"Can't decide between 'O Group' and 'I ain't been shot mum'" Topic

Hi all,
I can't decide between 'O Group' and 'I ain't been shot mum', I'm looking to get one of these two systems. I'll be looking to play in 15mm, don't have any armies yet but I've got a good deal on some PSC 15mm Brits and Germans, so looking for a good ruleset to use them with.
For background I've played plenty of other games at this scale with moderns. Mainly Team Yankee and Seven Days to the Rhine. I do enjoy the Team Yankee/Flames of War rulesets, but I don't like the car park effect you get on a 6' x 4' board.

Here's what I'm looking for, mechanics wise;

- Something that models the command and control and the 'OODA loop' with more robustness than Flames of War.

- A core group of mainly infantry, with attached supports such as armour and big guns.

- A standard game plays well on a 6' x 4' board without feeling cramped and restricted.

- A game that is playable to a satisfying conclusion in a single club night. I've played games before that take all day, and it's just too much these days. Nothing worse than cutting a game short halfway through and having to extrapolate the conclusion from there.

- A game that rewards 'realistic' tactics and maneuvers rather than gamey exploits. I understand realistic here is quite a subjective term.

- I don't mind crunchy games. But I do lean towards games that have simple and elegant rules. I'm going to be introducing this game to my friends and the club, so something that is easily playable without constantly flicking through the book would be ideal. Nothing ruins a game more than having to stop every two minutes to consult the book.

From what I've read and seen in reviews, 'O Group' seems to tick all of the above boxes. I've never played any TFL games but I know they have a good pedigree when it comes to games that reward 'playing the era. I was all set to get 'O Group' until I saw IABSM. From what I can see, both of these games seem to cover a lot of the same ground, mechanics wise. They both result in a similar amount of 'stuff' on the board, even if they conceptually represent different scales.

In terms of the level of command they cover, I guess I don't know enough about second world war combat to know whether battalion scale engagements were common. How often would a full battalion deploy in combat together? Were single company actions more or less common?

I'm mainly going to be playing Western Front, Normandy and Market Garden most likely. With a view towards North African games once I've got more models. IABSM seems to have a lot more support in this regard, with more supplements and lists than 'O Group'

People who've played both, which do you prefer and why? What are the relative strengths of both games, and which do you think meets my criteria the best?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Some of your description e.g.:
"A core group of mainly infantry, with attached supports such as armour and big guns."
"A standard game plays well on a 6' x 4' board without feeling cramped and restricted."
Sounds very like Chain of Command to me. If you want to get a VERY good feel for these rules there are some extremely good AARs on "The Tactical Painter" blog site.

I've looked at Chain of Command, and it does seem like a very fun game. But I'm not sure I like the idea of platoon level games. The main reason I went with 15mm is because I wanted to have more 'stuff' on the board, and play bigger scale games.

IABSM is simpler, and plays faster than O Group. A company a side with `IABSM will finish in 2 to 3 hours. A battalion a side will take much longer.
Personally I prefer Battlefront:WW2 to either of the above, but if you want to model command friction, IABSM is very good.

I've been using Kampfgruppe Commander recently as an investigation into how its' command and control works.

It uses pips to activate Companies with platoon constituent parts. The whole Company moves and fires together, or multiple Companies if you want to spread a pip.

It also uses reactions for opposing Companies that are forced to, well, react, and this restricts what the reacting Company can do when they get to try something.

The infantry and artillery combat is logical but you could use your own combat stuff quite easily. Fire+Fury Battlefront would work well. Likewise with tank stuff.

I've played one of the KGC scenarios of a Regiment plus a side Eastern Front and it played in a few hours. It was fun and logical and showed the difference in C+C for each side.

So at the moment KGC is floating my boat.

I'd have said that O Group plays quicker that IABSM clearly that's a matter of choice. IABSM is 1:1 scale, O Group has a base as a section, or a pair of vehicles. I like the scale of O Group (augmented battalion vs augmented company) but a box of PSC infantry will cover either game. .

BitTorrent.
My group played a fair amount of O group last year and I'd like to share something I wish we had done differently.

TFL have 3 sets of WW2 rules, Chain of Command for platoon level, IABSM for company level and O Group for battalion level.

In hindsight we should have played the 3 sets in order so all the players had a chance to be platoon commanders before they tried company command and then company command before they tried battalion command.

That would have helped the players with a casual knowledge of WW2 figure out how their platoons and companies work together and we would have been able to get games in as soon as we had a platoons worth of figures ready to play instead of having a battalion plus before getting a game in.

