Battle
Cry WWII
Very,
very First Draft !
First of
all, I beg your pardon for my English as it isn’t my native language which is
French.
This is an
attempt to adapt the excellent « Battle Cry » System from Avalon
Hill© to the World War Two period.
The three
principals ideas which drive this project are:
·
KEEP IT SIMPLE: As this is the main thing that
pleased me in Battle Cry. I’ve spent five years in the Wargame hobby (as a
player only) and searched a lot for a rule simple, fun and complete. I’ve played
a lot of different rules and was regularly disappointed by the hours and hours
of time spent to learn the rules, to translate it to my clubmates and to search
in numerous tables the results of a simple fire.
Battle Cry was
explained/translated to my friends in 5 minutes and we played 5 scenarios in
four hours when, with others rules, we hardly finish one game.
Nonetheless,
the diversity of armament and types of units in WW2 leads to an amount of
complexity in this add-on but the goal is to keep it the lightest possible.
·
KEEP THE FEELING OF THE
PERIOD: I’ve
read a lot on the American Civil War and particularly on the battles and the two
things that surprised me were the lethality of the weapons and the lack of
command during this war.
These two things are very well and simply
represented in Battle Cry.
·
KEEP THE MATERIAL OF THE
GAME: As I’m
not a game producer, I don’t want to have to make new dices, new cards
etc.! And I want that all players
could play this game with the material of Battle Cry, to encourage them to buy
the game !
They should only have to buy the figures (1/300th could
be nice).
What I
would like now is that every readers of this document could suggest me ideas to
make it better but keeping in mind the three “commandments” above. Especially if
you can find some smart mechanisms which can simplify these additional rules.
My E-mail
is: [email protected].
Please send
me your comments as here are only ideas which are not yet been
playtested.
Everything
in BCWW2 remains the same as in Battle Cry except what
follows.
As in
Battle Cry, there’s only four types of unit in BCWW2:
·
“Cavalry”: Indeed vehicles as AFV, Trucks, etc. Each unit
has three figures
·
Artillery : Guns, AT guns etc. Each unit has two
figures.
·
Infantry: Rifles, HMG, Mortars, Engineers, Forward
Observers. Rifles and Engineers have four figures, HMG and mortars, two and FO,
one.
·
Officers: One figure.
In BCWW2,
each unit has (or not !) an AT and an HE capability.
AT fire is
performed on armoured target (AFV, Halftracks etc) and HE fire is performed on
other targets.
Each
vehicle has three characteristics:
·
Its armour: Light, Medium or
Heavy.
·
It’s
speed: Slow, Regular or
Fast.
·
It’s
armament: Light, Medium or
Heavy.
Armour:
Light |
Medium |
Heavy |
|
+ 1
Combat die for AT fire against this target. |
Normal number of Combat
dies. |
-1
Combat die for AT fire against this
target. |
Speed:
|
Slow |
Regular |
Fast |
|
1 hex
move. |
2
hexes move. |
Three
hexes move. |
Armament:
Light |
Medium |
Heavy |
|
-1
die for AT/HE fire. |
Normal number. |
+1
die to AT/HE fire and +1 hex to
range. |
Combat dices and range:
|
AT
Fire |
4, 3,
2, 1. |
|
HE
Fire |
3 (4
if MG equipped), 3, 2, 1. |
Some
samples (1):
|
Vehicle |
Armour |
Armament |
Speed |
|
Panther |
Heavy |
Heavy+MG |
Fast |
|
Tiger
I |
Heavy |
Heavy+MG |
Slow |
|
Panzer IV
H |
Medium |
Heavy+MG |
Regular |
|
M4
Sherman |
Medium |
Medium+MG |
Regular |
|
M8 Armoured
Car |
Light |
Light+MG |
Fast |
|
M4
Firefly |
Medium |
Heavy+MG |
Regular |
Unarmed or
HMG only equipped (halftracks by example) vehicles have no AT capabilities and
then use the HMG characteristics that could be found on the Infantry
section.
II-2) Artillery
By
simplification, every artillery unit on-board can only perform direct
fire.
Only
off-board artillery and mortars can perform indirect fire.
Artillery
can be Light, Medium or Heavy.
Light |
Medium |
Heavy |
|
-1
die for AT/HE fire. |
Normal number. |
+1
die to AT/HE fire and +1 hex to
range. |
Only Light
and Medium Artillery can move one hex and the Battle Cry rule apply (move or
fire).
Combat dices and range:
|
AT
Fire |
4, 3,
2, 1. (-1 die if not AT gun) |
|
HE
Fire |
5, 4,
3, 2, 1. (-2 dices if AT gun) |
Off-board
artillery can only be requested by a Forward Observer or by an Officer. See the
relevant section.
