With rebasing going forward, I have decided to evaluate several rules set with an eye to replacing Blitzkrieg Commander as my main rules set.
So far on the list:
- Rapid Fire
- Nice level of simplicity, but individual figure tracking leaves me completely cold. Distance scale is "abstract". The last time I played, there was a significant miss on the sequence of play and reserved fire.
- Command Decision
- Complete rules with high detail. Complex company-level command rules might make it hard to teach. One inch = 50m
- Spearhead
- Simple, designed to allow a full division on the table at stand=platoon. Scale of 1"=100m. The odd spearhead "thing" is writing orders by drawing a line on a map. This probably means significant planning time before a game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing,
- Panzer Korps
- A real outlier. Units of maneuver are battalions with a stand roughly a company and fire by the battalion rather than the stand. This sounds tempting, but it does throw away a lot of things people are familiar with. It just isn't like playing with tanks any more. But it is an interesting idea.
The plan is:
- Construct an interestingly complex terrain on my 5x7 table, with lots of diverse features to try rules against. I am studying the battles near Targo-Frumos, Romania in early 1944, so that area will inspire the landforms.
- With each rules set, play a series of solo games
- Once with small but diverse forces to get familiar with the mechanism
- Once with a standard regiment scale scenario, looking closely at times required to perform various parts of the rules
- Once with as large a force as I can argue on to the table -- aiming for a division on one side at least, to see just how far the rules can be stretched.
