"Gridded Boards and Ground Scale" Topic

The time has come to move forward with my 2mm WWII project, and I need the collective wisdom of TMP.
I'd like to do this with a gridded board to distinguish it from my microscale WWII, and if feasible to try task forces or kampfgruppe in each area just to try something different. Checking my based 2mm blocks against my hex maps, I get
3" flat to flat hexes (Axis & Allies Miniatures) will hold up to 7 bases.
2" or 2.2" (Borg standard) will hold up to 4 bases.
At 1.25" (Battletech) and below, the hex contains one base.

Questions:
1. If my bases represent companies in the attack, how much distance in each case does the hex represent? How much depth do I need for a game? Are there rules you would recommend for this?
2. What if the bases are platoons?
3. Anyone know who made or makes 1" hex geomorphic boards? Bigger hex than ASL boards, but I picked up some in a flea market, and they have neither game nor manufacturer, which makes it hard to search for more.

N.B. It will save time if we just assume I've already heard that 2mm are just blobs of lead, and I should just use cardboard counters.

Thanks,

Robert

There are LOADS of print and play boards on WargamesVaiult that you can print to whatever scale you like.

Use Easy Poster Printer, it works a treat for these kinds of things.

Also, GMT has some of their maps online as free downloads, as do many other companies.

Rommel and PanzerKorps both use 1 stand = 1 company (Rapid Fire too, I think). Rommel uses a grid at 1 square = 1km, IIRC. Panzer Korps is 1" = 100 yards.

Thank you EC. Some day I will share the long, tragic story of me trying to get my computer and printer to see reason about such matters. But we seem to have lost track of things like how many bases could or should be placed in a gridded area, and thus what size hexes I'm looking for. Once I know that, I'm confident I can find or make more maps.

Have you played any of the rules you mention?

No, not yet.

EC, my apologies. I think I came across as snarky, and I didn't mean to. I very much appreciate your help. Let me see whether I can refine my problem a little.

I keep circling back to Rommel, and being a "back of the envelope" and "very little bookkeeping" person, I could use an alternative. But I can (mostly) get the information I need. Rommel is designed for squares but can work with hexes. The hex needs to contain no more than 3 units, but must be able to contain that many. By Sam's reckoning, those units are companies, and the square (or hex) is one kilometer--and the standard board is 8 x 12 squares or hexes. So--see my first post--this would let me play the game using 2" hexes on a board 24"x16". If I try to include shrunken versions of his bases with information on them, it's probably up to 3" hexes and so 3'x2'. So if I can live with the bookkeeping, Rommel is (just) feasible, and would permit a division-size game with my 2mils.

And if I knew as much about half a dozen other rules sets, I could make an informed decision. Can anyone help me out there?

Rommel has other advantages. There are sites with numerous scenarios to make for interesting games link

Rommel units are not quitevcompanies but reinforced companies or very weak battalions such as were seen in Russia.

I'm sure Rommel has many advantages, sidley. It generally seems to be well spoken of. But it's quite a bit longer than my preference, and by all accounts it's bookkeeping heavy--markers all over the place, rosters or possibly both. I am a VERY hard sell on bookkeeping. And--another consistent problem for a near-solo wargamer with trendy commercial rules--while I can get a lot of reviews, I'm out a lot of money before I actually read and test play. At the least, I'd like to know about other options.

My 2mils are travel armies--portable and fast-play, and not brought out every week.

Regarding frontages: [/url=https://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2]Steven's Balagan to the rescue!

Regarding hex scale: most boardgames with platoon-sized units use a 200-250m hex and a stacking limit of 3 units (i.e. one company). A few use 150m hexes and a reduced stacking limit (1-2 units depending on unit type).

I have few rules suggestions to offer, but a few suggestions to help widen the scope of the search.

Be sure to look at boardgames. It's not very difficult to convert a boardgame to a miniatures game, and all the mechanics and unit stats are worked out, balanced and playtested. Except for on-table (really in-hex) markers it's easy enough to find systems that are low-bookkeeping or accounting-free.

I don't know a lot of games that use the company as the atom of maneuver – only Rommel and the Great Battles of WWII series, and GBOWW2 isn't gridded. Many WWII boardgames use "step loss" as a mechanic to represent a unit wearing down; with miniatures this can be represented with multi-base units and stand removal, so you could use company stands in a game with battalion-sized units. (I have a vague plan to try Nations At War and Panzer Grenadier this way, to see which I like enough to play repeatedly).

There are oodles of boardgames that use the platoon as the base unit, which has lead me to grumble into that rut myself (I'd rather play at a scale that puts the artillery on the table).

A great many operational level boardgames use battalions or larger as the base unit. These tend to be games of particular battles or campaigns (e.g. Market-Garden), though occasionally there are a few games in a series with the same/related mechanics.

Finally: I'm not a huge fan of the Memoir '44 system, and it's scale is a bit… uh… indeterminate? But it actually has a ton of potential as the skeleton for a project like this, and it has zero bookkeeping, plays fast, and is easy to learn. Keep the combat mechanics, declare a firm ground/unit scale that makes sense, and replace the awful C&C card system with something more generic and engaging using a standard poker deck.

- Ix

If the elements are companies, reckon on each hex being roughly 1km, assuming you can fit a whole battalion in a hex. Rommel stacking limit is light as the weapons and HQ companies are factored on, I prefer to have them on the table. I went with 800m hexes as it works better with WW2 weapons ranges.

