PSC's Battlegroup NORTHAG in 1/300

[SJWi]

Back in the 1980s and early '90s I had tried so-called "Ultra Modern", but had given up due to the complexity of the rulesets, Judging by how few times you see it on the tabletop or at shows I think many other players did the same.  With the release of PSC's Battlegroup (BG) NORTHAG back in 2020 my friends and I decided to give the smaller scale a go....and then the Pandemic!

Roll on three years and I have played only a couple of small games, mainly limited by my 6 x 4' table.  However the release of the 2nd CENTAG book a few months ago with stats and  force lists for other than just BAOR and GSFG, we've re-ignited our interest.  Last Sunday saw 6 of us play a quite large game at our local bricks and mortar store "Lost Ark" in Stevenage as they can provide the 8 x 6' table we needed. I had written a scenario set in early 1984 with a BAOR/Bundeswehr force taking on the might of Group Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG).  I kept it to armour, infantry and artillery so didn't add the complexities of minefields or battlefield engineering.

What follows won't be a blow-by-blow account of the game, but a reflection on PSC's rules and how they worked.

Unlike BG WW2, these rules are aimed at 10mm figures not the 15 or 20mm of the WW2 version. That's primarily because PSC produce a 10mm range, the rules work perfectly well with 6mm. Indeed the author states that the ground scale and  weapon ranges are more realistic in 6mm.  The main obvious change compared to WW2 is that infantry is now organised in multi-base fireteams, and there is no individual figure removal. Who has individually based 6mm figures?

The core mechanisms are quite similar to BG WW2, so I'll pick out the main differences.

The game starts with limited troops on the table, being the Recce screen and then gradually more is added until the mainforces arrive.

Organic Battlegroup artillery is limited to mortars and light howitzers. Most heavy stuff and airstrikes and limited to pre-planned, timed strikes.

As well as orders for individual teams/vehicles you can use platoon or in the case of GSFG, Company orders. This allows units to all do the same thing albeit with a limited choice of actions. Our observation was that this was quite a nice mechanism and in particular reflected perceived Soviet doctrine.

Reserves. As well as your initial  forces, a player is allocated and can buy additional forces to come on later in the game. This was seen as a very nice mechanism that reflected the Soviet doctrine as they tend to lose a lot in the early stages, and balance of reserves favours the Soviet player.

As most of us hadn't played NORTHAG for several years ( or indeed ever), we didn't manage to play through to a conclusion but did manage 10 turns in about 4 hours of gametime.  At over 1000 points per side it was a large game in NORTHAG terms, and we did have added complexities of airstrikes and helicopter gunships arriving which took some sorting out. Most of us were veterans of the UK guided weapons industry and were quite keen to see how the weapons we had worked on played in the rules .The answer was that they weren't the world-beaters we hoped, which was probably an accurate reflection on the technology of the time.

Cold War gaming of the early '80s is a difficult topic, as thankfully we don't have any real history to test our rules against. By the time of the "hot shooting war " of Gulf War 1, technology had moved on and I'm not at all sure you can apply the lessons learnt backwards to 1984. We thought BG NORTHAG gave a fun game that offers different challenges to both sides, and balances playability vs the technology complexity. Our main observation  was over the orders system which some love, others hate. I find it OK but was surprised to find a force has the same number of orders irrespective of the forces on the table . This means in turns one and two virtually everything can do anything it wants .Not sure if that is the intention, but it is the result!

For information the BAOR forces were Heroics and Ros, Bundeswehr and GSFG mainly GHQ. Airpower and infantry similarly by H&R. Buildings I think mainly Timecast with a 3D printed power station.

Next Sunday I'm probably trying my 1/300 Danes with their pimped-up M41s vs the Soviet Naval Infantry with T55s.                   
     

[flatpack]

Very interesting comments.
I hope your next game goes well too.

[Fred Mills]

Thanks for that, and the great table pics. I just bought both books, NORTHAG and CENTAG, and am reading through for my 6mm legions waiting anxiously in the motor pool.

[SJWi]

Fred, I don't think you'll regret the purchases. I was a tad disappointed NORTHAG only covered BAOR and Soviet core armoured formations, but waiting for 2nd books covering other forces seems to be par for the course with rulesets these days. I would say that given the background of the genre, a satisfying game benefits from good scenario planning . This isn't just a throw 500 points of kit onto the table game. I'm also unsure if the rules need the attacker ( normally GSFG) to have more points than the defender (normally NATO) or if the numbers advantage of the Warsaw Pact is somehow factored into the existing points system .The Soviet Bloc gets a lot of kit for its points compared to NATO! I might have expected something in the rules explaining the background philosophy but there isn't. 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Interesting read. Thanks.

I was put off NORTHAG by the uninspiring PSC vehicles, using 6mm might make me change my mind (somewhere I have some 'eighties 6mm forces that should fill most of the slots).

