"Larger scale WW2 wargame rules? Battalion +" Topic

Hello, friend and I are embarking on a WW2 1939 campaign, Poles, Germans and Soviets in 10mm. We are interested in slightly larger scale games e.g. Battalion level fielding multiple companies with supports. Any suggestions?

Many thanks.

One up from that with an average force of three battalions and a squadron of tanks is Rapid Fire. You can easily scale it up or down.

rapid-fire-uk.com

Command Decision does that.
I run Kiss Rommel for campaigns but the Battalion is a single element. It does work but at a higher scale than what you are looking for.

Battlefront:WW2 is perfect for that
fireandfury.com
Spearhead is also pretty good for larger battles
For larger scales, Rommel is great

DCR Brown is shortly to release 'O Group' at exactly that level. His previous games are Picket's Charge and General d'Armee.
It sounds interesting, and there is a video or two showing how it works.

Link to those videos?

Blitzkrieg Commander and Fist Full of Tows 3 are both set at a scale where 1 mini/stand = 1 platoon and play at the Battalion level.

Blitzkrieg Commander is also written primarily for 10mm, although they say it is scale agnostic.

YouTube link has a series of videos covering rule sets from one-to-one up to one-to-a battalion rule sets.

Another vote for Rapid Fire.

Many thanks one and all, will follow up all leads, have heard of Blitkrieg Commander, I believe it's under the umbrella of Pendraken miniatures now? Does that work in terms accurately tying in to historical OB's or is it more abstract and points driven?

Have heard rumblings of O Group via the TFL forums but haven't seen anything concrete, anybody have any more links/ info or knowledge on what its' all about? My mate swears by General De Brigade so we may well end up following his route.

Blitzkrieg Commander expects you to use historical OBs.

Blitzkrieg Commander would be my choice. I have early war Poles and Germans in 10mm and it works brilliantly with a battalion or so and supports per player. Our games would usually represent something like a brigade level action.
@Extra Crispy -We play with whatever OoB we like, sometimes using historical prototypes, but sometimes not. There is a points system, which would be unnecessary if the rules "expected" you to use historical OoBs.

Avoid Rapid Fire; i play it, simply because it's on offer and I enjoy the banter in any game, but unless you have a well designed scenario, it just becomes an exercise in who can throw the most 6s

Blitzkrieg commander.

Spearhead.

Command Decision: Test of Battle
testofbattle.com

Latest version of Command Decision. Stands are Platoons, players are Battalion/Regimental commanders. I've played these since they were first released and in many campaigns.

There are versions for WW-I and ColdWar as well.

There is also a new 'Big Battle'set in the works from Frank Chadwick

If you mean 1 element = 1 Battalion. All the Battalion scale rules i have found are in this Video:. The best rules seem to be D-Day to Berlin v2, which happen to be free. BBWW2B also looks rather good, but the rules are in beta and you will need to fill in gaps. You can get those from the Grosse-Schlachten IO:group, Or Bob Mackenzies wargaming site. Finally I created a straw-man set of rules as an example for my game design theory whitepaper, and video series, called Schnell-Kämpfe. It, like BBWW2B, has gaps in it. Megablitz has been around for a long time, and it looks rather interesting, but something about it does not grab me. I think it's the way the elements have board-game like values, which is always an issue with Battalion scale.

The biggest issue with most of the rules is army lists, but as long as you want to do some research and make educated guesses you can fill that gap. Without focusing on a set of rules I am thinking of some way to convert my army lists into something a battalion scale game could use, but I am no-where close to a solution. My current idea is to total all the equipment in a regiment and then divided and round accordingly. An element would probably have a scale of 45 vehicles, for example, so would not actually be a battalion. If you try and make an element a real battalion you need to give them unique boardgame values, which works, but may be best played with a boardgame.

