Battlegroup Kursk - Intro scenario (again and again) No 2 for the day

This is the second time we played the BGK Introduction Scenario in the same day down at the club. We swapped sides and the whole game took less than two hours.  I was the Germans and Andy the Russians.  First game in the morning is here.  The Russians lost for the third time with us playing this scenario.  Admittedly all three times the Russians were coming from the same table edge, so maybe there is a pattern there (maybe not!).
  
Andy and I have had a couple of conversations since this day.  Especially after Andy re-read the rules.   There are a few rules we are not playing quite right (limbering/unlimbering being one of them), and rules we are not taking advantage of as much as we could (reserve actions for one).  I think we were both suffering the "advance until fired on then stop and fire back" syndrome.  With playing the rules just a bit better, we both believe there is a better game in there.  We shall have to wait until our next game to see.

The Game
Just to recap forces, he introductory scenario is quite small (Squad level) on a 6'x4' table with a platoon each and a few infantry support units on each side.  The game starts with 2 armoured cars on board for the Germans, and a sniper team, T-70 and BA-10 for the Russians.  The rest of the units dribble on over the next few turns (1d6 per turn) and on turn 4 reinforcements turn up - a T-34/76  for the Russians, a Panzer IVG for the Germans.

Ther German Sdkfz 250/9 standing in as a Sdkfz 222

The Sdkfz 250//8 guarding the crossroads but moves across to the wheatfields on the left in the next turn.

The Russians come over the hill using the Ura rule to allow them all to move at once.

Another bunch of Russians coming through the woods

The BA-10 takes on the Sdkfz 250/9 and wins.  The clash of the armoured cars!

More Russians hiding in the woods.  OK, they were advancing a fair way up the centre of the board and into a good position.

T34 comes on in turn 4 and advances straight up the road and past the armoured car (see in the background).  The Germans in the house (roof does not lift off so the Germans at the back of the house are indicating that they are really in the house.

The PAK Anti-tank gun.  No pictures of it in any of the games and in both games it has been at the back of table quietly plugging away and doing the odd bit of damage here and there.

The BA-10 is taken out too.  The Russians have got no further in the woods but further than any Russians ever got in any of the games.

All that is left of the Russians on the hill is the Command unit (the other two squads routed).   They continued to busily call in 81mm mortar fire accurately for many turns.  But for very little effect.  Better that when I was the Russians and never got a decent communications roll.

The 4th Russian squad braves the open terrain on their left flank.  The sniper team in the distance is  pinned (and was for most of the game).

What the game looked like, from the German side after the Russians had lost :-)  But the Germans had taken a share of losses too.

 

 

 

A good game and the rules get better each time.  Next time hopefully even better as we continue to grasp the subtitles in the rules.

Battlegroup Kursk - Intro scenario (again)

Andy and I played the BGK Introduction Scenario twice down at the club the other day.  It is amazing how much you can forget after playing the game once 2 months ago.  But playing them again - and swapping forces - has really helped with understanding the rules and some of the strategies for the nationalities.   The first game took awhile, mostly because we spent half the time chatting to others that passed by for a look.  Note that The second game took less that two hours as there were no interruptions.

I do not love BGK but like it a lot.  It is a fun game and does capture the feel of WW2.  And it gives me a chance to use those models I have not seen for a long time.  A lot dates to the early 80s and this year is the second time my 20mm WW2 figures and models are having an outing since 2004!

The introductory scenario is quite small (Squad level) on a 6'x4' table with a platoon each and a few infantry support units on each side.  The game starts with 2 armoured cars on board for the Germans, and a sniper team, T-70 and BA-10 for the Russians.  The rest of the units dribble on over the next few turns (1d6 per turn) and on turn 4 reinforcements turn up - a T-34/76  for the Russians, a Panzer IVG for the Germans.

I will cover the first game here and the second sometime later in another post.

I am the Russians coming in from the edge further from the road.

The view looking from the Russian side

 There is a large open area on the left of the table.  No much happened over there.

