Number of Command Units

[Cuachiqueh]

Hi All,

I'm new to the rules and, as I'll be the one teaching the rest of my group how to play, I'll be posting a series of clarification requests and questions.

The first thing on which I'm looking for guidance is on the number of command units that should be fielded. As a basic example, say I'm using the historic TO&E for the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade.

The CO is the Brigade command, and each of the three armoured regiments has an HQ. Would each of the squadrons also have an HQ unit?

Thanks,

Jim

[fred.]

I tend to find one command unit per 500 pts is a good rule of thumb

Yes, I would field squadron HQs, if you are fielding a whole armoured brigade that will be a lot of tanks! Take pictures!

[Steve J]

Welcome on board and look forward to seeing pics of your units. As a rule of thumb, I've found the for an infantry battalion with its organic support and possibly some divisional support too, 1 x CO and 2 x HQs gives a good game.

[Big Insect]

Hi Cuachiqueh & welcome 

Generally, if you are playing with a historic TOE then sticking to that is a good idea.
Your idea of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade sounds correct - although it would potentially depend upon the number of tanks in each squadron, in the regiments. Which is to a certain extent up to you.
Typically I'd be using the following Command structure for an armoured Brigade:

1 x CO
1 x Recce
1 x FAO (if you have any supporting off table artillery)
1 x FAC (if you have any supporting off table artillery)
1 x attached AA formation (typically 1 unit per 1,000pts spent)

3 x HQs
3 x Regiments each consisting of 3 x 3 squadrons of tanks
(sometimes you can add a Recce for each of the Regiments - but again that depends upon the TOE)

If you have any supporting Infantry they would have their own HQ to command them.
This might be a Company of 3 x 3 Infantry (in trucks or carriers). If they have Infantry Supports weapons, such as medium mortars or MGs or AT guns, I'd have one of each and each has its own transport.

Likewise, if you have any supporting larger mortars (on-table but not part of Infantry Company) or any attached AT gun formations with their own transports and you could buy your CO a 2iC (another HQ) who can be assigned to run these attached units, but that gives your HQ not a lot to do.

Integral Armoured Car formations (not Recce units) might have their own HQ depending upon the number of units in the formation.

However, as I say, this is just a personal rule of thumb, not a proscribed system.

I hope that helps?  Please do ask more questions either I or the other vets on the forum will be able to help you.

Good luck
Mark
PS: Battle reports especially with photos always gratefully received 

Sometimes the numbers of Squadrons can be 4 instead of 3 annd the number of Regiments again 4 instead of 3 - but only add extra HQs per Regiment.

also with historic TOEs I tend to trt and play with the Fixed Formation rules as that can better reflect the restrictions placed by units not

[Cuachiqueh]

Thanks for all of your replies. For additional information, a TO&E for 2nd CAB can be found here:

http://www.niehorster.org/017_britain/44_org/armoured%20brigs/ab_02.html

If you click on some of the individual elements in the chart (e.g., the armoured regiments), you can drill down into the organization a bit further.

As I create the scenarios for my group, I would be using TO&Es rather than points values. It looks like Mark's suggestions closely mirror the historic organization (and are close to what I was thinking). At the regimental-level, I would add a couple of Recce units that would represent the 11 Stuart IIIs available, and maybe (maybe) an AA unit.

It'll be a while until I put a game together, but I may be able to take some pictures of the units as I convert the TO&E to BKC battlegroups.

Regards,

Jim (with more questions coming soon)

[fred.]

A few years ago I put together some graphics to illustrate the various British TO&E scaled to BKC (i.e a 1:4 scaling)

http://www.kerynne.com/games/BritishArmouredRegimentTOE.html

[Big Insect]

Sounds good Jim ... questions always welcomed 

fred - these graphics look great - many thanks.
I also notice your a Warmaster Fantasy player ... I'd be interested in your views, learnings and thoughts on them as a set?

Cheers
Mark

[Ithoriel]

Sounds good Jim ... questions always welcomed 

fred - these graphics look great - many thanks.
I also notice your a Warmaster Fantasy player ... I'd be interested in your views, learnings and thoughts on them as a set?

Cheers
Mark

Question not aimed at me, I realise ... but when did that stop me?

Still the best massed battle fantasy rules IMHO, though I deplore the drive to make it Ancients With Dragons. So many games' mechanisms treat the game as a skirmish no matter what the narrative says. Warmaster plays like a battle.

My love of Warmaster was what bought me to BKC (the best WW2 rules at their scale of game!) in it's various iterations.

