So that's the end of the Platoon MegaTest - 11 different rules played out against a set of 6 inter-linked scenarios. So what are my conclusions?
Op Martlet Campaign
The Op Martlet Campaign from Too Fat Lardies was great fun and gave a great structure. Playing it By the book it would have been a real challenge as the British platoon suffered badly pretty much every time, whether it won or lost, and would have found it hard to keep going until relieved. I've got 29 Let's Go but also tempted by the The Scottish Corridor. I'd also like to do one based on the Canadians on Op Totalize.Reviews Summary
- Pros: Good ranges and weapon balance. Shock. Covers most situations.
- Cons: Activation model doesn't seem "real". End up gaming the CoC dice.
Bolt Action 9/10
- Pros: Order dice and activation vs pins. Covers most situations.
- Cons: Short ranges. Underpowered LMGs. Too many "special" rules. Melee combat. Odd indirect fire (opponent places misses!).
KR16 6/10
- Pros: Pretty simple. Nice activation model where hard tasks are harder to activate (eg assault)
- Cons: Even simple tasks too hard to activate though. Damage removes pins, so better getting 1 hit not two often.
Fireteam: Modern 8/10
- Pros: Pretty good. Nice random events on joker. Well laid out.
- Cons: One step too many some times. 5 dice just to activate each unit!
UltraCombat: Modern 6/10
- Pros: Very few I'm afraid.
- Cons: 3in1 concept makes very bulky. Doesnt cover all events (most HE, smoke, etc). Confusing layout. Hestitate/Pinned/Suppressed confusion. Zero friction, but units often hesitate from hits and get stuck.
Force on Force 5/10
- Pros: Rules very complete, infinite fire exchanges but decreasing effect
- Cons: Don't like variable dice type mechanics. Masses of dice. No one every pinned.Little friction.
No End In Sight 8/10
- Pros: Best example of section leader commanding. Nice command exhaustion activation mechanic. Good under-fire morale test.
- Cons: Too easy to recover from pin? Dice heavy on combat.
Iron Cross 4/10
- Pros: Few
- Cons: No penalty for over-reaching activation. To easy to recover damage. Kill in one turn mentality. Fire-React too pervasive. No smoke. Start min/maxing combats to eliminate a unit in single go.
Monty Gunner Who
- Pros: Nice and fast card mechanic, with gambling option! Good HE.
- Cons: Melee and anti-tank a bit card heavy.
Contact: Wait Out 6.5/10
- Pros: Scales to Bn/Bde at different resolutions. Covers all situations.
- Cons: Needs better HE rules. Firepower model didn't handle small units well.
Bolt Action Reality Check 9.5/10
- Pros: Played really well - as it should
- Cons: A few tweaks but otherwise fine
So Bolt Action with house rule changes a clear winner, and even struggling at this scale to see why I need to waste time improving CWO. May be a different story at Company upwards though.
Interesting and laudable effort! Do you have your BA Reality Check modifications/house rules listed? Please excuse me if I missed them.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Just trying to find the time to tidy up the QRS and will then post up.
ReplyDeleteHi David, I'd just like to offer a couple of thank you's, firstly for taking the trouble to publish an interesting and eclectic blog but also for this series of posts on modern platoon level rules and also it's companion on skirmish level rules. I've found them very helpful over the past year or so as I've been trying to decide which rules to use for the same purposes. (To give due credit, Michael Charge's blog has also been very helpful - see https://www.hntdaab.co.uk/blog/wargaming/great-big-modern-wargaming-rules-comparison-complete-edition/).
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I finally plumped on FiveCore Skirmish Evolved together with Chain Reaction 2015 for the skirmish level.
At the platoon level the jury is still out.
Unlike you I found the current version of FUBAR, edited by Lanse Tryon, very good for platoon level games though I too think it doesn't work well at all at the squad level. Lanse deserves a lot of credit for his recent edit as it pretty well fixes the problem with the activation process (vis that failed activations were too common for playability) and also tidies up most of the ambiguities from version 4.
On the other hand, like you I found No End in Sight unsatisfactory, though I am a very big fan of most of Ivan Sorensen's other rule sets. NEIS is just too fussy, has too many markers and simply isn't anything like as elegant as, say, FiveCore Skirmish. It does though have a stunning activation system. So I'm just about to see how FiveCore Skirmish would work as a platoon level game if I bolt on the NEIS activation system with a couple of adaptations to make it work with the skirmish rules as written. It's looking promising so far.
Anyway, I digress. Thanks again. Keep up the interesting blog posts and stay safe. All the best, Chris
Thanks for the comments, and interesting to see what you went with - it really is each to his own! Hoping to move up to Company Level rules in 2021.
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