Yesterday there was not a single game on the horizon. My buddy Dave F came over to help me work on the gaming table and, well, you cant keep us gamers still I suppose so after a trip to Home Depot, we broke out small forces for a quick Battlegroup: Kursk game! (All pics by Dave F!)
I took Paul OG's advice and used the Skirmish Campaigns "GrossDeutschland at Kursk" book for a really small-scale but fun game featuring a couple squads on each side, supplemented by 81mm Mortars.
When I say small, this game was SMALL! But delivered alot of good infantry excitement and tension on both sides as the Germans have to attack across a large open area. BP for the German forces was "9" and when the math worked out for Ivan, turned out to be "3!" Well we'd barely have a game so we adjusted the Soviet BP to "6" thinking that would give a little bit longer game.
I dont think the game lasted longer than an hour and a half.
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| Germans attacking. 2 Full squads, a HQs section, and on-call 81mm Mortars. |
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| Soviet houses overwatching the bridge. |
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| Ivan moving into the woods overwatching the bridge |
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| German squad moving up to the support by fire position |
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| Another German squad! ANGRIFF! |
We rolled one die for orders each turn. The action started sharply and Dave's LMGs scored a ton of hits on Ivan in the treeline.
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| Ivan moved up to the woodline to guard the bridge crossing |
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| and fortified a building |
The German LMG opens up with good effect!
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| scratch 3 ivans! Good shooting Jerry! |
The return fire isn't quite as effective as the German fires, but gets decent effects on target with a couple hits.
Ivan can't do much right now but miraculously continues to pass his morale checks. Meanwhile Dave's FO has a hard time getting priority for company mortars but that doesn't mean he cant try!
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| Ivan moves back to foxholes from. Only the squadleader and DP team remain |
Ivan's squad on the right gets a pin and pulls a chit to unpin itself. Luckily it's a "1"
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| Germans in the woods sneaking up on the buildings. |
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| Ivan scores some more hits with the DP but Dave continues to pass his MC's |
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| and even scores a "Beyond the Call of Duty Test" which he passes to good effect. |
Next turn, the company approves the mortar mission and the Soviet left squad is treated roughly.
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| Squad pinned with a mortar barrage! |
Future casualties force Ivan's squad in the house to bug out with 1 soldier left and the chit pull brings Ivan to the BP! Germans win and the remaining Russians bug out!
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| mortar fire mission! |
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| Soviet BP! Just over an hour's game! |
Great looking game and sounds tense and exciting...and damn those dice :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Darren it was a blast. BGK produces that nice effect especially when you don't know the other guy's actual morale or if he's close to breakpoint.
DeleteThat was a great pick-up game! While I did roll well with the dice Gods on my side, I feel that I was rewarded for employing fire and maneuver as my guiding principle throughout force deployment.
ReplyDeleteBG has proven itself to me as being an agile set of rules for either large (The Battle for Ponyri Station ala Historicon) or small game scenarios (SK GDaK). I'm definitely filling my bookshelf with the entire BG line of rules and supplements!
Yes lots of fun and I think the Skirmish Campaign games are a good idea.
DeleteThe only drawback I see is if you want to play larger games there is a lot of thought and planning that must go into it. That said, I don't think I'd ever turn down a game of BG!
Maybe BG: Overlord with pure infantry forces could be your inaugural game!? I've got those 12th SS troops who are itching for some payback!
Cool stuff, thanks for posting Steve. You're continued East Front batreps are starting to have an effect on me, getting me to jones for some Cross of Iron-style skirmishing.
ReplyDeleteV/R,
Jack
Thanks Jack glad you liked it. There is a guy on the BG facebook group who has been converting ASL scenarios to Battlegroup: Kursk and his games look awesome.
DeleteProbably one of the best sets out there I've encountered for this level of combat. Lots of decision making, excitement, dice(s), and mayhem.
Cool looking game Steven. Was the table extended?
ReplyDeletePaul i think it was just the way dave took the pictures. We played across the table width and i think we only used about 3 feet along the length. Dave took nice pictures especially if they made the table look bigger!
DeletePlenty of typical Ostfront slaughter going on there. Looked like a fun shoot-em-up without a PC. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteThank you sir it was a short, sharp brutal little game. Barely 3 squads on a side but we still had some great fun. Thats one of the things i like about battlegroup is that they can handle a small game with 25 figures on a side or a large game with many times that number. It's not Ponyri Station but it was fun nonetheless!
DeleteGood looking little game chaps!
ReplyDelete