A rare game and even rarer blog post here at the SOUND OFFICERS CALL Battle Bunker after evening Mass on Saturday night as Dave and I played an old favorite - my own Cold War spin on the popular "Battlegroup" rules which I aptly named "Battlegroup: REFORGER" (Return of Forces to Germany).
You are probably asking yourself "But Steve - don't you own the *actual* modern version of Battlegroup?" I do own it - and have played quite a few games of Battlegroup: NORTHAG (Northern Army Group) - but last night we were feeling nostalgic for some good, crunchy Cold War Gone Hot gaming, and for the Battlegroup system in general. While NORTHAG takes the venerable Battlegroup system in a new and slightly different direction, REFORGER plays much more similarly to the WWII version, and was penned to fill a gap before NORTHAG hit the market.
We played roughly 750 points each in a meeting engagement. Drawing randomly for sides, Dave pulled the venerable Bundeswehr while I pulled the Soviets. German forces on the table were a HQs unit, a mechanized infantry platoon mounted in Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, a Leopard I platoon upgraded to the A5 model, heavy mortars, self propelled artillery and of course a recce detachment. German BP is 42.
The Soviets played with an understrength tank company of 6 T-72s, 3 BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, an Anti Tank vehicle, recce, and of course self propelled artillery. We diced to starting locations and Dave lucked out with a much better side of the table and plenty of cover to mask his movement while his tanks and tracks trundled up to the front! The Soviet corner was bare. Most of my movement would be under NATO observation and tank guns and anti tank missiles! Soviet BP is 35.
The game started with a flurry of chit pulls as I bag 2 x objectives during my recce phase, forcing Dave to draw a chit and "out scout" the Soviets with 2:1 recce vehicles to Dave's. Dave draws a "Breakdown" chit and plays it naturally on my BRDM-2 scout car holding an objective. I roll a "6" on the breakdown table and the BRDM catches fire and is promptly abandoned. Not a good sign for the rest of this battle!
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| The first Soviet casualty goes to bad maintenance practices and not the enemy! |
Dave's rolling is, as usual, pretty good and he gets an avalanche of reinforcements (this is a meeting engagement so we roll for units to come onto the table). While most of Dave's Leo's come on in the first turn, I get one T-72!
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| My T-72 moves up the flank and awaits his comrades |
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| German Marders moving up to the treeline to observe and potentially get a good MILAN shot off against my tanks. |
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| Soviet reinforcements start to show up now - note the 2 x Leopards to their front - I think the table looks pretty good! It's been awhile since I've had a nice, dressed up gaming table. |
My reinforcements fight straight from the march and miss ALL of their 4 shots. Literally all their shots miss. Not good! Meanwhile, my other T-72 at the rail line manages to destroy the Luchs vehicle holding one of the the Objectives.
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| Another T-72 reinforcement moves up to the woods next to the rail line. Note the burning Luchs |
Dave starts to get more aggressive with his Leopards now as his infantry moves up. He positions them to control the avenues of approach against the objectives he is holding. He also puts some on "ambush" orders to fire at me during my turn. The modern battlefield is a deadly place!
My reinforcement rolls are still pretty bad. I manage to bring on my AT-5 vehicle with its nasty AT-5 missiles.
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| Leo's sneaking up to the rail line near the factory in the center of the battlefield. |
With Dave knocking out 2 of my T-72s, I send some on a flanking mission to flank the Objective with the burning BRDM2 that Dave seized in the beginning of the game. This keeps some of his Leopards busy while I attempt the seize the objective at the rail line. THe problem is I have no infantry on the table yet. If they can arrive, I can speed my BMPs up to the rail line and dismount the infantry in the woodline, forcing Dave to recapture it with the fighting on his side of the table. The tank battle in the center of the board near the burning BRDM2 is an unpleasant distraction that is keeping me from executing my plan!
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| Note the burning T-72s on my baseline! And a BMP burning for good measure. Dave destroyed that from a Leopard I on ambush fire. |
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| One Leopard burns, a victim of my AT-5. Dave takes it out quickly!! I have no idea how many chits Dave has pulled by now but I'm 2/3 of my way to breakpoint. I managed to pull an aircraft chit and roll up an SU-22, but fail to get it to arrive during the next turn. Bummer! (and probably good because Dave has a "Flakpanzer Gepard" as part of his battlegroup and if it shoots down an A/C, I will take 2 chits!) |
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| The remaining BMPs from the infantry platoon are hugging the village, too afraid to venture out until the threat from the Leo's is reduced. |
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| A command BRDM2 with the artillery spotter ability - but he doesn't dare move any closer! |
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| Marders in the woods! |
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| German Infantrymen in the woods |
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| Dave's infantry dismount at the train station and a firefight breaks out between the dismounted Soviets in the village and the Germans at the train station |
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My remaining T-72s on a bold end-run to flank the objective - having a knife fight with a German Leo
It's pretty obvious Dave has the upper hand in this fight. Right now I feel like I'm fighting solely for my honor. If Dave kills these T-72s, I'm at risk of having him seize the final objective, and feeling the ignominy of suffering an "All Objectives Secured" victory! One of my thoughts is to dismount the infantry in the village to overwatch the last objective, which is in a small wooded area next to the village. Meanwhile, Dave dismounts infantry in the train station and our infantry are staring each other down.
 | Dave's Leo in the woods takes out one of my T-72s before getting taken out himself. I dont dare take the objective, though, as Dave's Jaguar and another Leo is overwatching it on "ambush" orders.
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 | | Knife fight with the Leo I in the woods |
 | One of the final pictures of the game as Dave's Leos and Marders take up firing positions at the factory. Note the infantry with the red die that indicates casualties. I think I ended up pinning them.
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THOUGHTS This was a really fun game (dont think we've ever played a bad game of Battlegroup) - it was great "dressing the table up" with lots of buildings, terrain and cool models. Dave and I had a blast playing REFORGER a number of years ago. REFORGER is a different experience as it is fought more at the platoon/company level, unlike BATTLEGROUP: NORTHAG which has a bigger scope to it. That's ok - some "crunchy" skirmish action was just what the doctor ordered after a stressful few weeks at work and we both had a blast playing.
For this game, I think I was a bit too hasty on committing the Soviet armor and probably should have waited until I had all of my T-72s on the table to launch an attack. In this case, Dave was able to deal with my tanks one at a time as they came out in dribs and drabs. The Soviets made good use of battle drills and that tactic would have worked exceptionally well here had I waited. Dave also had a distinct advantage in gunnery and so his shots would find their target more frequently than mine. That should have been obvious after he sliced through my first two T-72s along the railroad tracks!
Another thought that occurred to me was that i could have opted to put the infantry on the table earlier and sped them up to dismount in the woods along the rail line. A big infantry platoon there would have threatened Dave (his other objective was at the factory - so very close by).
With this game behind me now, I am hankering for more Battlegroup action and really wanting to get some smaller battles out on the table. I also want to try this same game with Battlegroup: NORTHAG and see how it plays.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post! With some much-needed time off coming up I should have the opportunity to get some more games on the table and time at the workbench. I'd love to play a Napoleonic game and possibly break out some Ancients for the first time on my table. Blogging about it would be a bonus!
Christmas coming up this week so if you celebrate I hope you have have a very Merry Christmas!
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