Battlegroup Bagration : batrep

By Tom Gall

A number of weeks back I received my copy of Battlegroup Bagration, the latest source book written by Warwick Kinrade and published by the Plastic Soldier Company.

Battlegroup is a set of WWII rules, written back in 2012. It was made for 15/20mm and as a result for a gamer like myself, present the opportunity for me to utilize my Battlefront lead for more than one game system.

As Battlegroup has been around a while, the system has a long list of source books available which each focus on various time periods of the war.

Bagration, as you’ll recall, occurred on the eastern front during the summer of 1944, where German Army Group Center effectively disintegrated.

The new 182 page book brings new scenarios, a campaign and eight new army lists. Now that the Thanksgiving holiday was past, it was high time to put together a list and get a game in. My friend Bill and I got together this past Sunday at Gamez and More in Rochester Minnesota, our current gaming haunt.

I played Russians. I would be on the attack, and Bill’s Germans would be defensive. I put together a Russian Tank Battlegroup, with a Motor Rifle Platoon, 6 T-34/85s, 3 T-34s with tank riders, just 120mm mortars standing by and a bit of Recon to round out a 748 pt list.

The book has its own table of missions, and we rolled up one of the new ones, Ruckkampf. In this one, the Germans setup 2D6 units within 5″ of a road running the long length of the table. They could go up to the center line.  We played on a 6×4. Their mission to to exit the far edge, each time they get a unit off the Russians have to take a counter.

The Russians start with their Recon units on and only D6 units. Both sides get reinforcements of D3 units per turn with the Germans starting to roll on turn 2 and the Russians on turn 3. The Germans come on the far road edge and the Russians from a random direction from their table edge.

Further based on the roll, this would be a night action, our first battlegroup game to be at night. We quick reviewed the night rules from the main book, with the biggest thing to take into account was max visibility being reduced to 20″, but no other negative modifiers.

There were just two objectives, one in the middle of the table and one on the far edge by the exit road.

Bill rolled well and I rolled poorly for our initial forces so I was scrambled and doing my best “none shall pass” across the front. I had a single T-34/85, a 57L73 ATG, and my recon forces a sniper, a squad of infantry and a B-64.

Not much to hold back, however most of my force was on ambush, given the max visibility of 20″, to hit rolls would be generally easier presuming that targets were sighted, and suppression fire was be it’s usual effective tool.

Bill started things off and his first order was to push up a German 222 recon car, he decided to throw a bunch of machine gun fire at my antitank gun. I decided to hold off using my ambush fire as I figured that it was unlikely he’d suppress the gun. Certainly better targets would be coming down the road soon like a STuG or two!  As fate would have it, he surpassed the gun and then pushed up the road.

Yielding the turn, I rolled way more ordered than I needed, and moved my loan T-34 and managed to score a hit and blow up a STuG.  Beyond that not much else to do but wait for reinforcements.

Bill pushed up with a STuG down the rail line, as well as blazing away with his 222 again, this time trying to shoot to kill. With the 20mm autocannon he managed to inflict a casualty.

I was starting to get nervous I wouldn’t get to use my ATG. With my Senior commander off table I didn’t have a way to take a counter to up pin the gun crew and then give them an order. Nibbits!  Add to that my T-34/85 misses the STuG and on the next turn the STuG would take it out.

Last, my recon infantry is also a mortar spotter so I decided to pull in the 120mm mortars which dropped but were ineffective against the 222.

Looking down the German end of the table, German reinforcements are starting to arrive. More armor, Panthers …. great and a truck with an artillery piece. At this point the Germans are starting to build up their courage, but the problem is with the Russian sniper and infantry they’re able to take out German soft skin vehicles should they decide to try and zip by.

The Germans have a choice go for it hoping to get units off table or  try and dislodge the Russian infantry with the STuGs before getting too daring but risk that Russian reinforcements crystalize a defense.

The first Russian reinforcement roll? …. a single unit, thus a T-34/85 is chosen.

The German platoon commander decides to zoom forward in his command car, and the Russians spring their ambush with the BA-64’s LMG, pop! pop! pop! As it’s a soft skin it doesn’t take more than two hits and the vehicle is destroyed as well as the command unit inside. This bump on the nose didn’t help German confidence.

More Russian reinforcements in this case another T-34/85 coming on the table at one of the random entry points. A move forward and a successful butt shot into the STuG and another burning German vehicle. The German Panther counters, that T-34 armor is only so go and from this vantage point, that’s a side shot if the Panther is able to get a hit, which it doesn’t.

Rolling forward another turn, the Russian T-34/85 fires back at the Panther, scores a hit and amazingly takes it out. More Russian reinforcements, with the arrival of infantry in a truck. They dismount and move through a section of woods.

The Germans on the other hand are able to suppress the German recon infantry in the house (right hand side of the road by the crossroads) as well as taking out the BA-64 with a well placed STuG shot. This sets things up for the Germans to “flee” a loaded truck with three units of infantry loaded up. That’s four chits to take, ouch!  The Russians have a BR of 46, but four chits at once, that’ll melt quickly!

The last picture, the Germans had brought up a Ferdinand from their reinforcements, which took a shot and hit a T-34/85.  The Russians did bounce a 85mm tank round off the front of the Ferdy which is when we discovered that the round had not chance to penetrate and of course the German crew did not fail their morale check. It’d take a side shot to take that out!

The Germans manage to use a panzerfaust against a T-34/85 at close range. At this point I was down to two left out of the six that the Russians started with.

The Germans get more off table but the Russians manage to score the elimination of the infantry which shot the panzerfaust.  Regardless the next turn more Germans are able to escape and given the number chits taken due to losses and escaped units the Germans manage a win.

A very fun and very challenging scenario. If you’re a Battlegroup player and enjoy the eastern front, I recommend the Bagration book, it’s a great addition. Further if you’ve never played Battlegroup, I also recommend it. It’s a great system.