[SJWi]

Totally agree about the PSC vehicles.  If you want 10mm I would look at Red 3 Miniatures or  Timecast. However they are over £4 per vehicle whilst H&R MBTs are still 85p each!  The new H&R stuff is very nice. I'd stick with 1/300. I can't see any downsides to it.

[Fred Mills]

Ditto the plug for micro scale for the modern (or even WWII) period. The scale ranges always look a bit better to me, even though the infantry bases/tiles can look a bit odd angling off the top of a building and so forth. 10mm and up, especially 20mm, looks great to me for smaller scale encounters, or in more infantry-centric combat with small fire teams or individual bases.

NORTHAG/CENTAG appealed in part because they align with some reading I've been doing, as well as the massive Thin Red Line boardgames I've been mortgaging the house for.

[carlos marighela]

Nicely done and quite nostalgic for me.

I had vast 6mm Soviet and British forces back in the day, when it was still ultra-modern. We faffed about forever with Challenger/ Challenger II, which had useful army list books but were fairly pedestrian and overly complex rules, pretty much on par with the WRG rules we had sought to replace. One day someone brought around Combined Arms, the modern version of Command Decision and we never looked back. Elegant and playable, still my benchmark for a decent set of rules.

[SJWi]

Carlos, interesting. From what I remember "Combined Arms" was never that popular or easy to obtain this side of the Pond. With a few notable exceptionsThe rules market was pretty well dominated by WRG and TTG. We have also tried Pendraken's "Cold War Commander" for our 1/600 moderns. Quite why we have both 1/300 and 1/600.....plus 15mm are decisions lost in the mists of time. I think is was driven by impulse buys at shows.   

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I got mine at Vermin Games, Oxford Street.

I suppose having more than one games shop locally was an advantage.

The one tank is three to four tanks scaling was something that felt odd at the time.

https://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2019/01/twilight-2000-reference-material-2.html

[SJWi]

Having any games shop nearby is a big advantage. I went nearly 30 years without a local wargaming store. Luckily the local gaming store is run by a wargamer who has slowly expanded from boardgames and card games into table-top historical. I agree about the 1 tank represents three of four feeling odd. That's the same with Cold War Commander, and we are using 1/600 with 3 tanks on a 30 x 30mm base. Luckily most are 3d printed so cheap as chips!   

[carlos marighela]

It creates some minor anomalies as platoon strengths aren't always equal but the internal logic is sound. In CA/CD you are playing a battalion or brigade commander, the smallest unit you are going to be worrying about is platoon and in fact you are really issuing orders to command elements at company level. The Rea-Taylor stable essentially encouraged people to micromanage where they shouldn't, faffing about with individual tanks like some gigantic skirmish game. Curiously they used different sized infantry elements mixed with individual AFVs.

Matter of taste I suppose but we are all quite happy with figure ratios with ancients, Napoleonics etc, etc, no reason not to for 20th C and beyond games.

What I liked about CA/CD was it placed the emphasis on command and control (perhaps more forgivingly than some other more recent games) but it did force you to make the sort of command decisions you would expect at the level the game was pitched at. The more recent TOB/ CD4 has simplified the mechanics and dispensed with some of the chit clutter and has IMO improved the game.

We used to regularly get bogged down a few turns into previous games, CA/CD got stuff done and in an enjoyable manner.  Of course by contrast we were also attempting to play the truy ghastly Empire and later on the equally mind bending Harpoon.

[Splod]

It creates some minor anomalies as platoon strengths aren't always equal but the internal logic is sound. In CA/CD you are playing a battalion or brigade commander, the smallest unit you are going to be worrying about is platoon and in fact you are really issuing orders to command elements at company level. The Rea-Taylor stable essentially encouraged people to micromanage where they shouldn't, faffing about with individual tanks like some gigantic skirmish game. Curiously they used different sized infantry elements mixed with individual AFVs.

I use Fistful of TOWs for my modern 6mm wargames which is at the same scale where one base/stand = platoon/troop. Once I got my head around each base representing more than a single tank or squad, I managed to get away from the need to represent every track, weapon and box of beans on table. It also meant I didn't need to get bogged down with trying to find individual squad and platoon TO&Es to ensure I had the right number of little men on table.

Morale of the story - A battalion commander doesn't need to know how many grenades a squad has, he just needs to know whether the unit is still effective 

[SJWi]

Splod, tried FFoTs and didn't like them. We perservered as my mate had spent a lot of money on them, but I recall the artillery in particular overly complex.   

[Ultravanillasmurf]

As Colours is coming up soon so NORTHAG could be a spontaneous purchase, how are infantry based?

I had been tempted to base them up on Renedra bases (I remember spending ages cutting up plastic card in two sizes for Challenger, then it changing to one size for Challenger 2).

Are there rules reasons for square, rectangular or round bases?

Thanks in advance.