[Raider4]

My love of Warmaster was what bought me to BKC (the best WW2 rules at their scale of game!) in it's various iterations.

And it was Warmaster which introduced me to 10mm, and brought me to Pendraken.

[Dr Dave]

I tend to go with 1 per 6-10 units with historical orbats. So a British inf bttn has 2. One as the bttn commander and another representing the functions of the 2ic or company commanders.

[fred.]

I tend to go with 1 per 6-10 units with historical orbats. So a British inf bttn has 2. One as the bttn commander and another representing the functions of the 2ic or company commanders.

Yes, I tend to go with this sort of scale. I commander per battalion tends to feel too few, and really limits what the battalion can do, compared to reading about their real world tactics. 2 commanders allows you to have a fire element and a manoeuvre element.

fred - these graphics look great - many thanks.

Thanks - I put them together a good few years ago when I was trying to get my head around historical OrBats and converting them to BKC scale.

[fred.]

I also notice your a Warmaster Fantasy player ... I'd be interested in your views, learnings and thoughts on them as a set?

Aah Warmaster. Where to start...

When I got back into wargaming 10 years ago (or so) Warmaster was the game I played the most. And it is was very popular among the gaming group I played with. It gave good multi-player games with sweeping advances and dramatic outcomes. But over the years we all fell out of love with it, some of the group, me included, earlier than others.

But we all love our 10mm Fantasy armies and have so many and such big armies that we needed rules to use. Ultimately we have written a set of home brew rules that pull together ideas from lots of rule sets, to give us a big battle game, with lots of units, that supports lots of players, that can be played fairly quickly. Its taken a lot of effort to get to this place, but we have a rule set that as a group we are happy with and get good games in with.

With Warmaster some of the problems were:
Command: Too often formations did nothing for multiple turns. Or formations would do too many things. The command system was too random. Some command friction is good in a game, too much breaks the game.

Movement: Its just too free and easy, units can twirl around and re-arrange stands as they fancy. Combined with the above it can get annoying. One of the last games we played was four player with each in a corner. Not much happen for much of the game due to bad command rolls. Towards the end of the game the Chaos player got multiple orders off with 1 unit of infantry, that did all sorts of crazy moves to thread their way through to the objective.

Combat: Its too drawn out, and gets really fiddly with lining up stands, especially on follow-ups. The support rules are weird - if you have two units and they attack side-by side in column, its often better than if they were to attack in line with one supporting from behind. And the only way you can do this is by charging from 19cm away.

Knights: Short based shock cavalry are just too strong, they are fast, hard hitting and well protected. We all had armies with huge amounts of knight type units, as they dominate the game, so they were the go to unit to field. People would say use more terrain, but I think we had a lot of terrain on our tables, compared to many I saw online.

Break Point: It was better to hide your weak units (goblins, chaos marauders, etc) at the back so that they didn't die to protect your break point. It feels like your weak stuff should be leading to act as a shield for your good stuff.

That will do for now. For new rules we started with trying to fix the above, but rapidly gave up and started with a blank piece of paper. This was all long before the Warmaster Revolution project - which I haven't really kept up with, and I don't know how much of the above they have fixed (or even if they see the above as problems).

[Big Insect]

Really helpful ... great insight

Thank you fred

[Ithoriel]

My take would be

Command: Formations might nothing for multiple turns or they might do many things. You have to weigh your decisions and play the odds. In my experience very few armies do nothing in a turn unless the player in charge made some strange decisions. Individual parts do sometimes pause to pick daisies/ paint their toenails/ make a cuppa at inconvenient moments.

Movement: Movement is pretty free and easy but armies that go off like a bag of fireworks with a lit match dropped in tend to become too separated to be easily commanded.

Combat: There are decisions to be made as to when to attack, with who and in what order. Once engaged, fights run to a conclusion in a single player turn. Combat tends to be decisive ... one way or another.

Knights: Short based shock cavalry are exactly what they should be in a fantasy game. Deadly! Until they have to charge infantry on the other side of a wall or stream or uphill of them or shooting at them from a wood, etc., etc..

Warmaster needs lots (and lots and lots and lots) of varied terrain. If your battlefield is about 50% terrain of one sort or another you are getting there with terrain.

Break Point: You need to judge when it is worth using poorer troops as a speed bump to get your better troops into position for the killer blow and when to put them in all that lovely, lovely terrain to even the odds.

But, you pays your money and takes your choice as they say.

[Big Insect]

All very helpful stuff ... I have a set and I am trying to get my head around it ... purely for research purposes of course