Action at Authie!

[Sparker]

Dear All,

Last Thursday at the Uni we revisited ‘Bloody Buron’, D-Day+1, but as it was an evening game I cut the scenario down a bit to just concentrate on the action around Authie…

Rules were BattleGroup Overlord, the scale 20mm, the action pitiful (from the allied command persepective, the lads themselves did bloody well!)

My Batrep here:

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/action-at-authie-44.html

 

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[John Secker]

Nice Batrep – enough detail to understand the way it went without hearing about every bad roll of the dice. What do you think of those rules (BattleGroup Overlord)?

[Sparker]

Thanks John! Good question – I have actually been through 3 phases in my attitude to these rules. First off the ‘Oh Shiny! Oh New!’ reaction, and the belief that they offered a credible alternative to RF2 for dusting off my long dormant 20mm kit. Then in actually trying to apply them, on my own, using the large format BattleGroup Kursk book, which has the rules interspersed with information about the theatre and campaign, most of which I knew already (Bighead!), I became very frustrated….

Then they introduced the smaller, A5 format rulebook with all the campaign guff taken out and just the core rules. And I was off! The rules make sense now, and I am just at that stage where I am beginning to see the seemingly infinite subtleties and sophistication of these rules.

I have some peacetime experience of soldiering, for example attended the British Army’s School of Infanty’s ‘Platoon Commander’s Division’ way back when, so I know enough about infanteering to assess how authentic a ruleset is, at least to my subjective satisfaction, which is about as much as you can ask of toy soldier rules! And to my mind the emphasis laid in these rules on direct area fire, with the sole object of ‘pinning’ an enemy until you can get in close to assault with grenades and smgs, is the essence of infantry work. I also like the way that you can subdivide your section/squad to drop off the Bren team, and the ‘Reserve Fire’ rule which allows you to leave units in overwatch to interrupt enemy movement or fire.

Now in order to achieve this level of sophistication, it has to be said the rules are comprehensive and lengthy – but they are not complicated! So if you take your time and start off small with section attacks and work your way up, I think these rules can’t be beat!

 

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[Author]

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