Battlegroup NORTHAG CENTAG Omnibus

By Tom Gall

Plastic Soldier Publishing shipped to various corners of the earth the latest in rules and lists for the Battlegroup NORTHAG/CENTAG. Battlegroup NORTHAG brought Cold War gone hot set in the early 1980s to the Battlegroup series of rules back in 2020. The Battlegroup CENTAG supplement was later published, introducing more nations, more lists and another mission.

This new hardcover edition binds together the original rulebook the one supplement along with a couple of new nations, a few more lists, inside of a hardcover book. The past review of the rules on NoDiceNoGlory still stands.

The first play through as part of the review is worth a revisit if you are new to the system to get a sense how it plays.

The arrangement of the book is as you’d expect, the original rules, the supplement and then the new French Armoured Battlegroup, followed by the Swedish Armoured Battlegroup. What you won’t find is a table of contents for the entire book. This isn’t fatal as due to the page layout, it’s easy to determine the sections of the book since they really stick out. Each section in turn has a table of contents. No biggie.

The page numbers across the whole book are consistent, meaning everything has been updated. There are however indexes per section, not for the entire book. Regrettably the Centag section index and table of contents both have the old page numbers not the new.

The quick reference sheet, roster sheet and chits is located at the end of the first section, which are their original locations, at the back of the first book. It’s easy enough to photocopy though perhaps in the omnibus they might have been better at the end of the tome.

What’s changed?

The first area of note is the past errata that has been compiled over the years and shared in the Facebook group has generally been applied. I didn’t crawl through to validate that each and every fix was applied, nor did I validate that the notes in the errata doc exactly match what the community had recorded. The spot checks I did do were all ship shape.

The existing rules has lists the cover the Soviet army, British army of the Rhine, the US Army, the Bundeswehr, the Royal Dutch army, the Canadian army, the Danish army, and other Warsaw Pact nations (East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia). New to this addition are the French and Swedes that we’ll look at in detail.

French Armoured Battlegroup

The French in 1983 had been prepared to join the NATO battle line presumably in West Germany has a war broken out. The AMX-10 range of vehicles, the many VAB vehicles are all represented. Unlike other systems like Team Yankee, you might find yourself struggling to field the many different variants that existed. That is however the joy of Battlegroup, the rules represent the vehicles in use and you’ll be inspired to have those variations like say the AMX-10 RATAC because it’ll be useful to field.

During this time the AMX-30B2 was the workhorse of the French tanker, with 5 per squadron. At 150 points for 5, it’s a solid unit.

French infantry have the option of being mounted up in VABs or AMX-10Ps. The average infantry platoon is made up of 3 fire teams and 2 anti-tank teams with the ability to add a Milan team, a NF-1 sGPMP weapons team or a sniper team.

Like other NATO nations there is a wide variety of sometimes special other times bread and butter units from Infantry, Tanks, Forward Air Controllers, Electronic Warfare, Ground Surveillance Radar, Supply Trucks and Ambulances to name a few.

For artillery the French have 120mm mortars and 155mm self propelled howitzers besides various off board artillery and even air support options. Remember off board artillery in Battlegroup is really off table, no need modeling units that wouldn’t be near the front.

The French have AA options are part of their Forward Screen units but oddly not as part of the Main Column forces. This feels like an oversight.

Over all the French forces should be easy to field in 15mm especially if you turn to Battlefront Plastic/Resin/Lead.

Swedish Armoured Battlegroup

The Swedish army list is assumed to be an expeditionary force. Their list is full of uniquely Swedish hardware making a fun army to field. The S-tank, the Strv 104 Centurion, IKV91, the Pbv 302 range, the Pvrbv 551, Tgb11, Lvrbv701, Rapier, RBS97  and plenty more is all represented.

The main tanks that the Swedes employed are the Strv 103B (S-Tank) and the Strv 104 Centurion. A platoon of either is 3 tanks, and are 90 or 111 points respectively. Vanguard versions of these units can add a single tank.

A Swedish mechanised platoon is made up of 7 fire teams with 4 Pbv302s. They can add a sGPMG weap0ns team, sniper team or Carl Gustov. Additionally they can add an Rbs 56 ATGM (Bill) or an Rbs 69 MANPAD to round out the unit.

Summary

Battlegroup for the Cold War era continues to be a great system. It’s scale agnostic, so if your group prefers 20mm, 15mm, 10mm etc, you’re covered. While the lists are point costed, it’s not used in tournament play as far as I know. It represents the time period well and is worth your time.