playtest of BKC III

[petercooman]

Decided to give the rules a solo spin last night, and see what they offered. Did an encounter scenario from the new book. Decided to take that one as it nullified all concealment and scheduled off table support, so perfect to play solo.

Putting my forces togheter, i chose them from the russian army (late war) and german army (eastern front).

First thing to note, russia has i believe 5 army lists for the different stages of the war. Germany only has 1 that accounts for 41 to 45. Don't knowwhy this decision was made, but it was plain wrong!!! That army list technically allows you to have panzer I's and Tiger II's in the same list. I am not going to go into the whole army list debate here, the problem is known and should be discussed elsewhere. Lets keep this to unit stats if possible.

I took some late eastern front armies (that were plausible, so no panzer I's  )

i will write them down in a way that immediately distributes the formations:

russia:

CO CV9:  4 x 734/76 with tankodesantniki upgrade + 4 smg stands with mechanized upgrade
             1 x SU122

HQ cv 8 : 3 x t34/85
             1 X BA64

HQ cv8 : 5 x infantry
             2 x hmg
             1 x 120mm mortar
             1 xinfantry with captured panzerfausts
F(A)O cv6: 1 x light guns

germany:

CO cv9 : 2 x panther
             1 x jagdpanther
             1 x sdkfz 250/9
             1 x hmg
             1 x 81mm mortar
             1 x truck

HQ cv 8: 3 x PZ IV long
             1 x puma

HQ cv 9: 4 x infantry with 1 upgraded with mechanized
             1 x infantry with panzerfausts and mechanized upgrade
             1 X infantry with panzerschreck and mechanized upgrade
             1 x hmg
             2 x truck
             3 x sdkfz 251/1
F(A)O cv7: 1 x light guns


So as you can see i took a bit of everything to be able to find out as much as i could of the new rules. Only thing i left out was AIR and AA units. i'll look into those in a later battle.

So, germans got the first turn and started moving up the board. everything came on except the formation of pz IV/puma. The transports got one command and then failed to move, so where very stuck in the open



For the russian turn 1, the 34/85's failed to arrive, but the rest got a flurry of commands and actually got quite deep into the board, even entering the town BUA. This also prompted a query. How do F(A)O's do mobile deployment?


only casualty was a german truck that could be seen by the SU 122 in the last command of the turn. The occupants escaped suppressed but undamaged.


Turn 2
saw the german FAO hit a bullseye on the russian infantry on the hill


it was like a laser guided strike from the other end of the board 


I had expected this when i read the rules, so had opted to only use light off table guns. That way the game would not be as affected when the super accurate artillery struck. We can all agree, that when your template has a 20cm diameter , and your max deviation is 12 cm, you are almost always going to hit your target. really think this should be looked at!

after this the german infantry made it's way to the edge of the town and disembarked, but not before opportunity fire from a T34/76 took care of  the second truck. The CO failed it's check after that.


for the russians, the highlight of this turn was the assault inside the BUA, but this went completely wrong and they lost their assaulting unit.


only thing that happened otherwise was the arrival of the t34/85's

turn 3

german infantry failed to advance and the panzer IV's only got one order. The CO managed to get his jagdpanther on the hill, and his panthers on the hill's flank. After one shot the jagdpanther was immediatey taken out by OP fire


in the russian turn, the remaining smg infantry wiped out their target in close assault, and drove it's supporting unit out of the town.


the T34/76 shot the hmg platoon that had position itself next to the jagdpanther wreck to pieses, and took up a better position to handle the panthers.

turn 4

the panthers got several targets to within 1 hit of destruction, as did the pz IV's, but none failed to finish them off. none of the russian CO's tanks were suppressed though(got no pic of this)

The russians dealt with the panthers in a very effective way, mass fire!


turn 5

In turn 5, the germans got some shots in, but did no big damage or no kills.

the russians however, proved that the recce rule does not work. This ba 64 here CAN NOT RECCE the tank right in front of it.


with 5 turns being played, and being 2 AM, i called it a day.

victory was for the russians, they had lost only one smg stand over the entire game, and the germans had lost one infantry, one hmg, 2 trucks and a panther and a jagdpanther.

the russians also had a big load of troops waiting to occupy  the town




All in all i enjoyed the battle, but maybe went a bit too slow, as i was constantly checking if i was doing it right. it's not always easy to remember the changes.



So what did i note?

-the mechanised rule: 'mechanised units do not get suppressed if their transport is suppressed' is stated in the description. Now where can i find the bit in therules that says troops are suppressed iftheir transport is supressed? can only find a declarationof what happens to destroyed transports

- recce is worthles without the remote rule and the use of tactical doctrine range for recce actions. They didnothing the entire game, except the puma. I gave up on recce'ing and started using its gun. that's not the poit of recce!

I think they should all have remote to do their job. Also if we have to have them with doctrine range for their actions, might i suggest changing the ruling to '3 X doctrine range'?

That way a rigid doctrine recce has 45 cm, a normal one 60, and a flexible one 75. This might represent the willingness to adapt the orders to the situation, with rigid doctrine armies only adapting when threaths get closer.


- FO mobile deployment. I could not find anything on this, so just assumed these came on using their move in the 'move hq's phase'. is their something written in the book about this? Otherwise i think it should contain that information.

