Kampfgruppe Heller, Poland 1939: A Retrospective

 Apart from a general liking for WW2 games - for variety and tactical complexity, they are hard to beat - I wanted a few things. Firstly, I wanted to test out John's new* WW2 rules which are aimed at the one base = one section, one model = one vehicle scale of wargames. Secondly, to add a little more narrative and continuity to some of my games. I had played through the collection of One-Hour Wargames' scenarios, which are absolutely great, but they are more aimed at indidividual battles. Now I did add a little bit of continuous narrative in there, but it was a pretty small element, and I wanted more. Now, the high priest of adding narrative in my part of the wargames blogosphere is Just Jack, who almost never plays a one-off: continuous narrative and interplay between background and game is his starting point. His campaigns might be 'real' in the sense that there are strategic decisions being made, or they might be entirely narrative scaffolding. Both are useful though, especially for the solo gamer, since they frame the immediate tactical situation with over-arching objectives. So in any case, I had been planning on visiting Just Jack's Kampfgruppe von Klink campaigns - a series of campaigns of an imaginary German Kampfgruppe in WW2 - in some form or other. They didn't require vast amounts of models, so I was able to acquire sufficient Polish forces quite cheaply from Scotia and Heroics and Ros. If I have the choice I normally prefer Baccus, but it is unlikely that Baccus will get around to this theatre anytime soon. The H&R stuff is very nice - especially the new stuff, which is very useful for some of the Polish infantry support weapons -  and if the Scotia models are a little bigger and simpler, they are still pretty good. Plus, although the infantry does look pretty French and they could proxy for each other in a pinch, the Polish AFV camouflage is both fun to paint and quite distinctive.

 

The position at the beginning of the first KG Heller battle - the 'look' (types of terrain, size of board etc.) has been pretty consistent!

 

The battles themselves were really good fun. They were generally well-balanced, although well-balanced for the Five Core Company Command rules. John's rules do concentrate on different elements, with observation and support fire from mortars and artillery being apparently much more important, whereas the orders of battle for some of these scenarios were quite light on support weapons, especially HE weapons. I added some of these anyway (so, for example, both the German and Polish infantry tended to bring their platoon mortars with them, although they weren't included in the scenarios) but quite often the Germans were in need of an artillery battery, or at least a couple of sections of medium or heavy mortars, to try and neutralize Polish positions before the assault. Judging by Just Jack's reports and tactics, I infer that taking more direct risks could often be rewarded in Company Command, whereas the chances of such attacks resulting in dead infantrymen (or especially, recce troops) was just much higher in John's rules.

 

I won't say too much about John's rules, since they are still being developed and playtested. They look reasonably close to completion to me but it isn't for me to say. You can definitely tell that they have been written by someone who is familiar with the WRG rules, but equally they are somewhat different. There is more emphasis on indirect fire and engineering than is typical in wargame rules. The observation rules are more detailed than most but still elegant. Morale effects tend to be built-in to various other rules rather than being a distinct stage, but are none the worse for that. The hit/penetration for vehicle combat is simple but rather brilliant - John can reasonably claim to be one of the gamers who has studied the issues involved in representing this the most over the years. The interplay between command, weapon effect and observation really affects infantry combat in a way that is perhaps the best representation at this size of battle that I have seen. All of this is supported by comprehensive equipment and OoB information, but presented in the 'necessary information' format of WRG rather than the 'fluff' version of Flames of War handbooks and suchlike. So, lots and lots to really interest the gamer looking at tactical company to battalion plus actions for the 'long' WW2 period.

 

I should mention that John is looking to publish a different set of WW2 tactical rules: these are the ones I had some involvement in playtesting in 2023, the missing link WRG-inspired rules (i.e. if a 2nd edition of the WRG WW2 rules had been released at the same time as the 2nd edition WRG modern rules).

Going forward, I am looking to continue with KG Heller's adventures. Their forebears of KG Klink moved to the Low Countries and France next, although I am wondering if a Scandinavian campaign might be interesting. I am also wondering whether to add in some additional aspects. These might include:

1 - More genuinely campaign framing, with myself or PBEM commanders exercising some control on events and force allocation.

2 - Incorporating additional scenarios and perhaps pint-sized campaigns into the narrative, e.g. inserting KG Heller into Taking the Gembloux Gap and Caesar's Camp.

3 - Incorporate some air action into events. I do like WW2 air games!

4 - I should have followed Just Jack and put a little more effort, if not into the narrative exactly but into the personalization, at least for the officers (commissioned and NCOs) for that little bit of extra narrative flavour.

5 - Maybe I should increase the personalization for both sides, to allow for some of the Allied units to re-appear in other scenarios later in the war?

So, a good time was had by all (i.e. me!) and I hope by some of this blog's readers. Many thanks to Just Jack if he ever gets to stop by for creating KG von Klink in the first place, John for the early sight of the rules and to those who have read this, particularly those who have left an encouraging comment here or on one of the forums. I do want to take a little time to think through how I might move this on, but generally speaking, more soon, insha'allah!

