1985 Company MegaTest - Battlegroup NORTHAG

 

I had the Battlegroup NORTHAG rules on pre-order last year and finally got them on the table just after Christmas as I was also painting up a 10mm Coy level force to fight them with. I've not played any of the other Battlegroup rules. I'd also picked up Seven Days to the Rhine earlier in 2020, and then I've had Team Yankee/Iron Maiden for ages, so I felt the start of the Company Mega Test coming on. The plan is to do it in two phases this time, 1985/ColdWar for Phase 1, and then a break and then WW2/Normandy for Phase 2 with a different set of rules (IABSM etc).

Presentation

110 page softback, well laid out, rip-out QRS and counters at the back, nice pics but not too many. Could have done without the faux punch-holes! Wont lie flat as perfect bound. Having wpn data separate from ORBAT data was a bit annoying.

Set-Up

I used my MechWar pre-gaming to set the game up, WARPAC had to take and hold a town (Semmenstedt) whilst NATO was sweeping the area clear of enemy. NATO just managed to get to the town moments ahead of the Soviets so it became a meeting engagement, with the town in the  middle/bottom of the table. Both sides had a reinforced Company Group with Tank Troop assigned, plus extra support weapons and a FOO/MFC. ground scale was estimated from the rules as about 1"= 5/10m, and I treated one 4cm hex as 1".

NATO arrives bottom left, Soviet's on far side, target town on right

How It Played

NATO got the benefit of initiative rolls and sneaked a Scimitar into the town ahead of the BRDMs and the lead BMPs. Chieftains moved into Remilingen (village in middle) and well placed to pick of the advancing Soviet armour. T64B's and Chieftains duelled away, keeping the British from reinforcing Semmenstedt and letting a BMP platoon move in from the extreme right. The Russians consolidated their hold on Semmenstedt, pushing one Pl into the woods beyond, and another Pl bravely up the road towards Remilingen! With the Chieftains blocking the exploitation the Russians pulled the Gunship counter and sent a Hind in against the NATO armour - and one Chieftain bit the dust - leaving only one.

Russian losses had been building up though and some of their BR draw were high - with the result that they reached their breakpoint first. They had Semmenstedt but NATO had Remilingen and the other two objects were also split - so on NORTHAG terms NATO won, just, but in strategic terms WARPAC held their objective and NATO hadn't achieved theirs.

Rules Impressions

Can't say I'm a great fan pure pure IGO-UGO. The Action allocation seemed very generous and I started playing the random allocation but even them wasn't really stretched. The core movement/firing rules worked well - I really liked the way that you could only use suppression against infantry. The indirect fire was also good, rolling for comms, then for the spotting round and then for fire for effect. The table scale (4cm hex = 10m) meant that deviations were big but so was the danger zone. The BR chit system was wonderful - of course playing solo I knew both sides but in a PvP game would add a nice touch of uncertainty. Some of the points and BR values were a bit off though - with a British FV432 platoon being better rated than a BMP platoon.

Overall

Really nice set. Might tweak the activation system but otherwise very playable. Overall 8/10.