All,
Somewhere in Normandy, August 1944, the US Army is about to scrap it up with the Wehrmacht. The inspiration for this fought is brought to you by my buddy "Thuseld," who posted this little gem:
link
He has owned the Battlegroup rules for awhile but not gotten them on the table until recently; seeing his batrep reminded me that I, too, have the Battlegroup rules, and that I've never gotten them onto the table. I will say that the main reason I haven't gotten them onto the table is because I only have the core rules, none of the supplements, I don't want to spend a bunch of money on one of the book supplements, and I can't seem to find any of them as PDFs, even though it appears such things exist. Nevertheless, with Thuseld providing the 'Battle Rating' for each force, I felt like I had enough to go on and play a game, so I did.
And I didn't just play a game, I got a chance to play with my two boys, which made it that much more fun and interesting!
Overview, north is up, with the Amis entering from the west (left) and the Germans from the east (right).
Scenario: Attack/Counterattack. The Americans have broken out of the bocage, finally. To try and stem the tide a Wehrmacht platoon is sent to fortify the village on the main road of advance. They might, however, be too late. The objectives are three: the hill at top center (Hill 50), the woods at center bottom (between the four sets of fields), and the house at dead center.
The opposing forces, with Germans on left and US on right. The two sides are exactly matched for a perfectly 'fair' wargame ;) Thuseld had the Americans with a BR of 18 and the Germans 16, but I gave both sides 18 so it would be fair.
The troops are all 15mm Battlefront figures, while the mat is from The Wargaming Company, the roads are from Fat Frank, the flat fields are from Hotz Mats, the high fields are from Terran4Games, and the hedges, trees, and buildings are from Crescent Root Studios.
The German Panther has hit a mine, but other than the crew being a bit shook up, it's just fine.
As the Americans boldly push into the village, securing two of the three objectives.
But the Sherman runs into some problems of its own.
The Germans counter.
Vicious hand-to hand combat breaks out!
To see how the fight turned out, please check the blog at:
link
I really enjoyed this, the first time I've really had both boys playing a game against each other. I liked the rules, particularly the 'Battle Rating' piece (though I laughed at how we somehow drew three mine strikes out of twelve total chit pulls!), but I feel like I still need something a bit more pared down to play with the boys and keep their interest.
I'd love to slim these rules down a bit and come back to them, but I can tell you we've already planned our next game together: Osprey's "Black Ops," coming soon.
V/R,
Jack
