GHQ Models Forums

i kinda liked close and destroy, and challenger is ok. anything new out there? don't really like a fist full of tows. i want up to date vehicle stats and any help would be great

I myself have the GHQ- WW2 rules as well as their Modern rules. Both are easy to understand and can be used for 1:1 scale, although they are mainly for the 5:1 scale for brigade-division sized battles. Aside from that, I have Troy Ritter's Schwere Kompanie which is a company level WW2 game...which is also rather fun. Modern Spearhead is okay as well, I found that its too restricting in a few areas, otherwise is not a bad system.

don't really like a fist full of tows

WHAT!! This was the very first micro armour rule set that got me hooked into micro armour gaming...the nerve of some people...

Anyways, hope that helps

For WWII, try Panzer-War and Mein Panzer. I don't do modern so I can't help there.

If you liked the Challenger set, but were frustrated by the time-consuming gameplay, then I will second Thunder's suggestion on PanzerWar.

Thunder and I played many games with PanzerWar rules over a period of about 2 years. We had tons of fun.

This ruleset is VERY detailed, giving you a really rich set of vehicle stats that the armor fan will revel in. I mean VERY detailed. You get to see the differences between a 1942 vs. 1943 series production T-34/76, or between a Panzer 3H and vs. a 3J. Yet they are far better organized, and the game mechanics are far smoother than the Challenger series (which just became too convoluted through the second or third revs.) For a game where each player runs about a company, you can hardly do better.

The PanzerWar rules are done by Mobius, who also participated on this board. He has also made a modern ruleset called Airland War, and I expect you will find the same attention to details and to well thought-out game mechanics. I believe that the two games are similar enough that transitioning from one to the other should be smooth. But I've never played Mobius' modern ruleset, so this is all just what I expect, not what I experienced.

You can find out more at his website. Just google for panzer-war. (Our hosts don't like us to publish other websites with competing products here, so I'll just leave you to find it on your own.) Now here is the best part -- Mobius gives the rules away for free. No kidding. What a guy! You can download the rules at his site. Very professionally done. And free. Free is good.

If you want larger units for a 1-to-1 scale game, you might need to move to Mein Panzer. That is what we did. Wanted to play battalion-level games, rather than just company-level. Mein Panzer has a more abstracted approach to shooting and killing, so it plays enough faster to use larger units. Also it has a unique platoon-at-a-time activiation mechanism, so that all players get to be active all the time, rather than having nothing to do for half an hour or more at a time while you wait for the other side to figure out their moves.

Mein Panzer is supposed to have a moderns data set too. But it has been several years in the making, and no years in the shipping yet. Still those of us who play this ruleset hold out hope that the modern data will eventually be completed, so that we can have a single ruleset to span from pre-WW2 to today. A pipe-dream perhaps, but what do you expect from a grown man who plays with little toy tanks?

Another set of 1 to 1 if you can still find them were called ENGAGE AND DESTROY...they were published back in 1980 and probably a little out of date by todays standards. For example the M1 tank was refered to as the XM-1...so that tells you a little something about these rules...I througholy enjoyed these while I was at FT Hood,,and still have a copy or two in my library...there were penetration tables, damage tables,etc and if you are knowledgable enough you could always "update" these.....the younger members on this forum may not even heard of these but some of us "older" and a little grayer on top guys I am sure have heard and even played using these rules...I know at one time I did an "update" and though I can't find them now....I could possibly redo an update.....................................

MBT board game by Avalon HIll. It can be used for 1 to 1. It is a out of publication thou. I know of a friend how uses it and has made some upgrades to vehicles.

I also use the Challenger series from Table Top Games. The last version is Challenger 2000 and can still be found thru ebay.

MBT and IDF were developed by the same guy who did the GHQ Vietnam rules, Mekong. Wonder if he would come back and do something or could be talked into a minis update of MBT?

My old favorite was Tractics, but that has been out of print for years. Mike Reese might be talked into some sort of update, though. He still seems to keep a finger in game design and development.

Tom Oxley

Thomaso827 wrote: My old favorite was Tractics, but that has been out of print for years. Mike Reese might be talked into some sort of update, though. He still seems to keep a finger in game design and development.

If I recall correctly, Mobius mentioned to me once that Tractics was one of his "departure points" for his PanzerWar and AirlandWar rules. I think he said that Tractics inspired Tank Charts (an older GHQ published WW2 1-on-1 ruleset), which inspired him to do PanzerWar.

If you enjoyed the level of detail in Tractics, you really should take a look at his work. Some 15 or 18 years of continuous development have gone into what he now has. At least the WW2 rules, if you are a bit of a hardware nut (ie you liked Tractics) you should find PanzerWar to be a very rich 1-to-1 gaming solution. Just work your way into it with smaller units (start with a platoon per player, and work your way up towards a company per player).

As mentioned, I never tried the AirlandWar rules, but I understand they are quite a direct translation of PanzerWar to the modern era.

I have used the GHQ Modern rules for 1:1 games, it translates very effectively. Multiply the ranges by 4, leave the movement the same as you are using a shorter time for the turn.

Each vehicle is one vehicle and an infantry stand is one squad.

1" equal 100 meters on the GHQ Modern rules so multiply your terrain sizes by 4 to play at 1:1 scale. Meaning if a stream is 100 meters or 1" wide at 1:4 scale, make it 4" wide at 1:1 scale.

Multiply you impact markers by 4 as well. So a 1" x 1" impact marker at 1:4 scale = 2" by 2" impact marker.

It really is that simple.

What would you expect to be different in a 1:1 scale rule vs. a 4:1 scale rule set?

---Daryl

Thanks, Mk1. I've downloaded everything so I can take a look at it. Quite a bit of stuff there.

Tom

Hi

Another set available is WRG 1950-2000 which are also a very good set and quite realistic without the complexity of Challenger.

The Order and Mode system is a bit confusing but once you master it, it plays very well.

A guy in New Zealand has written lists and updated vehicle data

Thomaso827 wrote:Thanks, Mk1. I've downloaded everything so I can take a look at it. Quite a bit of stuff there.

After you get a chance to digest it a bit, do let us know what you think of it.

There is another set of modern 1-to-1 rules that I considered a few years ago ... it is called Battlegroup Modern Rules.

There is a Yahoo! discussion group dedicated to it, called BGMR. I joined for a little while, but the group seemed to be all UK based, and I was looking for some guys a little closer to home (California). As I recall the Battlegroup rules are an up-to-date extension of the Challenger ruleset, carried forward by some of the locals after Bruce Rea-Taylor passed away. Seems that they took the Challenger2000 ruleset (the follow-up to Challenger II), which was actually quite flawed (never properly finished), and finished it up. Or so I recall.

I also seem to remember that the Battlegroup rules were available as a free download. But after more than 10 years of trying to play Challenger I was not terribly motivated, so I never tried the Battlegroup rules.

-Mark 1

I've got and played most of the rule sets mentioned above and am just getting back into Moderns due to a new Boardgame that's just come out made by Lock'nLoad Games.

It's called 'World at War: Eisenbach Gap' and is an absolute blast to play. It is very easy (8 pages rules) and plays quickly but accurately. There's hardly any tables - all the values are on the counters, but there's only a few of those.

Have a look at BoardgameGeek for some reviews:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/25729

It's been expanded to add the Germans and the Brits are on their way soon.

If you want a real good game you can play in an evening then try this.

Cheers,

Battler

Sorry - link didn't work:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/25729