Help a new player get started

[Rusty]

Hey everyone,

Well its been a while since ive posted here and i have returned from the dark crevasis and have seen the light

Im looking at getting started with Micro Armour and i need your help to get me going. At the moment i have no rules, i am going to go for the WW II scene though as this interests me a little bit more than the moderns.

I want to start with Tanks then move onto other elements such as infantry ect, i also dont want to just buy this and that i want to build to a historical TO&E, but they have always made the head spin with the accuracy ect and how they work ect.

The period i am looking at is 1942-1943, and the nationalitys im looking at are the following:

British (The POM in me )
Russian (Love those russian AFV's)
German (Got to have an oponent)

What front well, i like both the Russian Front and the Afrika front so open to opinions on this one...

At first im looking at the 1:5 scale that GHQ has to offer, get my head around those rules and then see what happens.

Right over to the members of the forum, help a newbie

[ACWBill]

I've a few suggestions but all will depend on your preferred scale. If you want to do a 1-5 or platoon level representation there are numerous choices.

1. Spearhead
2. Command Decision ( I - III and IV "Test of Battle" )
3. Blitzkreig Commander
4. Rapid Fire (Designed for 20mm)

1 - 1 (Choices are more defined)

1. Panzer
2. Mein Panzer
3. Arc of Fire (Designed for 25mm)

[Thunder]

GHQ has their 1:5 rules on sale right now. 50% off. I'd start there for 1:5.

[Bob2000]

Hello,

Mein Panzer cover both WWII and modern at one-one scale (infantry squads are represented by 2 stands). They have drop in module so you can learn the basic rules and then just had more to expend your game (modules like air-support, amphibious landing, etc).

They have a cool web site and friendly service. I have tried a few other rules set but this is the one I prefer. As players alternate activating units, nobody is left aside doing nothing while the other player moves all its troops. This also makes it easy to insure that, in multi-player games, everybody plays. The rules are simple and well explained.

Another really cool plus is that they can sell you their game in PDF format. Like this, if you spill your beer/coffee/coke on your rule set, you just have to reprint it!!! And this makes update a snap. Just replace the old pages by the new ones. Just make sure you have a big binder handy…

They have a very complete set of stats for hundreds of vehicles for their game.

Whatever rule set you choose, I hope you will enjoy your gaming experience !

[fullmetaljacket]

Hello Rusty and welcome back to the hobby. First of all where do you live in the real world, if by chance you live within a couple hours of the Northern Indiana region South Bend to be more specfic. We have a great group of guys that game just about every other weekend in Micro. We have several people from here on the forums that joins us as far away as Wisconsin, we play 1:1 with a set of rules that JB has developed. If interested please send me a line. Hope to hear from you soon.

FMJ

[Rusty]

Does a few thousand miles count

Im in NZ, and have been talking with one of the NZ's here which has helped heaps. Im looking at the Battle of Kursk and wondering if anyone out there knows of the tank numbers ect that were present.

Also any advise for painting these little buggers with Vallejo paints would be most welcome

Thanks for the welcom back

[jb]

http://www.vy75.dial.pipex.com/
This is a good site.

[Mk 1]

Rusty wrote:
Im looking at the Battle of Kursk and wondering if anyone out there knows of the tank numbers ect that were present.

Uh, in the whole battle of Kursk? Oy!

As far as I can put together, the numbers are something like this:

Germans:
9th Army, Army Detatchment Kempf, 4th Panzer Army.
16 Panzer and Panzergrenadier Divisions plus 3 Assualt Gun Battalions
2,700 tanks and assault guns

Russians:
Central Front, Steppe (Reserve) Front, Voronezh Front
16 Armies, of which 3 were Tank Armies
More than 50% of the total Soviet total of 9,918 tanks available in July of 1943 were deployed towards Kursk

How's that?

You, uh, might want to start with a subset of the total Kursk campaign. Even just doing Prokhorovka would be a BIG pill to swallow.

If you are interested in playing a historical scenario, I put one together for the northwest part of the Prokhorovka action for a gaming con last year. I'd be happy to give you the maps and briefings. You'd need to scale the unit scale to 1-to-5 on your own, as the original scenario is 1-to-1.

Here is an example of the stuff ... the Soviet commanders' briefing map:


And, just to whet your appetite, some pictures from the game...






Send me a PM if you want it.

This is a god site.

Really? And here I thought it was created by mere mortals...

[Rusty]

Very cool MK 1, thanks for sharing you bloody legend

Now if i can just decide what to buy to start with i would be sweet

[8ball]

The Micro Armour game rules are pretty straight-forward. If you like 1:5 you might want to get ahold of "Command Decision." It's a little more complex, but you can't beat itfor the amount of data it includes.

For scenarios, I'd recommend trying to find copies of the old Talonsoft Games "East Front" and "West Front." All of the scenarios in these titles were created using topographic maps of the actual battle sites, and the OOBs were pretty well researched. We actually used Russian tops for "East Front." The only problem is that both titles are out of print, and they don't play nicely with XP. But the editors should run fine.

[jb]

...we are playing the same map as Mk1 has shown. Hopefully if agreed we will ahve the 1st SS attack hill 254.5 ,and the 2dSS will be southwest of there attacking in a direction of Ozyorovski (Good Luck! 2d SS this is nasty territory!).
I've taken the map and placed a grid overlay that represents the size of the tables or tiles that will be used. This really lends itself to a nice little mini campaign (can the word mini and Kusk be used in the same word?)

[Rusty]

Another thanks to those who have put in so far.

Now a question to the members, i have two options

Im Buying GHQ rule book and why not at 50% off

So on the shopping list i have the following options (Bearing in mind this is to get me started and no other players in the area yet)

Buy two german Tank blisters
Buy two Soviet Tank Blisters

or

Buy a combat command now plus a blister of the chosen command and then buy another combat command after (say buy russian now and German second as example)

What are your thoughts and if the first option what would be the four blisters you could recommend thinking late 42 to early 43 at the moment then progress from there.

Thanks everyone

[8ball]

I'd get:

1 x T-34c
1 x T-34/85
1 x PzKw IV
1 x PxKw VIa

This will give you a mix of firepower, speed and heavy armor, and will be good for breaking in the rules.

[jb]

...I would choose combat command R150 Soviet 1943 T34 battalion. Then I would buy a single pack of G6 Tiger I. This would give you something of Kharkov to beyond Kursk time frame. also with the Combat command you are getting 4 packs worth of vehicles.
This choice of course is also based upon playing 1 to 1 scale,but may be used to 1 to 5 .
Now if I picked 4 packs I would pick ;
2 packs of any of the three T34s
1 pack of KVIs
and of course 1 pack of G6 TigerIs.
I think this would be good for starters...