"First Big Game Using Blitzkrieg Commander II Rules" Topic

Our gaming group had our first big battle using the Blitzkrieg Commander II rules last Saturday. You can see the action at: link

Jim

Do you find the new edition an improvement?

Since we never played the 1st edition, I cannot make a comparison.

Jim

I don't think that the Pendraken produced (new) version is out yet.
The minis look great Jim. If you run a BKC game at Bayou Wars and I can make it this year I'd like to play in it. Many gamers are turned off by the fact that hits are removed at the end of the turn if the unit is not destroyed, but suppression is the key to victory. You don't have to eliminate a unit with hits to make it ineffective on the battlefield. Where are the Italians? Come on, you can't have a North Africa game without the Italians!
Clay

Clay -- One of our other gamers has some Italians but he hasn't "uncovered" that box yet.

And you are correct that Pendraken hasn't published their new edition. The one we used was the second edition that incorporated the firing methods and hit results of Cold War Commander and Future War Commander.

Jim

I bought the 1st ED when it came out….loved it. I also bought the 2d Ed which cleans up some issues…also loved it.

I'll buy the 3rd Ed based on my experience with the first two, although I'd like to know where they're going with it.

You're right, suppression is key…it breaks up their formations (spreads them out making C2 harder) and limits their fire. Then you can focus on kills on the more isolated elements. Essentially it reflects Clausewitzian friction and attrition rather well.

I bought the first two editions & am pretty sure that I'll be buying the new one as well.

You can tell by looking at the stats for the Italians that they are going to be tough to run effectively. Bad command ratings, slow tanks, lousy tanks.

Here's the Pendraken Forum discussion about the "third" edition of BKC: link

I gather from some of the discussion that Pendraken may limit the army lists to only those vehicles that they produce. That has gotten some negative comments, comparing them with GW and FoW.

We'll see how it goes. Personally I think they will do themselves a disservice my limiting the army lists.

Jim

Its such a great game system which has gone into neglect. Very sad.

There was never any intention of limiting army lists to purely ranges we produce, a few folks got the wrong end of the stick there and just ran with it… We said that we'd look to see whether we could tie our ranges in with the army lists a bit better, as well as getting new models made to fill in any gaps in our ranges, but always whilst maintaining historical accuracy. The whole point got a bit lost with a lot of over-reaction unfortunately.

We did question whether to keep some of the smaller armies in there, like the Dutch and Slovakian lists, but in the end we've kept all of the existing army lists and added some new ones, so there'll be 49 armies listed in the new version.

And moving onto that better news, the new version is almost complete now, I've just finished off the final run through at this end and I'll be sending it off to a feedback group at the start of next week. All being well, we'll have everything finalised and off to the printers before the end of March, ready for a release at Salute.

While I certainly understand the desire to tie the rules in with the product line, it is a business after all, and more power to you, I hope you'll extend your product line to suit historical Orbats.

For example, on your forum you specifically mention you don't produce the M20 or the Staghound, "So we'll have a look and see whether we a) get the missing item designed, b) remove that item from the army list, c) change the listing to a similar vehicle we do produce."

I hope you go with option A rather than no support what was really used historically.

That's likely what we'll do, as there's no alternative already in our ranges that was used at the same time by the same army.

How about option d) the Mk 85 whatever is not produced by us but a reasonable substitute is our PZKW69 thingee?

Kind of, if we take the Staghound in the NW Europe lists as an example. We don't produce one currently, but that British army also used the Humbers and Dingo. So the question was whether we remove the Staghound from the list and put the Humbers in instead, or get a Staghound sculpted.

In the end, we've put all the options in the army lists and folks can buy the items which we produce. Anything else can be bought from other suppliers until we get the gaps in our ranges filled.