- panther-jagdpanther. The panther has a 6/100 AT value and the tank hunter skill. The jagdpanther has a5/100 value and o tank hunter skill. The jagdpanther is the tank hunter variant ofthe panther. yet it is worse at hunting tanks than it's 'father'. big nono.

also typo on P25, should be not instead of nor in the 8th line 




So apart from these issues, i can still say i had an enjoyable battle. Some things are a bit clunky, but this could be me trying to tell apart the changes and going slow. Will reserve judgement on that for when i played a couple ore games!

[toxicpixie]

Just a quickie, your experience with the Puma is the German "recce experience" of the whole war in a nutshell

[petercooman]

Just a quickie, your experience with the Puma is the German "recce experience" of the whole war in a nutshell

Ha true!

I don't mind my puma busting some skulls either, favourite vehicle of the German armoured cars, just looks so nice!

Still, doesn,t make the recce rules work. 

[williamb]

Peter,
I assume you were using mobile deployment.  If so that HQ element on the edge of the table should have been removed when it failed its first command peer the deployment rules.   You could then place it anywhere you want the next turn.

[petercooman]

Yes it was an encounter scenario so both sides had mobile deployment.

It was actually treated as off the table. Just sat out of the way at the edge. That command actually started behind the furthest area of bushes (next to the ruler in the first pic)

[petercooman]

Also, something I forgot to mention in the report.

Mortars do squat now. Took 4 shoot actions in the game with the Russian 120 mm and 1 shoot action with the81 mm. Not a single 6 was rolled. Would seem we now have to start using them more in LOS if the 'only hit on a 6' stays in for indirect fire.

[AJ at the Bank]

Hi Peter...v interesting.

If I may ...How did you get the FO to spot the infantry on the hill?

Unless the lead infantry unit was on the crest ...then looks too me like they would all be on the reverse slope to the FO.
However ...looks like the FO didn't target the lead infantry (?)...but according to new rules visibility is only 5cm Max on a hill , unless on the crest.

Adam

[williamb]

Also, something I forgot to mention in the report.

Mortars do squat now. Took 4 shoot actions in the game with the Russian 120 mm and 1 shoot action with the81 mm. Not a single 6 was rolled. Would seem we now have to start using them more in LOS if the 'only hit on a 6' stays in for indirect fire.

Per page 49, it looks like anything in the open is hit on a 4,5 or 6 regardless of target type.

[petercooman]

Hi Peter...v interesting.

If I may ...How did you get the FO to spot the infantry on the hill?

Unless the lead infantry unit was on the crest ...then looks too me like they would all be on the reverse slope to the FO.
However ...looks like the FO didn't target the lead infantry (?)...but according to new rules visibility is only 5cm Max on a hill , unless on the crest.

Adam

That was an interesting one to rule. The hills I use have a cliff face. (the brown side) on page 170 it says :

Cliff terrain is an escarpment, an area of near vertical exposed rock that creates a natural wall or barrier.

So when deciding how to rule the division between the hill part and the cliffpart, I ruled the line where the different terrain features meet just like a wall. So linear terrain. Since the infantry was touching the line, they could be seen. I think this was a fair ruling,as the Russian infantry had advanced t the edge to try and look over the BUA.

I hope that explains it.

Per page 49, it looks like anything in the open is hit on a 4,5 or 6 regardless of target type.

Mortars have the indirect special ability.

P 67

-attacks with a fixed target number of 6, irrespective of other modifiers or conditions

[williamb]

That explains the fixed target number rule on page 49.  But if they have that, why doesn't off table artillery based on the description of the ability?

[Sunray]

Peter- I must applaud you for this playtest and taking the trouble to share it with us - images at al.

Most informative.  I can see two red lights flashing regarding WW2 gaming in 1/150 :

First, the majority of our games involve reccie - what in real war we call "advance to contact" - indeed you can have a very satisfying WW2/Modern game with reccie units.  

Secondly - Mortars.  Perhaps its the old bold Support Company squaddie in me - but the WW2 medium mortar was a very efficient weapon. In WW2 the casualty corollariey of the humble mortar was close to 39% in some actions.

More crucially - in a war game - it is often the only support weapon ON THE TABLE.  That itself - together with the efficiency on the weapon - and the optical pleasure of seeing it in action - should be reflected in decent rules.

A few more play tests of this calibre and we are well on the way to fine-tuning BKC to where it deserves to be.  As you said in a previous post "an excellent set of rules trying to get out"

Well done     James aka Sunray

[petercooman]

That explains the fixed target number rule on page 49.  But if they have that, why doesn't off table artillery based on the description of the ability?

Beats me, but would explain the upped number of firing dice to balance it out. Weird thing is, there is a table explaining the to hit numbers in the arty section specifically. So it's hard to assume the 'indirect' ruling was just forgotten.

@ Sunray: Indeed recce actions and mortars should be more effective.

About those mortars. I can understand them having a harder to hit number on indirect fire. In the end they are as accurate as other firing when they have line of sight so I understand the penalty when they don't have line of sight. However I feel that indirect or not, when a target in the open gets hit, they should be suppressed  just as easily, indirect or not. As it stands now, I don't think the rules take that into account. Could be wrong, so if anybody finds something, please share the reference!

" As you said in a previous post "an excellent set of rules trying to get out"
---> I don't think that was me, but I cannot say that the game was umplayable. Yes there are grey areas and some contradictions, but not unfixable.

[Steve J]

Thanks for the AAR Peter

[williamb]

Should have mentioned this earlier

Thanks for a very good after action report Peter.

[petercooman]

'welcome all!