have additional attachments added to the battalion. Though if you are using a computer you could use one base per battalion.

On average a battalion would attack on a minimum frontage of 1km and defend twice that or more. So you can adjust the ground scale of the rules to match the size of your units.

Another vote for PanzerKorps. A stand is a company but the lowest maneuver element is the battalion.

The rule sets listed above pretty much cover the spectrum for the scale and scope of game you want to play. As noted, at that level of command you don't concern yourself with tactics so much. You have platoon, company and battalion commanders to take care of that for you. You send an armor battalion to take the town and leave it up to the battalion commander to worry about how.

If you want that tank-on-tank action, you can always go "bathtubbing." When you do this you use rules at one level and just rename units. So in your example, you use Flames of War and simply call each unit a company or a battalion instead of a platoon.

Other Rules To Look At:

Fistful of TOWs III would work – normally each stand is a platoon but you could call them companies and adjust your forces. Lots of detail and ticks all your boxes.

I haven't played it but Rapid Fire would be worth a look too.

And another for PK. You are moving battalions around and leaving all the local tactical stuff to the majors and colonels on the ground. One point though – PK really shines at historical scenarios, which are typically at an Operation level – so you are re-fighting a battle you may have read a book about, rather than a skirmish between two reinforced platoons somewhere in France. The rules authors have put out a lot of scenarios, which each represent quite a bit of research on TOEs, troop quality, supply etc. If you are fighting home-grown battles you'll need to do that yourself – you really can't just point two divisions at each other.

I would also look at Field of Battle WW2. I feel they do a great job for what you are looking for. They can be played at a grand tactical level where each stand represents a company.

link

- Possibly corps or divisions level
- Ability to utilize recon units to support artillery or other units with spotting using strategic locations such as hills
- Ability to pin down, suppress and support your platoons

That's going to be a massive game! If you're playing a whole division or corps, but still with each unit being a platoon and resolving individual spotting for artillery fire, individual pinning and suppression fire… ?

I think any game in which the basic unit is a platoon (Command Decision, Spearhead, etc.) would work, as long as you had the space, figures, and time to scale it up to play a whole division. But it would take you a night to complete one turn.

I've played divisional sized games with Spearhead. It takes a good few hours, but it does crack along as the individual platoons are essentially just strength point markers.

As noted above, Panzer Korps might be a better fit.

Spearhead for big games has always been my preference. We used it for our Market-Garden Campaign back in 2008 and it worked very well. We used micros and fielded all the main elements of XXX Corps without issues.

Krieg ohne Hass from Caliver or Magister Militum cover multi Division battles at a good pace on a square grid system, so no measurement.

The Domgaming mega-games rules covered exactly what you are after,, they ran week long campaigns with 1 stand=1 pltn, they were massively altered spearhead rules with a bit more focus on brigade and divisional tasks and boundaries. (spearhead is more btn focused) A normal game in their campaigns would often be 2+ divisions a side and play out in a day.

But to be honest, it sounds to me like you will end up writing your own.
I'd start with Spearhead, and change it beyond recognition, its what most people end up doing. The basic mechanics and sequences are great, you just end up with New morale, artillery, recce, change a lot of the fire values and bobs your uncle!
Seriously, I'm not sure if a set of rules exists which is commercially available and adequately does everything you want when played straight out of the box.

You could try our recently released Ostfront rules, they cover large battles in any theater, and have an in-built map campaign system for the combination of grand strategy and tabletop tactics. The rules focus on easy play, historical accuracy and use of tactics.

link

Currently have the Wehrmacht, Soviet and Italian Army lists available, and the US and British lists will be ready in the next few days