Battlegroup

By Troy A. Hill
All images courtesy of IronFist Publishing.

When IronFist Publishing and  (PSC) first published their Overlord book in 2013, the tome weighed in at 240-ish pages. The book covered the Western Europe forces in D-Day operations, as well as D-Day+1 up until the defeat in the Falaise Pocket.

IronFist and PSC recently republished a partial re-release of the book:  (BtB) that covers “the battles inland” after D-day. The reprint is slightly over half the pages of the original (at 136 pages).

by Troy A. Hill
Photos by the Author

I’ve recently begun a series that looks at the . This piece will look at some basic rules of the game. All page references are from the Battlegroup Rule Book, hardcover revised edition.

Winning the Game: 

The first question a player asks of any game is: “how do I win” (or lose)? In Battlegroup, there are several ways: controlling all objectives at the end of your opponent’s turn, causing the opposing force to be destroyed or pinned so they cannot use any orders on their next turn, or (as

occurs most often) when your opponent’s Battle Counter Chits sum exceed their force’s Battle Rating.

Battlegroup uses a secret countdown of these Battle Counter tokens as a core mechanic. During the course of the game, players will be required to blindly draw morale “chits” from a bag or cup. These chits range up in value from one to five points each. Typically, there are more of the middle numbers (two and three) than there are ones and fives in the pool of chits. There are also special chits, with beneficial effects for the one who draws them. I will cover these more in a later piece.

By Troy A. Hill
Photos by the Author

This is the first of a series looking at the Battlegroup wargaming rules. This piece originally appeared on WWPD.net and is being reprinted here as part of an ongoing look at the Battlegroup game system.

Battlegroup is The Plastic Soldier Company’s entry into the WWII gaming system. Written by Warwick Kinrade, the rules system is a tight, fairly historical approach to gaming at a variety of force sizes, in either 15mm or 20mm scales.

They have published a core rulebook, and a variety of Theatre of Operations books, including (as of now): Kursk, Barbarosa, Blitzkrieg, Tobruk, Overlord, Bulge (Wacht Am Rhein), Market Garden, and Fall of the Reich.

I’ve had a chance to read the rules and begin some skirmish games at our local gaming club. The rules are different, much different than what I’m used to with other systems. But, they’re not complicated. The biggest challenge I’ve faced has been trying to think inside of the Battlegroup rules, and not applying rules from another game set.

This article will look at the Battlegroup main rulebook, its layout, and how it presents the core of the Battlegroup system. The rules themselves will be covered in later write-ups.

The Rule Book

Battlegroup is published by  and is distributed by Plastic Soldier Company (PSC).  The rules were written by Warwick Kinrade, with assistance from Piers Brand. The rulebook was originally published as a small paperback book distributed with the Battlegroup Kursk theatre book. It now exists as a hardcover, stand-alone product.

By Troy A. Hill

Piers (left) and Warwick (right) performing historical research for a period other than WWII.

With Warwick Kinrade. All photos courtesy of Ironfist Publishing.

This piece originally appeared on WWPD.net and is being reprinted here as part of an ongoing look at the Battlegroup game system.

I recently had a chance to correspond with Warwick Kinrade, primary author of the , published by  and The .

He’s had help along the way from Piers Brand, the other half of the Ironfist Publishing force. In what I’ve learned is true “Piers Fashion” he deferred all of my questions about the game design of Battlegroup to Warwick.