Blitzkrieg Commander IV in 1/72

Went back into BCK IV again this afternoon, this time with a view to having a go at the artillery rules and also trying the game out with the bigger scales (1/72 and 28mm). I had been using Pendraken's 10mm in last week's post.

German Infantry cover the entrance to an enclosure, while their
half track gets a wheel replacement (suppression!). 1/72 Plastic Soldier Company and Armorfast.

I was on a 6' x 3 1/2' table, certainly smaller than the recommended 8' x 5' for the bigger scale. The rules suggest doubling the distance, so use 2cm in place of 1cm. To try and drop mental calculations I instead just changed centimetres for inches and I think this would work on a bigger table, but after the first turn, I found myself scaling back to simply doubling distances as suggested in the rules.

A new part of the rules for me was artillery, I used a Forward Artillery Officer and used on call off table Concentration fire (rather than barrage) and it all seemed to go okay and was easy to calculate and sort out.

Again I used a low force point, home brew scenario. This time the Soviets had to try and capture an out of town iron foundry. The attacking force was late T34/76 based, with SU 152 support and off board artillery. The defenders were a mix of infantry and StuG III's.

It all ran smoothly and some of the processes are now becoming second nature.

Soviet infantry liberate the Iron Foundry. These are 28mm Warlord
figures and the building is an HO/OO plastic kit with a chimney
that seems to rise up forever - I love storing this stuff!!!

I like the 1/72, but when the 28mm are placed next to them, I like their character more! but again, table size makes the 1/72 a more practical choice, not so much from a unit footprint perspective, but rather the overall presence and bulk of the 28mm scale just makes the distance scaling of 1/72 on the smaller table look more reasonable to the eye.

The rules continue to please me.

Resource Section.
My sister webspace COMMANDERS will be getting further updates about my BKC IV dabble. LINK.

https://commanders.simdif.com

Taking Blitzkrieg Commander IV for a spin

I come to version IV (published by Pendraken Miniatures) without any prior experience of the system, so I thought it was worthwhile just plonking some kit down on the table and playing through some of the procedures, just to get a feel of things and to help embed the rules in my mind.

Book front

Initial impressions of simply opening the book are good. It is well laid out and nicely illustrated and the one volume has the rules, scenarios and army lists, no other purchases are necessary, so Bravo! for that.

I am just doing a small slice of action, from what we can presume is from a bigger battle, so this example is being played out on a pin board, with Pendraken 10mm figures. As a first outing for a taster, it is unlikely to capture all of the nuances, but this post is intended for those who perhaps are likewise exploring for the first time or who are thinking of buying and need to jump off the fence.

Please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post.

1065 and all that! (yes, you read that right)

Fellow blogger Jay, at his blog ‘Numbers, Wargames and Arsing About’, has recently put up a mini ladder campaign that works on a marriage between a 6x6 hex grid and scenarios taken from the Neil Thomas ‘One Hour Wargames’ book.

For rules, he is using Neil Thomas fast rules called ‘Simplicity in Practice’ but modified for hexes. The scene is then set for a small 18th Century ‘Imaginations’ campaign.

The adversaries are Le Marquis des Aix-En-PainsAix (Red army) and The Duke of Bad Schmaltzberg (Blue army).

The campaign opens using Scenario 4 from One Hour Wargames book, with the Duke of Bad Schmaltzberg attempting to strike before his enemy have properly mobilised.

Jay has also provided the maps and counters to play each battle, they just need downloading and printing, but in true wargaming spirit of tweaking things that don’t need tweaking, I will be running this as a late Dark Ages campaign on my hex terrain, using the OHW Neil Thomas rules, with my own amendment to include morale. (You see, I am not blessed with any 7 Years War figures, but my part painted 1066 12mm do beg for a day out).

This post is all about ..... Once upon a time, there was a nasty Duke, who wanted the nice English crown, but being impatient and against all the advice of good council, to wait another year, he brought his forces together in 1065 for ..... Invasion!

Please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post.