An action shot of the T-70 that managed to destroy most things it fired at.

The fantastic T-70 as seen above.  It has a total of 7 shots.  I took them all as AP as the MG is as good as an HE shell from the gun.  It pinned lots of infantry, caused the Panzer IV to be abandoned and destroyed an armoured car.  It ruled the centre of the table almost the whole game.

The Sdkfz 250/9 (scenario calls for a Sdkfz 232 but I do not have a painted one and the 250/9 is similar)

German unit in the wheatfield. Another MG turned up later as well. I managed to pin all of these, only for Andy to draw a battle rating chit and unpin them all.

 

Two units of Russians advancing. It was only after I brought them on I remembered about the Ura! rule where the officer (who came on next turn) can order all units in 5" range to move top speed with only one order.  The Ura! order is very handy for the Russians.

The T-34 reinforcement arrives on the Russian side. 

...and the PanzerIV for the Germans.

German squad now occupies the ruined farmhouse at the crossroads.  This was a real pain for the Russians and the MG was pinning the Russians everywhere.   The PanzerIV was abandoned early on by the T-70 (out of shot further down the road) due to a lucky shot and unlucky morale check (a 1). 

The BA-10 tops the hill in the centre, ready to lay waste to the German infantry.  But I forgot that the PanzerIV was coming on, and when it did, it fired and destroyed it.  Ah well.

 

Before  the PanzerIV was abandoned, it did manage to take out the T-34 as well.  The T-34 had used the special rule Stal! Stal! Stal! to advance at double speed and attempt (unsuccessfully) to pin the German MG (seen the the right).

 

An overview of the crossroads where most of the action is happening.  T-34 destroyed, T-70 Ok.  All the Germans are still on the table.  A lot of the Russian infantry have been subject to routing, which is why you cannot see any in this picture.  This made up for some earlier firing by Andy where every aimed fire roll he did for an entire turn was a 1 or a 2 for observation or for AP shots and so inflicted nothing. As the Russians, I had lost the momentum by this stage and Andy definitely had the upper hand.

 Another shot of the crossroads from the German side.

The battle rating chits for the Russians. Initial Battle Rating was 18.  I seem to remember I did draw one special chit as well.

The Russians, when the game finished, I think may have had one or two units left on the table, and they were pinned.  This was out of a starting force of about 12 or 13.  The Germans had lost no units other than the Panzer IV being abandoned (so the crew ran away rather than being killed.  I did pin quite a few but  none took casualties.  As Andy pointed out, the Germans took no casualties at all while most of the Russians had gone!

A good fun game.

Battlegroup Kursk (BGK) first game and thoughts

Andy and I played our first game of Battlegroup Kursk (BGK) at the club in mid-April.  We both got the rules in December last year but this was the first opportunity to play it.  It was also the first time I had been at the local club since 1995 playing DBM, and the first time since, I think, 2005 that I have played a WW2 game face to face.  I am hoping that the time between trips to the club and face to face games gets shorter in the future!

It has taken a while to post this as I have been short of time to prioritise to gaming in the last month.
I will start by saying what I think of BGK and then a short description of the game.  I was too busy playing to take too many pictures!

Verdict on the rules
Are they good? Yes and no. No in that they are not THAT good. they are good, but did not set my world on fire.  But yes: it was an enjoyable game, I had fun, I think the rules are good at recreating what they are trying to portray and would more than happily play again.  Note that I do not think there is a perfect set of WW2 rules for me anywhere, including ones I have written, so it is unlikely any rules are going to get a pure yes anyway!  And it was an intro game on a same table so did not get the full impact of playing either, so I believe my opinion will go upwards when playing on a larger table.

We played on a small table (6'x4') and I can see it would shine on a 8'x6'. As the table was small and even though we only used a few forces, the depth meant there was not a lot of manoeuvre so the game was a line them up and go. And that was also as a result of poor tactics and focussing on trying to capture two objectives when concentration on one would have been a lot better.