.
Combat dices:
|
|
Light |
Medium |
Heavy |
|
AT/HE
Fire |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Some
samples (1):
|
Gun
(On-Board) |
Type |
Gun
(Off-Board) |
Type |
|
German 88
AT/AA |
Heavy
|
German
150mm |
Heavy
|
|
German Pak
35/36 |
Light |
German 105
mm |
Light |
|
German Pak
38 |
Medium |
German
75mm |
Medium |
|
US
37mm |
Light |
US
75mm |
Light |
|
US
57mm |
Medium |
US
105mm |
Medium |
|
US
76mm |
Heavy |
US
155mm |
Heavy |
II-3) Infantry
Infantry
units are:
·
Rifles, SMG and other small arms units: Four
figures.
·
HMG
units: Two figures.
·
Mortars units: Two
figures.
·
Engineers units: Four
figures.
·
Forward observers units: One
figures.
Every
infantry unit can move one hex, except Forward observer who can move three
hexes.
Mortar
units are ruled like artillery (move or fire).
An infantry
unit can be transported by a trucks or halftracks unit put it must spend its
Combat action to load/unload on the transport. If the truck or halftrack unit is
destroyed, the transported units are also destroyed.
Combat dices and range:
|
AT
Fire |
4 (5
if infantry with AT Weapon like bazooka or
Engineers). |
|
HE
Fire |
4 (5
if Engineers), 3, 2, 1. 5, 4,
2, 1 if HMG. |
An engineer
unit can spend its activation (move + combat) to perform an engineer
task:
·
Lay or
remove mines in one hex. See the “some other thoughts…”
section,
·
Make
½ bridge on a river hex, so two
consecutives activations to make an entire bridge (negates then the river
effect).
·
Construct one fieldworks
item.
A mortar
unit can perform an indirect fire in one hex, in LOS of one of the infantry
units.
Mortars can
be Light (< 80 mm), Medium (80mm <=
and < 100mm) or Heavy (>= 100mm).
Combat dices and range:
|
|
Light
mortars |
Medium mortars |
Heavy
mortars |
|
AT
Fire |
0 die |
1 die |
2 dices |
|
HE
Fire |
3
dices |
4
dices |
5
dices |
A Forward
Observer has no fire capability but can be attached to a unit with the same
rules as for officers (cannot be killed with the unit) but without the bonus to
combat ! if the FO unit is alone on an hex, it can be killed like an infantry
unit.
It can
request an Off-table artillery fire for its Combat action.
To succeed
an FO must obtain a “Flag” or “Crossed Sabres” symbol on one Combat
Die.
The
targeted hexagon must be on sight for officers. If the FO doesn’t actually see
the targeted hex then his request succeed only on a “Crossed Sabres”
symbol
Officers
are ruled like in the Battle Cry game except that it can request off-board
artillery as its combat action. An Officer must have the targeted hex in LOS.
The request succeed if he obtains a “Crossed Sabres” on one Combat Die
.
An hex can
be mined before the battle occurs (the player notes on a paper the hex
coordinates) or by Engineers.
In the
first case, the player can only mine an hex which is in its 3 hexes deep
side.
A mined hex
has a strength of 3 Combat dices against every target which enters in the
hex.
In order to
avoid the “SS-Panzer-Division-At-Full-Strength” phenomena well known by every
WWII player in the world, I suggest to follow the historical proportions that
can be found on books or to follow the proportions given in the original Battle
Cry: Ten infantry units, two or three cavalry units and two or three artillery
units.
A point
system could also balance the game.
The cost of
a unit could be:
((number of
AT + HE dices) X by each hex of range +/-1 for armour) X by hexes of movement X
number of figures.
Example:
For a
Panther unit: AT is 5,4,3,2,1 (Heavy Gun) HE is also 5,4,3,2,1 (Heavy Gun +
HMG)
It’s an
heavy armoured vehicle so: +1
It ‘s a
fast vehicle: 3 hexes of movement.
Each unit
has three tanks
Then the
cost of the Panther unit could be:
((5+5)X1 +
(4+4)X2 + (3+3)X3 + (2+2)X4 + (1+1)X5 +1)
X 3
X 3 = 639
The cost of
a Rifle unit:
((4+4)X1 +
3 X 2 + 2 X 3+ 1X4 ) X 1 X 4 = 96
To be
completed. Can be managed as Off-Board Artillery.
(1): The classification of Light, Medium or Heavy
is very difficult and subjective so if you don’t find it appropriate for these
examples , well… Change it as you wish
!!!