First game of Battlegroup

 On Saturday I popped own south to have  a game of a ruleset I’ve heard about but not tried out, Battlegroup. I decided some time ago that I didn’t need a new ruleset, or could be faffed learning a new set for that matter. However, I’d heard rumours of a mythical creature, well down here in NZ anyway, was lurking in the rural Otago, one of the fabled 20mm WW2 wargamers. 

I ditched my 20mm collection back in 2002 or thereabouts when Battlefront was first starting out with Flames of War. I a few local gamers were keen on get into WW2 so it made sense to move to 15mm where there was a lot more availability,  so I sold of all my collection of WW2 vehicles an figures. 

I’d not met Richard before but he was an absolute gentleman and provided an outstanding venue and days gaming. Richard provided fairly balanced armies to give is a good feel of the rules and he has a fantastic gaming set up and collection of WW2.

We played a 500 point game with Germans vs Americans and each had a platoon of infantry a troop of tanks, a tank hunter and some artillery support (and in my case airsupport)

The table

As the americans I had just captured na undefended bridge and was seeking to exploit this while the Germans were trying to drive me backa ross the river. 

Turn 1- i had a sniper and FOO in the builing and a squad of infantry near the fields. 

Turn 3- I advance towars the wood but alas a German MG 42 team got their first. 

Turn 4- US reinforcements arrive

The squad in the field are cut on but the US artillery has been hipping away at the Germans and inflicitng casualties. 

in the end the game ended with a victory to the Americans. 

I really enjoyed the game and the rules. There were a few things that I would raise an eyebrow at (lack of smoke) but I enjoyed the command system, the attrition system for determining when a force breaks and the artillery rules which although a bit of a process I liked the scatter dice concept to determine the fall of shots. Overall the game felt right and gave good period feel and I’d put it miles ahead of Bolt Action in that regard alone so can see me playing a few more games in future.

The only drawback? Richard games in 20mm. My collections are mainly 15mm WW2 though now I’ve fairly sizeable 28mm one as well. I don’t really want to go back ot 20mm gaming or start a new scale but I am seriously tempted to get some AB miniatures late war British infantry to build a small 20mm force to game vs Richard- we will see.

Overall, the game was fun, gave a good feel for the period and had no “gotcha’s” that some other rule sets do have so I'd defintely recommend it to others.