Operation Market Garden, The Dreijenseweg and the Third Lift

[carojon]

I got my wargaming year of to a fun start last weekend with a little Arnhem adventure, well not that little, as I joined friends to fight out Tuesday 19th September 1944 around LZ-L near Oosterbeek.



I had the pleasure of assuming the role of Brigadier John 'Shan' Hackett as 4th Parachute Brigade spent a gruelling day battling with Kampfgruppes Kraft, Allworden, Spindler and Bruhns.



If you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ's

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2025/01/operation-market-garden-dreijenseweg.html

JJ

[fred]

What a great looking game!


I can’t recall if we have played Pz Grenadier rules (too many WWII sets with similar names) but I am interested that you think O Group would have worked well for this type of game. We have found O group tends to give a fairly small game and a fairly steady paced one at that. Not that we have used them for a multiplayer game.

[jon_1066]

Our experience of O Group us that they would still he playing it!  It gives a good game but is slow.

Great looking game by the way!

[carojon]

Thanks for your comments chaps.

I know what you mean about the pace of the game with O-Group, but speed of play certainly increases with familiarity and I particularly like the way the rules capture the breakdown of command and control when initially all seems well with a glut of command points and then as the battle reaches its climax too many things need to be done and there are not enough command initiatives to do everything.

One other set of rules that came up in conversation were of course Battlefront from Fire & Fury where the scenario came from, with most of us having a set of them, but many, like me, not having played them, and I particularly remember liking how they replicated artillery fire which I find often lacks in many sets I have played.

Still WWII is so popular there is a glut of rules to choose from, and likely more yet to come and the perfect set of rules are like unicorns, extremely rare.

Cheers
JJ

[fred]

I know what you mean about WWII rules. There are so many sets, and it feels like I have tried so many of them over the last couple of years, without coming to a conclusion of what I prefer.

[Jemima Fawr]

Brilliant!  And a lovely-looking game.

We had a lot of fun playing the original scenario at Bovington some years ago, with 'Battlefront: WWII' rules, courtesy of Richard de Ferrars:

http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2018/05/03/operation-market-garden-the-dreijenseweg-and-the-third-lift/