Back to Battlegroup: A PATM box to battlefield project

I am relatively new to miniature gaming with only starting around early 2015. In the five years since I have played dozens of games of every sort. World War 2, cold war gone hot, sci-fi, 40k, fantasy, and anything else there is that is new and shiny in the miniature gaming world. The majority of those years were spent playing hundred's of games of Warlord Game's Bolt Action. After awhile the burnout kicked in and I just kind of lost interest. Since then I have dabbled in World War 2 gaming with Flames of War, Chain of Command, and a few small games of Battlegroup. All of these games are good and have their own pros and cons. We as gamers are spoiled this day in age to have so many games and miniatures readily available. This blog though is about one game in particular that has always stuck with me..Ironfist Publishing's BATTLEGROUP. Over the next few months I will document my progress, purchases, painting, and more on assembling two forces and getting them on the table. So shut the hatch and lets get going..

Battlegroup was first published in 2013 by Warwick Kinrade (also the author of my favorite Forge World Imperial Armour books). Since then an updated edition has been published with some rules revisions and re released in 2017 and Ironfist has since been absorbed by Plastic Soldier Company. The rule book is a 170 page gorgeous hardback filled with glossy paper and stunningly painted miniatures. Rules are easy to follow with plenty of examples illustrated and written to help break them down. Included are scenarios and army lists for the 3rd Canadian and 12th SS representing their clash in Normandy.

Battlegroup wargaming rules in my opinion are the perfect balance of simulation, tactics, and playability. The game does not get bogged down in needing to look at a chart for the Coriolis effect of an 88mm shell but also has enough crunch for tanks to feel vastly different depending on their armor. BG has the ubiquitous igougo system but also many opportunities for the opposing player to interrupt with ambush fire and reserve moves. If you could describe Warlord Game’s Bolt Action as the movie “Kelly’s Heroes” then Battlegroup would be the entire series of Band of Brothers. There is nothing wrong with either and both excel at what they put on the table. Sometimes I just feel like commanding a company and planning combined arms attacks, where Bolt Action allows me to play out a hollywood esque movie.

I will go more into the defining mechanics and how to play BG in further blog posts. Battlegroup can be played with just about any size miniatures but works best with 15mm or 20mm minis. 28mm will work as well but once you get to company size games you will start to get a crowded table. While I recommend individual basing, if you are coming from a system like Flames of War and have your infantry based on a stand then the game is perfectly playable, you will just need a micro dice or something similar to mark casualties. I will go into the mechanics of the system more on further blog posts in the coming weeks. In the newest edition of the rulebook it contains army lists for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 12th SS forces pitted against each other in Normandy. Other force lists, scenarios, and campaigns can be found in any of the other ten Battlegroup supplements. They range from the beginning of the war in France and Poland to the Fall of the Reich. The developers, Mr. Warwick and Piers Brand (another one of my favorites from back in the Force on Force days) are constantly working on new supplements with Pacific and Stalingrad in the works.

Many of the wide ranging supplements available to players (Source: theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk)

I am getting a bit ahead of myself though…so I should explain what has brought me back into the World War two tabletop arena. I have two perfectly serviceable 28mm WW2 armies..and two quite lovely 15mm WW2 armies…so why oh why would I ever…ever join the cult of 20mm gaming? 20mm (1//72) just has the perfect balance of character and size for me. I can field a company of tanks on a 6x4 without it being to crowded but also they still have some “heft and size” to them. It is all about immersion of me and it fits just right. 20mm is fairly hard to locate in the United States and not near as popular as it is overseas but this is my passion project so I am going on full steam. I have set about to build a British company and a German late war company that could be used to fight most battles after the landings and up to the end of the war. Each week I strive to jot down my progress, thoughts, paints, minis, and eventually a battle report once these oh so lovely minis are painted!

My test sample British…the first of many! Miniatures are the excellent 20mm AB Miniatures. They can be found from AB in AU and Eureka in the US and UK.