My BAOR Boardgame - AAR

As previewed earlier I managed to buy SPI's BAOR at the end of last year - and then instantly worked up my own counters and rules for it in order to have a late 80s scenario and to "own" the rules. Set up was on election night, and I've just finished the first 12 turns (2 days game time) and reached a convenient point to call a halt (with ~250 counters and ~2 hr game time turns (~45 mins real)) this is a BIG game).

The Soviets have destroyed the British 1st line of defence along a line Hanover-Goslar, apart from a small para hold-out in Hildesheim - but not for insignificant loss themselves. There's now a bit of a shaky defence line before the Weser with remains of 4, 7 and 20 Armd Bde, and 24 (Airmob) Bde (me!) has just been flown in to plug a gap in front of Minden. Then it's up to 3 Div dug in along the Weser itself.  11, 12 and 22 Armd Bdes are all goners. The RAF has been doing  pretty well and the Soviets have been losing air superiority fighters.

The para hold out in Hildesheim despite desperate night-time house-to-house fighting

To get a clearer picture of the current state (I may resume later in the year), here is the same map as above but with only Infantry, Tank and Bde/Div HQ units shown.

So key thoughts so far:

• The rules are actually working really well. Tweaking as I go along but giving the sort of game I wanted and without the "predictability" of the CRT and SPI style factors (its all D10+DMs)
• Not had time to really try the command point/bde activation, just playing IGO-UGO
• Not remembering to use EW, either for CP or to support attacks. Need on board not in side bin?
• AIR working OK. Was too powerful initially but have backed it off a bit. Don't think I really need the air base granularity, but am using a refuelling box so each Sqn only flies every other turn.
• FIRES again been backed off and now OK. Have both AIR and FIRES as phases before movement/combat as forces you to remember to use them, and possibly a bit more realistic. Does add time to turn though but think I'll keep (particularly if streamline elsewhere). Not tried CB yet. Soviets (and even BAOR) do seem to have too many Arty units so may keep to Regt level.
• AD working OK, but ranges need to to realistic as people flying NOE, and too many counters. May incorporate AA rating into Regt/Bde HQ (each unit also has organic rating).
• Far too many engineers - counters everywhere! Again may abstract into HQ or to Regt level. Think the mine breaching rules OK. need a "tidy up" for passed fields.
• Not really using recce, so again counters everywhere but no use. May only put on table if using fog-of-war rules (which I'm currently not)
• Put the last few together and next time I play there'll be far fewer counters so easier to see what I'm doing!
• I deliberately avoided a "flipped" counter model as I wanted more damage granularity. But most units are Strength 3; when they get to 1 they take a morale test and leg it unless well dug in, so realistically only using 3 and 2 - so why not flip? Will think about it.
• Really like the 4 turns day, 2 turns night model. Units take fatigue if they have to move/fight at night and haven't sleep banked (in theory). Even though not fully playing it does make you think a lot more about resource management.
• Soviets really haven't got a 2nd wave to push through, guess next time I need to get 10th or 12th GTA ready!

One thing I do want to do is reread Third World War and other counter-factuals to see how close my rate of advance (Hanover line in 2 days) and damage (50% front line Bdes) matches theirs.

So pretty pleased really. I might look at doing a Bde/Div level version (NATO Division Commander anyone?) , with pretty much the same rules, and then with the more streamlined version for the Corps game. I can then use that to drive miniatures games as the scope here is just too big for that. The rules should also work for WW2 and other campaigns, something to try next year!

Preparing for BAOR 1988

When I started to resurrect my 1/300th Cold War Gone War wargaming a few years ago I was keen to have some sort of campaign game to give context to any battles. I then discovered that SPI did a BAOR game (I have their Next War, but that has Div/Bde units and ~10-20km hexes, and I wanted Bn's and ~2-3 km hexes (ie a table) - which is what BAOR has.

I set up a eBay search on BAOR and kept my eye out at shows but to no avail. I managed to find hi-rez scans of the map and counters, and a copy of the rules. I was on the verge of getting the map printed at A1 when I found a copy of the game (less the magasine and the glorious cover above :-( ) on eBay, so now have the proper map.

Of course being me I wasnt happy with the rest of the game. The counters were more like 1983/84, whereas I wanted 87/88 - when I was in BAOR. Also the rules, whilst they used Fatigue for partial damage,  use the standard ratio based CRT of almost all SPIs types games. I can't say I get along with this model, as every game SPI I've ever played comes down to getting enough points together to just make a ratio threshold, and you lose all sense of what the units are.

I'd been looking for a set of "operational" level wargame rules for a while. I thought that Rommel might fit the equation but it just wasn't what I wanted. I found FreeHexBlitz on the web, and thought it a pretty good start, so I started working up my own rules, the key elements being that each unit has:

• A size rating, effectively companies/squadrons, which gives how many D10 you roll
• An attack rating, based on the type and quality of kit
• A defence rating, based on the type and quality of kit

A key decision was that ratings are relative to the norm of the day, rather than trying to work out any details of armour, penetration etc.

Of course all this meant that I needed to create over 200 counters. Luckily I found this YouTube video by RK who had two great ideas which worked really well:

• Use the Panorama feature in IfranView to join images exported from PPT into strips, and then join the strips into sheet. Very simple process
• Use Self Adhesive foam sheets to give the counters more depth than card and make then easier to manage

So SPI map out, my rules play tested over the last couple of weeks, counters made, and all ready to go in time for Election Night!

BAOR Game Revisited

One of the things on my to-do list is an operational set of mechanised rules for use in WW2 (Desert especially) and "modern" - in particular BAOR of around 1987 when I was there. The aim is to not only have them as a game in themselves but to use then to generate tabletop scenarios. ConnectionsUK got me back into thinking about the rules and the BAOR game in particular, especially how over complex (and expensive) Next War: Poland seemed to be.

I dug out my existing "modern SPI" collection, the original SPI Next War monster, Modern Warfare's take on WW3 and one of their recent Putin games), but these were all with Corps/Bde manoeuvre units, and I wanted Bn. The original SPI BAOR is very close to what I want and I've now assembled the hi-rez map, counter sheets and rules electronically, but a few things have stopped me from just printing it all out and playing that:

• The Orbat is more like 1984, when BAOR was going through the Field Force phases, and 24 Inf Bde was not yet airmobile
• The map has been turned 90 degrees!
• I don't know/trust the provenance of the Attack-Defend scores
• The CRT looks like a fore-runner of the Poland one!
• I'd rather wait til I find a paper copy!

So it's definitely going to be roll-my-own. I started off a while ago with a set called FreeHexBlitz, and I think I've already completely rewritten them to get something which is a hybrid of the board gaming and table top gaming approach. I've also decided to play it all out on Roll20 (using the BAOR map but my own pieces) at first til I know it all works ( I keep redo'ing activation cards, don't want to have to do the same with 1/2" counters!).

Will report back as it develops.