6 mm O Group / BBB

[jon_1066]

Just spotted something weird - I presume it's some over zealous political correctness filter but it keeps changing the title of Peter Whites famous book from "With the Jo*ks" to "With the Scots"

Anyway in case anyone is wondering the book is called "With the J*cks" and is a cracking read if you want to find out what it was like being a British platoon commander in NW Europe in '44-45.

[jon_1066]

Put on a D-Day game at the club.  Two battalions of British on Jig sector of Gold Beach - so Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, 1st Hants, 1st Dorset and various assault engineers and landing craft.  I used O-Group rules with a few mods for the landing craft.



You can see the Hampshires advancing on WN36 from their LCAs with the Dorsets in the foreground and their supporting assault engineers.  In the background the AVREs and flails are unloading on Jig Green but isolated from their infantry.



The view from Le Hamel as Jig Green turns into a bloody mess.  An 88mm on the hill at WN39 has knocked out numerous tanks and the gun in the bunker on the corner has also proven very troublesome.

The British gained VPs for clearing beach obstacles, capturing the resistance nests (WNs), creating paths through the mines and wire and taking the BUAs.  The final result was a draw with the British matching the historical result having got their flail tanks through to the lateral road on Jig Red and the engineers managing to push a route through on Jig Green despite the carnage.  WN36 had been cleared but Le Hamel was still putting up stiff resistance.

[Pattus Magnus]

That looks fantastic! I’m happy to hear that O-Group worked well, I’ll keep it in mind as a possibility for any games of my own that are along these lines.

[jon_1066]

We played another O Group game.  The German counter attack at Waldfeucht in January 45.  It was played two players per side with a worn battalion each. 



The view from Echterbosch


The Tigers


Well Peter White wasn't called upon in this game as the British reinforcements didn't come on as we ran out of time with the Germans having got a foot hold in the town. 

I am coming to the conclusion that O Group whilst a good game is just too slow for a club game.  We played for 4 hours and weren't close to a resolution.  Probably needed at least another hour.  Stuff just takes too long and there are too many tiny decision points that all gobble up time.  How many orders to pass to battalions, should I use a CC to try for another order, should I activate now or save for later, do you want to interrupt, etc, etc.  Then add in the long list of possible modifiers on everything.  It is very easy to forget something if you don't go through step by step.

I will definitely focus on getting a quicker playing rule set together with the quick play sheet able to fit on 2 pages.  Hopefully can persuade someone at the club to act as a guinea pig.  In the mean time I will try and give Eisenhower a bash.

[fred]

We weren’t finding O Group quite that slow - but were only playing 1v1. But it’s certainly a fairly slow game, even with fairly few figures on the table.

Eisenhower is at the other end of the scale, both speed and abstraction wise, as well as representative scale, at least the same figures can be used!

[jon_1066]

Managed a test game for the my latest rules version (6!) at the club last night.

I took the first scenario from the O Group Normandy supplement. It ports pretty much directly over to the new rules.



The British have to capture three of five BUAs to win.  The Germans have to hold on or drive the Brits off.  It actually worked as a game, played quite smoothly and gave a result in an evening.  I was pretty happy how it worked.  There was a couple of unlucky shots (or lucky if you look at it the other way) but generally being caught in the open was bad for units, a British company on one flank was nearly over run but just managed to hold on when the cavalry turned up in the shape of a RTR platoon of Churchill tanks.    We didn't get to test the anti tank rules much but that can come.  I also did most of the CRT/FP calculations.  Another test will be giving the rules to the players and getting them to play without me.

I've added a spotting mechanic to the rules from V5.  If a unit isn't spotted then the best result you can get is suppressed.  To combine with this I pushed the CRT left (so everything is a bit more likely to hit but the spotting dice makes it less likely to lift a stand.)