It does play well, the mechanisms are well thought out and fairly smooth (although artillery fire has lots of steps and it was a little tedious for our first outing with it) and there was lots of book flicking for the first few hours. You are often throwing 7-10 dice for hits and I am not a bucket of dice person. The game does have the feeling of ww2 as units are pinned and it is trying to unpin them to move them into position to fire back before getting pinned again.

My only quibble on mechanics is that BGK has a unit choosing between Aimed fire (focussing on casualties) and pinning fire (focussing on preventing enemy actions). While I like the fact that casualties is differentiated from action limitations, I like to have them both rolled into one so that a unit does not have to chose (i.e. a unit fires and the result may be casualties, or pinning, or both). I prefer to think troops just fired for suppression/pinning and casualties were a bonus.

In summary, jury still out. I like it, do not love it (yet, but may never do). Need a few more bigger games to see how good it is . Again, the mechanisms are sound and the feeling it there. Is it worth the expense? Don't know but I am a rules junkie and the book is beautiful and the army lists are very extensive.

The game overview
We played the introductory scenario on page 170 on a 6'x4' table. Basically an engagement scenario with a  platoon of infantry, some armoured scouts and a tank each.  We were sparse with the terrain, just laying out the pieces as per the scenario map and using the painted game board  as a base.  We just wanted to get stuck in to learn.  The good news is that you do not seem to need as much terrain as in some other WW2 games.  Of course, more terrain always looks good.

I was the Russians with Andy the Germans.  As the Germans are outscouted in this scenario, the Germans have to pick out a battle counter.

Me: "I hope it is not an aircraft chit.  I haven't looked at the aircraft rules at all.  Have you?"
Andy: "Not really. By the way, if it is an aircraft chit, when do I show you?"
Me: "I think you would show me after we deploy and it takes effect next turn, which would be the first turn."

So, after deployment Andy shows me the Aircraft counter.  I think it took an hour to go through to resolution as we had never read them and you also need to go through the artillery rules (which both of us have only skimmed also!), which for the first time is interesting.  But this really helped...because the second counter that Andy was forced to draw was....an aircraft!  This went a lot faster to resolve.

View of the board from one side after deploying scouts.  Russians on the left - BA-64 on the road; Germans to the left - a destroyed halftrack near the junction.  The red marker is an objective, but also very near the point of attack for the German aircraft bombs.

 After deployment of scout forces, The German halftracks were in sight of my BA-64 and T-70.  Russians win the initiative and two actions later, the Germans have lost their scout forces.  That was quick and unexpected.  Good in that it was easy to perform.  And now we know a bit more about how the rules work and initiative being important.
 

My T-70 that managed to control my left flank for a few turns, until destroyed a German reinforcement - a Panzer IV.

 We found we did a lot of firing to pin during the first 5 or so turns.

The view of most of the Russian infantry forces from the German end of the table. 

Another view of the forces but slightly to the left, just to give an idea where they are. The hill and the woods really put a stop to trying to press the advantage.

 
Neither of us had sufficient forces in a particular place to strike forward, and after unpinning, they just got pinned again.

A shot form the Russian side of two units =on ein the woods and one near the hill.  The one near the hill is pinned, the one in woods is about to be.

And this is what caused the pinning of the troops in the woods.  The PanzerIV came in on the right flank and promptly took out the only Russian armour - a T-34 and T-70, then pinned a unit of infantry on the the German right flank before turning towards the centre.

But then looking over the rules, I can see than  for aimed fire, scoring a casualty will result in a morale test that has a 1 in 3 chance of pinning most units.  So I started aimed fire to good effect.  But then so did Andy start using aimed fire with the Germans to good effect as well.  Eventually I went over my battle rating and lost the game.  I think all my units were pinned by this stage and Andy have about half of his pinned.  Neither of us had lost an infantry unit.  It was a game of attrition due to the terrain and limited board size, and I think Andy played the attrition game better than me, but only after I knocked out all his half-tracks on turn 1!