More 20mm WW2 gaming

O Group

I have been geting a few WW2 games in of late. I’ve met up with a couple of local gamers who play O Group by Dave Brown. They are battalion level set rules so one stand equals a section of men and one tank represents 2. I’ve never and an issue with “bathtubbing” games, it has been around as long as the hobby has been and enables gamers to fight at a higher scale of game than they otherwise would. There are some interesting mechanics in the rules, such as the combat patrol mechanism, which keeps the fog of war aspect strong in the game. I’ve only had a couple of games so far but enjoyed them both, and hope to have another game tomorrow.

The local gamers here in Oamaru plays O group in 15mm. I have a very, very large collection of 15mm WW2 from my FoW days (or should that be decade) but I really struggle to get any enthusiasm either for painting miniatures in that scale or the armoured vehicles these days. Having spent the last decade or so concentrating on 28mm skirmish style WW2 (eg Bolt Action), I really don’t enjoy gaming in 15mm any more and cannot motivate myslef to want to paint anyhting in 15mm.

Luckily though, I have found an answer. Returning to “God’s true scale”, where it all began for me in the late 1970s. 20mm or 1/72 scale. I have surprised myself at how much I really do enjoy putting together plastic kits!  there is defnitely an aspect of nostalgia involved. Back in the day my friend Ian and I started gaming with Airfix and Matchbox kits and then later added Eski vehicles to our collections and so there was quite a discrepancy in the size of vehicles on the table- try putting an Airfix Panther (1:76) beside an Esci Panther- the Esci one dwarfs the Airfix model! 

Anyway, I have been doing a bit made painting up British and German forces mainly using Plastic Soldier Company kits. Their 1/72^nd stuff is nicely detailed and, unlike the Esci kits which were first and foremost designed for modellers and have lots of very fiddly parts, are easy to put together having only a couple of dozen parts at most. The kits tend to come with bits of stowage and options to make 2 or even 3 variants of the main model and so they are very, very good value for money. So I guess I am regressing to my childhood, spending much of my spare time building and painting kits for gaming.

Battlegroup

The other game I’ve been starting to play is Battlegroup. Battlegroup plays very differently to O Group, more of a platoon level game and a good excuse to get toys on table. Another gamer I’ve recently met, Richard, lives about an hour and a half away near Dunedin and has a sizeable collection in 20mm and this is his preferred gaming scale. Hence my new addiction to collecting 20mm WW2. He has a fantastic set up and have had a couple of really enjoyable days of gaming in his wargaming room and was the motivator for me getting a “small” 20mm collection underway myself- I much prefer to use my own armies than borrow someone elses. 

So far I’ve enjoyed the games of Battlegroup, I really enjoy the morale mechanic whereby you draw a chit each time you lose a unit (and occasionally for other things like losing and objective) and the chits have a number between 1-5 and a few other “events” that might happen. Each armies breakpoint is a secret but you add up the chits you draw and the game ends when you reach your armies breakpoint, so you can never be sure about who is closer to breaking. It definitely adds tension to the game, especially when nearing your breakpoint, as when you want to rally troops you need to draw a chit, so it can all go horribly wrong for you. It is a nice “for of war” mechanic.

So far my only complaint with the game of is that a couple of our games have been a bit static tank shoots. I’ve not sure if that is because of the rules, the lists, or simply lack of experience with the ruleset. I like infantry to have an important part in a game and to date infantry has been a  bit underwhelming in our games. However, I do like the fact that most artillery is “off table” and the game feels like I assume a WW2 battlefield would, with artillery playing an important role and being able to reach infantry from afar. Infantry feel vulnerable, sometimes I think they are too vulnerable, but I think that is me and not the rules, or at least I hope that is me. So I enjoy the feel, I just need to get better and figuring but how best to use infantry effectively, which I am sure is user error rather than the rules themselves.

 Youtubing

Finally, this blog has been a bit neglected for late and that is mainly because I’ve been doing most of my battle reports as videos and uploading them to by youtube channel: The Wargaming Den. 

20mm Fallschrimjager

Finally, I've been buiding up a force of Fallschrimjager in 20mm using the lovely AB Miniatures range. I cannot  recommend them highlyu enough, the AB scultps are the best on the market and wellw orth the price. 

My FJ force assembled for a solo game of Battlegroup yesterday. 

I added a couple of PSC panthers to the collection this week.

The Fallschimjager- I've based them so I can use them with both O GRoup, Battlegroup, or Rapid Fire Reloaded

Until next time.