Good luck and have fun whichever route you take!

having played and umpired numerous games of IABSM, I fully endorse it for the following reasons and for what you are looking for:
-company level fits with many engagements for Normandy, Italy and other western front.
-TFL has several, old but great, scenario booklets for Normandy, Italy and Sicily. see their website.
-it is company level which means each side (typically) gets 2-3 platoons made up of 3 squads each (10-man squads for USA, 8-man squads for everyone else. while the scale is 1-to-1, the base unit is not the single man it is the squad.
-when a Platoon card is drawn, all 3 squads get activated.
-if a Level 3 Big Man card is drawn, he can spend 3 activations so he can also activate all 3 squads nearby or he could activate 1 squad of infantry, activate a nearby MG and radio for artillery.
-"most" games have a fw platoons of infantry plus maybe a few tanks and heavy mgs or mortar teams.
-but if you want to play a tank heavy game you can do that too. tank games are fast and furious as tanks can fire across the board with ease (remember ground scale is about 80-100 yards for every 12 inches.
-play is card driven….which frankly is the only way to try and simulate the fact that battle happens simultaneously and that much of war is luck and timing.
-it is not about rivet counting…whoever gets the first shot, determined by the draw of the cards, is often the victor, not who has the biggest gun.
-it rewards those who use correct tactics. For example, if you have an MG fire a burst at a squad in the trees first and inflict Shock or a Pin on that target squad, they will fight less effectively when you send in the assault on a later card.
-last but not least, many TFL folks have tweaked IABSM to have unit activated via dice like Chain of Command or my personal favorite adding some wild cards to the IABSM deck. These wild cards are called Command Cards, borrowing from TFL's Sharpe Practice, and allow you to do a bonus activation or interrupt play to activate a single squad for example.
-To see some great After Action Report on IABSM check out the long running VisLardica blog. link

In terms of scale, I think it is much easier to find details of historic Battalion-sized actions than smaller scale ones. It is certainly easy to find histories of British infantry battalions – for example, my WW2 force was inspired by books on the 4th King's Shropshire Light Infantry (part of 11th Armoured Div) that I picked up from the regimental museum in Shrewsbury Castle.

What Midlander said, battalions are units, anything smaller than that is a subunit. O Group is aimed at running up to a battalion, IABSM at around a company.

It is very hard to find reasonable accounts of actions under battalion size, apart from skirmish level memoirs. If you aren't playing historical actions I guess that doesn't matter so much.

Perhaps work through all 3 sets suggested by BigDan? Certainly if you've picked a scale (15mm) then the troops and vehicles will work fine for pretty much any rule set – very few require specific basing schemes liek other periods.
As your 'stuff'can almost certainly be used for any rules then trying them out is the best way, perhaps even simpler realtively cheap sets like Rapid Fire.
I recommend finding a local club and seeing what they play for WW2, my club is very keen on O Group but I'm a CoC fan myself mainly because I find that easier to fit a narrative to and there's no aggregation.

@BillNM: good points! can you explain what you mean by "fit a narrative to and there's no aggregation???

I am building and publishing the exact system you are after. it is basically an easy advanced squad leader / flames of war game system. That is built against historically accurate armor penetration statistics and casualty rates.

I think either game would fit the bill. Both are good. O group is designed for bigger games and gives a great feel for being a battalion commander. IABSM is better at the company level and really highlights individual leaders on the board.
Does that help?
Joe

IABSM plays ungodly slow and very little feels accomplished after three hours of playing. I recommend Command Decision III, which is still in print from the publisher. With a lot of those games you mentioned, there is a huge lag time between making a tactical decision and then seeing the fruits of that decision (whether success or failure). Command Decision jumps the middle bit and you see very quickly whether that was a good move or not. This makes for many more interesting tactical decisions over the course of a single game than I have ever seen in other systems.

@achtung minen I am not that familiar with Command Decision III but if I am reading correctly CD-3 is a battalion level game… not really comparable with IABSM which is company level. However that being said, if you cram lots of platoons on the board, that means more cards in the deck, so a game with lots of units will take more time. But if each side has 1 or 2 companies (aka 3-6 platoon cards) and just a few tanks and support pieces (MG, on-board mortar) then most game can be finished in 4 hours

@ Achtung Minen

IABSM plays quickly if you're familiar with the rules.

@captaincold69 I've played them since 2004, so I am indeed familiar with the rules. Same answer.