Kampfgruppe Heller: Poland 1939

[Whirlwind]

I have started a new WW2 campaign as a vehicle for doing some playtesting of a new set of WW2 rules. As an homage to Just Jack’s ‘Kampfgruppe von Klink‘ campaign, I have had a go at some of the same scenarios.

Please see the first couple of AARs, here and here.

[Darkest Star Games]

There are good reads, thanks!   I really like the sound of the “observed’ and “pinpointed” enemy/obs.  Are these a set of rules you or someone you know are writing?  (or are they just “new to you” rules?)

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Whirlwind]

Thanks, DSG. These are rules someone else is writing.

[John D Salt]

Whirlwind wrote:

Thanks, DSG. These are rules someone else is writing.

I confess, the “someone else” is me.

The current title of the rules is “Gummipanzergrenadier”. They descend from a set devised by my friend Paul Syms and used by my Horsham-based wargames group, a bunch of pals who share at least one of a school, a church, or a regiment. None of us still lives in Horsham, now being scattered from Swindon to Polegate, but we try to meet at Easter and Xmas at least for a wargame together. The latest Xmas game was on 29th December in Billingshurst, and supposed to be the first test of the rules in their current somewhere-fairly-near-complete state. I was unable to attend as I had a streaming cold, so I am still waiting for the playtest report. Meanwhile, Whirlwind has been going great guns in the playtesting, and raised numerous points for me to think about — the problem with trying to write rules in isolation during lockdown was the impossibility of guessing how another human being might interpret rules I thought I had written down clearly.

Paul Syms’ set originated at our school wargames club in the mid-1970s, and its original aim was to give a couple of junior members of the club a simple game that, in constrast to most sets then available, gave the infantry a fair share of work to do in the combined-arms team, and represented them at the same level as armour (squad-sized elements) to avoid having to deal with a mass of fiddly individual figures or small teams. His chosen title was “Panzergrenadier”, an excellent name not then associated with any other wargame. The contemporary SPI boargame “Firefight” provided a few theftworthy ideas.

Over the years we played rather a lot of “Panzergrenadier”. Somewhere, Paul still has the file containing the latest version of the rules. We were supposed to update it with better ideas from successive plays. Somehow that never really happened; as a bunch of old friends who all had some clear ideas of how we thought the battlefield worked, we tended to make things up on the fly rather than refer to the book. On one memorable occasion we set up a huge multi-battalion Chinese vs Japanese game, then realised that nobody had brought the rules folder, each assuming that someone else was bringing it. We played anyway, and had a great game based on folk memory, gentleman’s agreements, and a weird tendency for the dice to come up double one or double six, removing the need to consult the CRTs in any detail.

Our attitude was well summed up by one of our number who said “I refuse to learn the rules, on the grounds it would violate my amateur status.”

A few years ago I got fed up with the torpid pace of development of the rules, and branched my own version, with the obviously derivative name, sub-titled “The flexible rules we like to think we know”. Initially these were in the form of quick reference charts only; the first attempt at complete rules was, I find to my horror, in 2021. I went back to the rules’ “Firefight” roots somewhat, with what was effectively a WW2 version of “Gunner, Sabot, Tank”, my updated version of “Firefight” that received a distinctly tepid reception at COW in 2017.

As you can see, development of the rules has not been rapid. Annoying aspects of real life have always taken priority, and most of us still have the handicap, from the time management point of view, of being in full-time employment.

Does the world need yet another set of WW2 tactical rules? I hope and believe so. But the world mustn’t expect them in a hurry.

If anyone has any questions, I might try to answer them, or I might try to create a spurious aura of mystery if I can’t think of a good answer.

All the best,

John.

[MartinR]

Ah, I did wonder if they were your fair hand. I enjoyed Gunner, Sabot, Tank (I still have my copy from COW!), so I’ll be interested to see how the WW2 version comes along. And yes, please god, sections, and not those awful fiddly teams so beloved of WRG.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Darkest Star Games]

John D Salt wrote:

Our attitude was well summed up by one of our number who said “I refuse to learn the rules, on the grounds it would violate my amateur status.”

  The perfect statement, if I’ve ever heard one!

These rules sound quite excellent, and not too “gamey”.  Though “Gummipanzergrenadier” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue…

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[John D Salt]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Though “Gummipanzergrenadier” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue…

True, it needs a triple somersault and back flip.

Any suggestions for alternatives will be actively considered. I do not want a name containing any of “fields”, “flame”, “glory”, or “victory”.

As the game is about mobile troops, with an emphasis on the armour-infantry team, I quite like “Gummipanzergrenadier”. Naming the rules after other nation’s equivalent suggests perhaps “Motostrelki”, which provides an excuse to use Cyrillic on the cover, or “Mechanized Infantry”, which is at least a good tune.

All the best,

John.

[Thuseld]

Your tables look absolutely beautiful. The game looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for the AARs.

Experiments here: http://inexperiencedmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Tranquil Stars updates: https://tranquilstars.wordpress.com

[Whirlwind]

Thanks Thuseld, you are too kind. Just out of interest, the table is:

Base is a Noch Spring Meadow paper-backed mat.

Most of the area terrain features are on roofing-type felt, although my old stuff on mdf wasn’t so different in looks. The felt is a little easier to shape when building, and mold to relief on the table.

Trees are mainly from Amazon and ebay, with a couple of home-made ones to mix it-up.

Walls & buildings are bought, they definitely looked better than my home-made efforts, which were ‘ok-ish’ at best. There are lots of great 6mm building manufacturers.

Flock and static grass is a mixture of Javis and Noch. I have a flock box so the exact shades change over time. Every so often I buy some ‘heath’ or ‘moor’ flock or whatever for a new terrain piece, and I add some to the general flock box too.

[Author]

Posts