acctingman69 wrote:What rules do you use for your WW2 gaming?
Well in part that depends on who I'm playing with.
My own preference is for 1-to-1 unit scales. That is, I want one model to represent one vehicle. One truck model is one truck, one tank model is one tank. Not one tank model is a platoon, or 3, or 5, or anything else. It's not that I object to 1-to-many unit scales ... I think they make a lot of sense game-wise, and the games often play very well at that level. But for me, miniatures is all about tickling my imagination. 1-to-many just doesn't do that like 1-to-1 does.
Over the past 15 years or so my games have used mostly two rulesets. But I will also give mention to a third.
The two I have played most often are Jadgpanther (v2), and Mein Panzer (also v2). I was involved in beta testing on both of the now current v2 versions.
My preference is for Mein Panzer. These are the rules I like best. Any game I put together is likely to use these rules. They do several things "right" to my tastes:
1) They balance armor and infantry at compatible levels of abstraction.
2) They are fast-play enough for battalion-sized forces on the table.
3) The turn structure keeps everyone engaged and playing all the time.
4) The turn structure makes your force org structure an integral part of the game structure.
Here's a bit more of what I mean:
1) I've played too many games where the tanks run around a bit shooting each other up, then some trucks get into town or into the woods and drop off their infantry AND THE GAME GRINDS TO A STOP WITHIN 2 TURNS. Why? Because a company of T-34s is 10 models, but a company of Motor Riflemen is 43 stands, and they all have to move, take morale tests, do siting, be in command control, be motivated/activated, shoot, do save throws, have rashes and trenchfoot, whatever else, while half the players have wandered off to find some snacks, some beer, or the exit.
Mein Panzer v2 has squad -based infantry (vs. fire-team or half-squad based). A platoon is typically 3 or 4 stands, and a company maybe 15 to 17 stands. Not too different from a tank company. And the combat is as fast-play as the tank action. It's not that either the armored action or the infantry action (or the infantry-vs-armor action) has the perfect mechanics, it's just that they are pretty well balanced to each other, so combined arms action is quite playable. I like that.
2) I have learned from my experience that games seem to flow best when each gamer has somewhere between 15 to 25 pieces. More than that, and even if the rules are fast-play, the measuring and pushing gets wearisome. At 1-to-1 unit scales that means about one company with some attached support per player. I like to gather up a few gamers, and with this build up a battalion-sized game. That's about the smallest size, in WW2, for a battle to actually involve some maneuver. Yeah I still do manno-a-manno games, and make the tables big enough for maneuvering, but with 5 or 6 guys the game experience is just so much richer. The Mein Panzer rules scale up to many players very gracefully. One player per side, or 3 players per side, or 1 vs. 3 ... it all works smoothly. Not a lot of rules manage that.
3) The turns are based on "activations". Every player generally gets to activate one unit per activation. The units are generally platoons. If you run a reinforced company you will usually have maybe 4 to 6 units. That means 4 to 6 activations per turn. Having the turn sliced up into 4 to 6 pieces means no one is sitting around for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for the other guys to do something. Everyone plays, all the time. Good!
4) The activations means you play your org chart, rather than having it as some sort of overlay. You work the platoons, you manage by platoons, you make your plans by platoons, but you see (and play) the action by individual squads and tanks. I like that.
Now I have also played Jagdpanther almost as much as Mein Panzer. It has been the preferred ruleset of others in my area that I have gamed with. The tank combat mechanism is a bit more complicated, but the turn sequence is simpler. It uses more basic I-go-U-go kind of stuff, but with added layers of shooting. Basically you move, I shoot, you shoot, then I move, you shoot, I shoot. There is no activation kind of thing, it's either all my turn (but you will get to shoot), or all your turn (but I will get to shoot).
I don't know the infantry rules as well. The guys who have put on the games have mostly relegated infantry to a supporting role (I get two battalions of T-34s and one company of tank riders ... OK guess how much attention I'll put on the infantry?). With Mein Panzer my games have often been more balanced, or even dominated by infantry on some occasions.
All of that said, the games play pretty well, and I've had several good ones. So the rules pass all my acceptability criteria, even if they don't rise to the level of my first choice.
Honorable mention also goes the third set I alluded to above. Panzer War is a very interesting ruleset. They have more detail, less abstraction, for the tank action. Armor is stipulated at every aspect. You get to see and feel the difference between a Pz IIIj and an Pz IIIm. That's very cool, particularly if you are a hard-core treadhead. And the rules are pretty elegant in how they handle the detail. But still I have not been able to make the rules work for smooth running game with a battalion per side among 5 or 6 guys. It's just too much detail. You need to be thinking of 5 - 10 tanks per player, not 15 - 25. And with all that detail on the armor, the infantry rules are relatively basic -- not bad, mind you, but not rich in details like the armor.
Still, given the price the rules are worth the investment even just as a reference on WW2 tanks, as the research is superb, and it has gun/ammo performance and every armor facing of almost every tank you can think of. Top class stuff.
So that's my thinking. Your tankage may vary.