The only commercial one base = one company rules are GBWW2, Rommel, Panzer Korps and Field of Battle AFAIK, and of those, only Rommel uses a grid. I guess the WW2 version of The Portable Wargame might also be one (the elements only make sense if they are companies but no scale is specified).

I wrote my own rules for this level, although there was a decent WW2 conversion of Square Bashing floating around the interweb some years ago. It is generally pretty easy to convert ruler based rules to a grid though.

I wouldn't say Rommel needs lots of markers. You print a label for each base, and that has all the info needed (unit type, unit id, armour (if any) and strength; there are no other markers. Most stands have 3 strengths (some have only 2), with the boxes being marked off as you take losses. You could use a roster, but you would have to label the bases anyway, so simpler just to use the labels

Thank you all. So, if my bases are companies, and I use multiple bases in a grid, the ground scale is roughly 1 hex=1KM, and the existing rules to use or modify are Rommel, Memoir '44 and the Portable Wargame. If my bases are platoons forming a company, my ground scale is roughly 1 hex=250m. What are my rule options in that case?

And have we got anything in which a hex or square contains only one base, so that base is a platoon or a company? (A less appealing option, but I'm not ready to close out options yet.)

Dexter Ward, a reply later in the morning. Running late already.

R

Sorry for the delay.
First off, my ideal tabletop has nothing on it but troops and terrain. I can look at my troops, identify units or at least unit types and know what condition they're in. I can't always get there, but every necessary marker on that table counts against the rules, even if I wrote them.
But with Rommel, as I understand it, units have to be labelled. So I have to print out a label for each company to play the game at all. Probably I have to have it laminated for re-use. (Am I correct in thinking there are also temporary conditions to be marked?) And since I have to put my three company bases and the label in the hex or square and be able to read the information, this probably kicks me up from 2" to 3" hexes, which doubles my necessary playing area. To stay at 2" hexes, I have to mark every base I own, then check off points on a roster off table--which, again, must be prepared for each game. And I'd better have the same organization for the next game, or I'll have to remark the bases. Doable, maybe, for a game a month with a canned scenario if you don't mind all those labels on the table. Many wargamers don't. By the time you have to create all the labels yourself, it gets even less appealing. And could I even read a label shrunk to fit in a 2" grid?

The primary objective of all my 2mm projects--setting aside 2mm Leipzig--is a game which fits in a laptop carrier--troops, board, terrain and rules--and can be quickly set up, played on a desktop and taken down again. Many excellent rules sets won't work for this for any number of reasons which are not faults. People don't generally dance in combat boots, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the boots.

All your help in sorting for a winning combination is greatly appreciated.

PanzerBlitz series (Avalon Hill, MMP): 250m/hex
Panzer Grenadier series (Avalanche Press): 200m/hex
Nations at War series (Lock N Load Publishing): 150m/hex
Tank Leader series (West End Games): 150m/hex
Tactical Combat Series (MMP): 125m/hex
Panzer (GMT): 100m/hex

You don't need to label units to play Rommel. I just mark hits on the bases if needed, and I know the difference between a Panzer IV and Sherman so I don't need to write it down. I certainly wouldn't bother doing labels unless you are a huge fan of the rules, which I'm not.

The Portable Wargame and Memoir 44 both have a whole unit (company, battalion, whatever) occupy a single hex. When playing with figures I use extra bases to indicate special characteristics for Memoir 44 (AT weapons, mortars etc). PW and M44 share a lot of similar characteristics, including the number of strength points per unit etc.

So progress. If I can fit four bases of 2mm castings in a hex, I can play Memoir44 or PW, with each hex holding a company, and using each base as a platoon or a "strength point," depending on how I look at it. And the hex is roughly 250 meters across. Panzerblitz and Panzer Grenadier could probably be adapted.

At the "hex is 1Km and holds a battalion" level, I appear to have no alternative to Rommel. Is this the case?

And again, thank you all for your help.

There is a free aet of ww2 and modern rules that uses company elements and battalion units called Lightning War – Red Storm available at groups.io/g/LWRS

At the "hex is 1Km and holds a battalion" level, I appear to have no alternative to Rommel. Is this the case?

I think Memoir '44 can be added to this category. From the rulebook:

The scale of the game fluctuates from battle to battle. For some scenarios, an infantry unit may represent an
entire battalion, while in other scenarios a unit may represent a single company or platoon.

Personally I think the game feels like battalions crossing broad swathes of countryside.

There should be plenty of boardgames around that use battalion-sized units as the atom of maneuver. It's a sort of obvious representational level for operational combat. They can be a bit hard to find, since there aren't any settled parameters to search for, but you can find discussions like this that get you started. Some boardgames for particular battles should be easy enough to genericize, where the publisher hasn't already done this. The MMP BCS series is a whole generic system at this level, though that's probably not what you're looking for (MMP games are notoriously crunchy).

If you want to try adapting a gridless miniatures game to a grid, consider Phil Yates' old Operation Brevity rules. It was a stand=battalion operational game that fit in just 12 pages, and it shouldn't be hard to adapt. I rather liked it, but stopped playing because the 1-player-at-a-time initiative mechanic doesn't work for multiplayer, multi-division games.

- Ix