*T&Cs apply.

Five Leagues from the Borderlands: A Camp Raid AAR.

 Five Leagues From the Borderlands:

For the first time, I have managed to get Five Leagues From the Borderlands out for a full dress game.  I have played a few games with these rules before, but they have been counters on paper just to get some familiarity with the basic rules concepts.

I suppose that 5 Leagues is what some gamers call an "RPG-lite" game, a term I have never particularly liked but it will have to do.  It stresses the combat elements of a 'traditional' RPG but simplifies and abstracts them, whilst making the RPG campaigning and social interaction elements much more simplified and much more abstract.  But more of this later!

Anyway, generating a band of 4 Heroes and Heroines and 4 Followers, and following the capamign turn sequence, I generated an encounter in which the party has tracked a bunch of marauding barbarians to their lair.  I was thinking very much of a Lord of the Rings or Warhammer-type game, so the barbarians here are Orcs who are raiding Eriador and the party is trying to surprise and kill them.

The Set-Up:

The old stone circle (longtime readers may recognize this as the Stonehenge-esque structure I helped one of my daughters make for a school project!)

Occupied by Orcs.  The leader and a few followers are warming themselves by a fire.

Another few Orcs are gathered around a small pool at the edge of the circle, gathering some water.

The party has approached the camp, but the Orc sentry (centre, obscured by the trees) has spotted them creeping to the edge of a nearby glade.  Whoops!

The final Orc sentry is on the far side of the Stone circle (top-left, obscured by trees)

A wider shot of the starting positions of the combatants at the start of the fight.

The Battle:

One of the heroes takes out the nearby Orc sentry.

The archer takes out a second Orc (centre through stones, fallen), but two more Orcs rush forward.

The remainder of the party break left to meet the oncoming rush of Orcs coming from around the pool.

The Orc sorceror (top, slightly obscured) tries to cast his dark magic - so fa, without much effect!

One of the heroines takes out another Orc at the edge of the stone circle.

The sorceror's magic starts to take effect, calling a curse down upon the archer.

One of the heroes has taken out the first Orc approaching from the pool, but the second one is charging one of the followers (centre, with bill)

A few bows are exchanged, and the ferocious Orc downs the follower!

A second Orc fells one of the heroes at the edge of the stone circle!  Four Orcs are down now, but two of the party (one hero and one follower) are out of the battle.

Luckily one of the followers is able to dispatch that last Orc before it can do more damage.

This seems to turn the tide of the battle, as some of the Orcs quickly run off, leaving only the Sorceror and a single warrior Orc left.

One of the heroes fells the warrior Orc after a hard fight.

The archer (bottom) moves forward, dodging the sorceror's spells (top)...

One of the archer's arrows gets the Orc Sorceror through the eye!  The fight is over.

Game Results: I think three of the Orcs escaped and six were killed or otherwise incapacitated.  Neither the fallen hero or follower actually died, but both were injured badly enough as to be out of the campaign for a few days.  A decent haul of loot was found by the party - swag recovered from the Orc raiders.

Game Notes: The rules were very intuitive and quick to pick up, including the quasi-AI for controlling the actions of the enemy fighters.  It is quite a balanced fight, my brief descriptions above don't emphasize that the party was quite lucky to get away with that attack once it had been spotted by the sentry, since the average barbarian (here Orc) is about as tough or a little more than the average starting hero and definitely tougher than the average follower.  The movement, initiative and combat mechanics are all quite familiar, but work fine.  The initiative system involves rolling dice equal to the number of party members, with low rolls (usually 1, but sometimes 2 or 3) being best as they can be assigned to characters to move before the opposition, with everyone else moving afterwards.  So the key thing appears to be to get the key heroes to do key stuff before the opposition gets a chance to react, and then have the others react to the opposition moves.  The combat mechanics don't make local numerical superiority that important compared to combat skill and trying to get advantageous match-ups.  Positioning seems to be mainly important as a mechanism to achieve the latter, by forcing the opposition to attack uphill, across walls or concentrate on the party's strongest heroes etc.  I will resist too much comment though at this point until I get a better mastery of the system.

The campaign procedural game (or the pre- and post-battle phases in more wargamer-y speak) seemed to work pretty well too, both in terms of having workable abstract mechanics to deal with the kind of stuff that a party may want to do (buy stuff, meet people, scout out areas, gamble, heal etc.).  It seems calibrated quite well to be challenging at the start but very importantly to remain so - the rewards for success are definite, but not so great as to really unbalance the game.  

 So overall I am impressed, the game was fun and I am looking forward to playing some more.  What I do need to do is make more 28mm suitable terrain, since I don't have that much really.  If I had only know, I would have collected in 15mm probably, but since I already have quite a few 28mm figures accumulated over the years, it feels like more trouble than its worth to change game size now.  

The game was played on a 3'x2' board, which was fine (normal movement is 4-6") although 3'x3' might be a trifle better.  Figures are a mixture of Bad Squiddo, Gripping Beast, Perry Miniatures, a free Partizan figure (I think!) and Heroquest stuff...