Blitzkrieg Commander II Intro Game

In a special introductory game, three players new to Blitzkrieg Commander II and three experienced but not recently players gathered to get sand in our shoes.  Set as a early 1943 game, we had roughly 4000 points of Germans and Italians against British.  You can read the remarks of Der Alte Fritz on his blog here.  The game was set with four turns of recon so the Germans and Italians dutifully drove armored cars on table looking for trouble.

BKCII uses 2d6 to activate formations and was significantly modified to accommodate our tastes for the game.  Who wants to see their pretty toys just sit and do nothing?  The game was played lengthwise on a 16x6' table.

Such a peaceful arena as the recon drives on table.

My AB-41 armored cars with German SdKfz 222s in the distance.

We engage in a lively duel with Marmon-Herrington armoured cars.

 We had three full turns of recon work, then on the fourth turn each side drove their heavy units on table.  Heavy being a comparative term for the Italians.

Now that's a heavy!  A Tiger heads some Mk. III tanks.

We used dust clouds till spotted.  In this case a formation of M14
tanks followed by Semovente self-propelled guns.

The Germans waste no time coming into action.

Initially things seemed to go our way.  The British armoured cars had to give up ground in the face of all the armor, we didn't find any ambushes, and the Germans started exacting a heavy toll right away.  At first it seemed we were "just" facing Crusader III tanks with 6 pdrs as their main gun.

My M14s were willing to fight Crusaders till the Grants showed
up.  Time to play "chase me, chase me."

Oops.  After some poor shooting on my part and some average to slightly better by the British I could do the math.  Twelve shots to twenty-four, with them having a better gun and needing more hits to kill.  So the Italians beat a hasty retreat back to nearly their starting positions.

Grants seem to be particularly nasty in BKC II.

More Germans I hope.

Back at one of the starting ridges.

 Much like the back and forth movements of Rommel and his adversaries across Africa, so too our forces went forward and back over the same ridges all day.

The Crusaders advance ahead of the Grants while on the other
flank more are being shot to pieces by the Tiger and company.

Too ambitious in the end, engaging without the Grants.  All the
Crusaders are quickly burning.

 I joked about drawing them onto our line of anti-tank guns, not really knowing what was in the German arsenal.  As it turns out I was right.  A pair of 88s and the panzers made short work of the Crusaders, even though they were in a good hull-down position.

You can see the reorganized Italians and formidable array of Germans.

A Stuka appeared and help take out part of the other Crusader batch.

Some Hurricanes returned the favor, I think killing a panzer.

With the Crusaders eliminated the Germans and Italians begin
to pursue.  Germans aided by their superior command ratings
pull ahead.

Over the top boys, charge!

My might Falco CR-42 finally puts in an appearance.

And is promptly shot down.  Can truck mounted Bofors really
fire on the move?

A nasty surprise awaits us.

And promptly takes out a panzer company.

Being smarter than the average rabbit, my Semoventes use the
depression and move to town and our exit path.

So much wreckage strewn across the field.

Axis players are Jim, John and myself; British players Bob, Bill
and Keith.

The Axis mission was to exit along the road next to town (away from the Italians).  At point we wondered, "where did the Tiger go?"  Slipped off table with its escorting Panzers.  So with most of the British armour destroyed and our tanks moved or moving off table, an Axis victory was declared.

There are things about Blitzkrieg Commander that I really like and other aspects that are beyond goofy.  We'll keep tinkering with it and see if something can be created that play to the system strengths and minimize the impact of weaknesses.  So we'll just have to play more often!

Meet You at Midtown

March, 1945.  Somewhere in Germany.  General idea is that a key village of ruins was abandoned by cowards and now it is a race to occupy first, either invader or defender of the Reich.

This was intended to be a local playtest of Blitzkrieg Commander II.  While the group is solidly in the Flames of War camp, I owned the rules for a few years now and recently played a game in another town and wanted to give it a go locally.  Each side of three players had a touch over 5000 points to play with, though in FoW terms it would just be a tad over 2000.  Click to big-up the pictures.

Playing the long way, a view from the German end of the table.

Initial German moves.  The Americans have already moved.

Using a Warmaster activation system sub-commands can move,
fire, deploy, etc. up to (house rule) three activations.

Seven German tank destroyers against 13 Sherman variants.

Artillery has a deviation roll and one of the early American barrages
deviated into a mass of Germans with deadly results.

Each "army" or battlegroup has a break point.  After the above barrage the Germans were halfway to theirs and the Americans hadn't taken any losses yet.

Shermans and self-propelled artillery advance into a meat-grinder.

US airpower, with total air superiority, kept chipping away at the
Germans but could never land two missions in the same turn.

As vehicles were knocked out we removed them.  Next time we'll
leave wrecks on the field.

The village ruins are paper buildings from David Graffam.  Various
wrecks would normally be seen.

Unlike Flames of War, the Jagdpanthers long range guns really
mattered and they had Ostwinds to protect them.

US armored infantry couldn't decide whether to advance on foot
or on their halftracks. 

One of our lads all grown up and home on leave from Korea.
Thanks Jake!

P-47s darted about the skies all day but never could do much
more than suppress their targets.

The tank destroyers kept knocking out Shermans, though the
Germans hit their break point.  And passed the test.

The Germans passed three break tests and then the American
infantry wandered into range of the German 15cm guns.

The picture shows all of the US infantry left after the dust settled.  Infantry in the open are very vulnerable to artillery and it was made worse by incredible rolls to hit.  NEVER complain about your dice again Bob, you've been on an incredible run for months!  :-)

"Wo ist der Amerikaners?"

The Americans failed their nearly impossible break test roll and the remainders, mostly command and observers, fled the field.  Just for kicks we tested the Germans and they passed, granting them a decisive victory.

All game systems have their goofy abstractions.  In the case of BKC you can never chip away at monster tanks over the course of the game.  You either kill it in one turn or it regenerates like a Troll and all hits go away.  The possibility of doing nothing in a turn annoys me.  Without entering a discussion about "friction" and "fog of war" it comes down for me to the desire to play with my toys.  I don't want to sit on my hands.  To combat this we give each sub-command a reroll on their first failed command check.

Reaction seemed generally good from the group, though I'm happy just to amortize the cost of my investment a bit more.  I expect we will try it again in the future.