I had planned to post this second part of my BGK review earlier but stuff happened...
On Easter Monday, I played my first game of Battlegroup Kursk (BGK) against a friend who will go by the name of Piar Viarti. We had decided to play the introductory scenario from the book and then see if we wanted to go on playing a slightly bigger game.
I should explain that BGK can be played on different scales from squad level to battalion level and the introduction scenario is a squad level engagement (about 250 points). I also had lists prepared for a platoon level game (about 600 points) but in the end we didn't have time to play a second game.
The scenario was called
Clash of Reconnaissance and featured a few recon units squaring off with an infantry platoon and a single tank in reserve for both forces.
The Rules
BGK uses orders to activate units and in a squad level game you get D6 orders plus an extra order for each Officer on the table. This means you will frequently have more units on the table than orders to give out, forcing you to take tough decisions.
Now as I mentioned in my previous post about BGK, the term unit is not clearly defined in the rules but basically every squad of soldiers (5-10 men depending on the platoon), every gun team (MMG, mortars, AT guns, etc.) and every vehicle counts as a separate unit for game purposes.
For instance, the Soviet force in
Clash of Reconnnaissance consists of the following:
- Rifle platoon with anti-tank rifle team, 82mm mortar team, 45mmL66 anti-tank gun and truck tow
- Sniper and spotter team
- BA-10 Armoured car
- T-70 Light tank
- T-34 Tank
This force consists of 12 units because the Rifle platoon is split into a Command squad and 4 Rifle Squads and the truck tow of the AT-gun is also a separate unit (as long as the gun is unlimbered).
This splitting of platoons into individual squads sized units works quite well if you've based all your miniatures for Flames of War, as this just means every two stands of infantry constitutes a unit.
BGK used a basic I Go, You Go turn sequence. Every turn you roll to see how many orders you can give and then you proceed to activate units by giving them one of the following orders (I've left out some specialist orders such as Engineering):
- Manoeuvre and fire/Fire and Manoeuvre (move and fire once or fire once and then move)
- Top Speed (move twice)
- Open Fire! (fire twice)
- Disembark/Embark
- Unlimber/Limber
- Infantry Close Assault
- Request Artillery Fire
- Ambush Fire (delay action to fire in opponent's turn)
- Reserve Move (delay action to move in opponent's turn)
Most of these orders are pretty much what you'd expect. The last two orders are called Reaction Orders and can be used to interrupt your opponent's turn. I'll now detail some of the actions you can take during the game.
Movement
Every unit has a basic move, which can be modified by good conditions (roads) or bad conditions (rough terrain). There's no penalties for turning vehicles.
Shooting
In BGK there you can either use two types of shooting:
Area Fire to suppress the enemy (pin them down) or
Aimed Fire to try to take out the enemy and both types of fire use different subsystems.
For
Aimed Fire you first have to roll to spot the enemy (mostly a 2+ or 3+ D6 roll unless the enemy is obscured. Then you roll to hit the target unit with a difficulty based on the type of weapon used, the range and whether the firer or the target moved. This makes it highly unlikely to hit a moving target at long ranges, especially if your unit also moved.
You then roll a number of dice equal to the Rate of Fire (RoF) of your weapon and every hit scored causes a casualty. Note that all guns except MGs and Autocannon have a RoF of 1.
Guns fire either High Explosive (HE) or Armour Piercing (AP) shells and some can fire both types of ammo.
When you hit with HE fire you get to roll a set number of dice against a set difficulty, both determined by the weight of the shell you're firing so higher calibre guns tend to roll more dice against lower difficulties. Every success causes a casualty.
When you hit with AP fire against an armoured target you cross reference your AP value at the range (1-15) with the armour value of the vehicle (front, side or rear; O-A) to see what number you have to beat on 2D6 to destroy the target. Rolling under this number, forces the vehicle to take morale check, equalling the number pins it and forces a morale check, snake eyes immobilises the vehicle.
This means any hit on a vehicle with AP fire has some effect, even if it doesn't penetrate the armour. You are never 100% safe against some AT guns as is sometimes the case in Flames of War.
