"WW2, Company sized, good armor rules" Topic

I went the route of 15mm to play some casual solo mini's games at home and after a couple attempts I'm ditching this project. I just don't have the space to collect what I want, and table setup/take down is a PIA.

I was playing some CoC and IABSM for my company games.

I've decided to try the 6mm arena. Not a fan of the infantry in this scale, but I marvel at the detail of the 6mm GHQ armor. Also, for a 6'x6' table the using 15mm I still found the parking lot look to be undesirable.

I like the IABSM rules, but find their armor rules lacking.

Love to hear some suggestions.

Thanks

Flames of War is aimed at this size game. I have a variant called Flames of Awesomesauce based on 3rd edition. You can find 3rd edition rule books online dirt cheap, and my variant is free, here:

link

It blows up the IGOUGO and adds a few rules like Opportunity Fire and simple Hidden Movement (optional but highly recommended).

5core company commander might suit you. It's very inexpensive set of rules.
TMP link

Have you looked at Battlegroup rules by PSC? They seem to fit the bill for what you are looking for.

Here is the Beasts of War introduction to the rules:
link

And a link to the rules themselves: link

What do you find lacking in the Armor rules? That would help answer the question. A couple of guesses.

1 – Want about the same amount of detail with less fiddly bits.

Fireball Forward – A hit is generally bang your good or bang your dead with a possibility of panic thrown in. These are written for 15mm but rarely end up with a parking lot effect. I play the game with hinches and 6mm miniatures.

2 – You want more crunch.

Schwere Kompanie – ASL like detail without ASL like complexity (but still moderately complex). These are also written with 6mm in mind.

3 – MORE DETAIL!
The Panzer boardgame or miniatures rules (by GMT games and Strikenet games). Lots of crunch. The boardgame can be played as miniatures by listing each hex as X number of inches.

Tigers & Stalins.

I own the Schwere Kompaine rules but never really looked that them.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll take a closer look at them.

I thought about the Panzer board game using mini's but the stacking would be an issue.

Are the miniatures rules the same as the board game rules?

I'll take a look at those too.

Thanks

I don't have the Panzer miniatures rules but from what I have seen of the data cards they are close. There has not been a very large difference in the rules from the first Panzer version to the latest one so I doubt they are significant differences.

Another vote for Panzer Miniatures Rules – they are available as a pdf on wargmes vault. The great thing is that despite having a lot of detail, gameplay is actually quite fast and easy to understand.

yes, look at 5core company commander. Very interesting concept to handle company level combat without all the detail.

Battlefront:WW2 is a very good set of rules, and works well in 6mm.
details at fireandfury.com

Panzer board game…Are the miniatures rules the same as the board game rules?

There has not been a very large difference in the rules from the first Panzer version to the latest one

Substitute inches for hexes. Measure from center of unit to center of unit. Round down.
Miniature rules are also available as PDF or "print on demand" link

Well, there is Panzer War.
panzer-war.com

When you say company do you mean one element is a company, or you want to field a company. If its the latter some rules, which can be downlaoded, are;
MICRO SQUAD – THE GAME, WWII (2010 & 2012)
PANZERFAUST – ARMOURED FIST (2005)
BATTLEGROUP (1997, 2004 & 2009)
Most have yahoo group sites.
If its the former, these are some free rules;
LIGHTNING WAR RED STORM (2008 & 2013) (or Bewegungskrieg)
SCHWEREPUNKT (2015)
A good set of published rules are;
PANZER KORPS (2008 & 2019)

But, outside Flames of war, the largeset number of gamers tend to play platoon scale
SPEARHEAD (1995 & 2000)
A Fxxx FULL OF TOW 3 – FFT3(2011)
I think GHQ allows free down load of their rules;
MICRO ARMOUR –THE GAME, WWII (2001 & 2012)

captaincold69,
I think games fall into two general categories:
Design for Cause and Design for Effect

Design for Cause is used to show more details and exactly what "caused" the result of an action with less abstraction. It's generally best for low level 1:1 type games where you can show the detail in a more playable way.

Design for Effect uses more abstracted rules to simulate what caused the result and is used for larger games where the detail is not going to be playable.

For 1:1 tank games Design for Cause would go into detail on the chance to hit, hit location, damage, crew bailouts, etc. A game like Panzer War uses a realistic formula for their gunnery rules so the player gets a better idea of what caused a hit or miss. Other games have their rules developed around the dice, like hitting on a 3+, it's somewhat arbitrary and designed to show the effect, not what caused it but is better for large games.

If you are looking for Design for Cause check out games like Panzer War. Mark 1 plays 6mm and should have some good suggestions.

Wolfhag

When you say "Company" rules do you mean you never expect a game to be bigger than one company per side? Or that you want each player to typically run one company?

If the latter, I also suggest you look at Mein Panzer by ODGW. They have a lot of rules for armor (huge variety of vehicles and different national armies), but the rules are fast-play enough for company-sized formations (and more) per player. They do a batter job of integrating armor and infantry for combined arms action than any other ruleset I've played.

The activation and turn sequence structure of these rules is somewhat different from what I've seen elsewhere. The turn is based on activations of "units" (generally one platoon). If you run a company, each game turn might be divided into 4 or 5 activations, for you and for your opponents. The approach is both simple/fast play, and nuanced beyond basic I-go-U-go. And it keeps players involved all the time, no taking a nap for 20 minutes while the other side measures and move 40 pieces at once.

It's a bit of an expensive set compared to some others by the time you wind up with the ruleset and the WW2 Data Book. Still, dirt cheap compared with FOW or anything that involves building an army at larger scales. If you want to give a try, they have a free download of an introductory ruleset (armor only) on their website under "Kids" or some such.

If you are interested and can't find it, I can go look up the specific link and post it.

If you like more armor, more details, really tastey delightful stuff on tanks tanks tanks, then I second Mobius' ruleset Panzer-War. I played these rules many times, and they are a work of art for those who delight in the tanks. And they are priced better than most any other ruleset you might find.

However, you might be stressed to operate a company per player under Panzer-war, at least before you get very familiar with the rules. With Mein Panzer you can get going with company-sized units pretty quickly, although I suggest not adding lots of attachments (arty, AT guns, air support, engineering, amphib ops etc.) until you are familiar with the basics. Also, compared with Schwere Kompanie I think you'll find that Mein Panzer scales to multi-player games better. Don't know if that's in your plan or not, but I think SK is a pretty good ruleset except when you get to multi-players per side.

Just my $0.02 USD worth.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I would recommend Rapid Fire Rules. Hope it helps.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Take care

Andy