If you mean each side commands a Battalion, then any squad scale set of rules will suffice. Blitzkrieg Commander falls in this area and the rules are complete and very professional. Something about them has always caused me issues, I found them difficult to learn and use on the playing area, but a lot of rules fall in that category so is not a major criticism. But the most popular set of rules in this scale is Flames of War, I would stay with version 3 and I am certain you could find a copy of the internet somewhere. I prefer Mein Panzer for this scale.
If you mean regimental scale, were each element represents a platoon. The most popular set of rules would be Spearhead and Rapid Fire. Rapid fire plays a lot like FoW and I suspect a lot of ideas were taken from those rules when FoW was developed.

But the main issue is always army lists. FoW has a complete, if expensive, set of army lists you can use, while Blitzkrieg Commander has a basic set in the rules. FFT3 and Spearhead also have basic, but complete army lists, in the rules. Corps Commander has a large number of army lists on the IO:group site and you can download some very extensive GHQ army lists for their squad scale rules.

Battlefront WWII is a very good choice. So is Blitzkrieg Commander. We use it with 15mm, no problems at all.

Guys thanks for so much helpful input, very much appreciated:

pfmodel: We would be looking at fielding a battalion sized formations (maybe a couple a side with supports), individual units would be smaller. Being no expert I would guess individual units within this format would be platoons.

Consensus seems to correlate on Blitzkrieg Commander so we will definitely be getting a copy and as I say Dave Brown's forthcoming O Company. We are both very much angled towards researching historical OB's and scenarios rather than a meet up and game points aptitude so hopefully both of these will meet that wish.

If anybody has any ;links or suggestions for accessible Polish 1939 OB's oe scenario's would really appreciate. Have already picked up TFL's September 39 scenario PDF's as a starting point.

At 1 element = 1 platoon, FFT3 has a list for Poland 1939. For example:
Polish Motorized Cavalry Regiment
Base
- 1 recon Motorcycle Infantry stand
- 1 wz. 36 37mm ATG + 1 Light Truck
4 Motorized Cavalry Companies
- 3 Motorized Cavalry stands + 3 Light Trucks
- 1 MG Plt + 1 Light Truck
1 Motorized MG Company
- 3 MG Plt + 3 Light Trucks
Niehorster has actual TO&E's.
Korps Commander has a 1939-1940 scenario booklet, which contains army lists down to individual tansk or squads of 10 men, you will need to divded these by 4or6.
Example:
(x3) Infantry Battalion [482pts each] / [508pts each] / [535pts each]
- [Bn Headquarters] ; [4 x HQC(39-40) (pol)] ; [9 x Granatnik wz. 36] ; [42 x INF(39-40) (pol)]
Finally wiki contains some basic information you could use.

I realised that one of my Playtest Videos involved a 1939 German attack against a polish infantry regiment, you can gleam the forces mixes from the video. I was doing some playtesting of a 1939 scenario and use it as an example of play for this video.

Just to add a little clarification to the comments about BKC, the game is really significantly higher than battalion level. Yes, battalions are probably the basic unit of command, but you need several to make a good game, so the net effect is that it is really more a brigade game. The original question ("fielding several companies") implies to me a game at a lower level than BKC. Also BKC is a game that works really well and we played it for years (I helped Pete revise version 2 and Cold War Commander) but don't expect it to be realistic at a low level. It is definitely a game that you can rationalize after play with comments about its historical feel but the details are largely left on the margins in the name of play. RF is a fun game (we play that now) and it is a bizarre mix of skirmish and higher level gaming; you throw grenades but there are rules for aircraft carriers…not kidding. When I first got the rules I didn't play it because I couldn't understand this weird design concept, but now I love it. It literally allows you to play a raid or D-Day and there are rules to cover it all. As a model collector and wanting to fool myself into believing that I am playing with all the interacting elements of WWII combat (land, air, and sea elements), no other rule set allows this. Now, a game we also played for years is BF:WWII. This is likely the most realistic of the three games here and probably set at the level you want. It is very well designed and is actually quite easy to play, BUT it is not quick since suppressions are more common than kills. But well worth a look.