For
Area Fire you don't have to roll to spot the enemy as you are not targeting a unit but rather spraying the general area the unit is in with bullets to make them keep their head down. Instead you calculate the total Rate of Fire (RoF) of your unit (1 per rifleman, 2 for LMG, 5-8 for MMG/HMG). You then cross-reference this RoF with the range to the target and the type of target (infantry, gun, vehicle) to arrive at the number required to pin the unit. You only roll a single die for Area Fire.
Against both types of shooting a target unit can make a
Cover Save. For infantry and guns this depends on the type of terrain they're in: Open = 6+, Soft = 5+, etc. Against Aimed Fire every successful save reduces the number of casualties by 1. Against Area Fire a successful save means you are not pinned.
Ammo ratings
All armoured vehicles have a limited ammo supply and if they are capable of both HE and AP fire, you have to split their Ammo Rating between these types of rounds before the game for every armoured vehicle. Every time the vehicle fires you have to cross off the appropriate type of ammo for that vehicle.
Once you run out of ammo, you can no longer fire the gun until re-supplied by specialist units.
While this means you have to carefully consider whether to take a low-probability shot it also adds quite a lot of book-keeping, especially when using armoured forces.
Artillery Fire
You can have artillery on-table or off-table but firing them works much the same way.
An eligible spotter (mostly specialist units) has to be issued the Request Artillery Fire order, then Communication check is made to see if the spotter can get through to the gun(s), this is mostly a 3+. Next you place a spotter round anywhere in Line of Sight and 70" of the spotter. This spotter round then deviates from 4D6" on a 1 to 1D6" on a 6.
At this point you can choose not to fire the bombardment (if for instance your own troops are at risk or no enemy is likely to be hit. If the you choose to proceed you have to order the gun(s) to Fire for Effect by giving each gun the Open Fire! order. Each gun then fires two rounds and rolls a D6 for each: 1 = Miss, 2-5 Pinning, 6 Direct Hit. Any unit within 10" of the spotter round is a potential target with closest being hit first.
Morale
Pinning
Units that are pinned can do nothing. You can't give them an order and any reaction orders they had been given are lost. You only get to unpin units at the end of your own turn so pinning the enemy guarantees them being neutralized on their next turn. Pinning also has a big impact on the overall morale of your force - more on which later.
All this means pinning is much more powerful than in Flames of War where it is both difficult to pin troops (especially well-trained ones) and easy for pinned troops to shake off the effects and return fire.
Unit Morale
Unit Morale is used to see if individual units are willing to continue the fight and is resolved rolling a D6 on a simple table. Every time a unit takes casualties, it has to take a morale check. This can result in it becoming pinned or even cause it to rout (if already pinned or at 50% casualties) but on a roll of 6 it may get an extra action and go
Beyond the Call of Duty.
If a unit is reduced to a single infantry man or crew
and pinned, the Last Man Standing automatically fails morale.
Battlegroup Morale
The overall morale of your force is expressed in a number called the Battle Rating. Every unit in your force contribute to the total Battle Rating. At certain points you are required to draw a Battle Counter and these have numbers from 1-5 on them. You keep these secret from your opponent until the combined total of the Battle Counters, exceeds the Battle Rating of your force, at which point high command issues the retreat order and you lose the game.
You take a Battle Counter every time a unit is destroyed, the enemy captures an objective and when you want to unpin some of your troops at the end of your turn.
Rally
As I mentioned earlier, pinned troops cannot be given orders and you can only try to unpin them at the end of your turn. This is called the Rally phase and to unpin troops you have to take a Battle Counter, thereby weakening your overall Battlegroup Morale. For every Battle Counter you take, you get to unpin D6 units so you may need to take several counters to unpin all your pinned units.
Conclusion
Battlegroup Kursk is definitely an intriguing rules set and I definitely want to test it further. The main drawbacks I can see now is the bookkeeping involved with ammo ratings for armoured vehicles.
Another flaw is that the rules are not always 100% clear, e.g. definition of unit and some army lists. However, the authors are very active in supporting their product and answering any questions.
