Birthday Battlegroup Overlord games

Played two games of Battle Group Overlord on my Dads birthday with my son Steven as his opponent and me performing umpire duties.
Used a scenario entitled St Sylvain from the Kampfgruppe Normandy set (pre-cursor to Battlegroup series).
First game was played as per the scenario ie down table length and second used same table and forces but played across table width.
Only change I made to rules was to ignore the ammo limit rules for ordinance (mainly as I could not be bothered with bookkeeping !) this made for a fast and furious couple of games as Tanks hunted each other relentlessly.
I get the game idea behind the ammo limits but seem rather low and fiddly for a tactical level game and prefer the Panzer Grenadier system of Low Ammo being a random event (ie snake eye rolls) so used same in Battlegroup with any unit pulling a Low Ammo chit taking a -1 for shooting (as it turned out no such chits pulled).
My Dad won the first game as Steven realized that charging with Shermans is not a workable tactic especially when his Achilles failed to brew the single Tiger (2 x 2D6 rolls needing 7+ failed !!) which then went on to almost single-handedly destroy the British Armour force (6 Shermans 3 Fireflies and an Achilles) even getting help from a Bf109 with bombs ! meanwhile the British FAC failed to get any RAF flights on call.
Second game was a more cagey affair with the Germans this time suffering (my Dad lost the Tiger early on and 3 Stugs and 2 PzIV soon followed).
Second game saw a lot more Infantry action than first with a nasty town battle costing both sides but with Germans reaching their break level quickest.
Both sides got fighter bomber support in this one.

Fun games with an easily taught and playable set of rules that I have not used for awhile.

 The birthday boy.................

The Barr men (my brother joined us later) Warren, Douglas, Steven and yours truly

Catching up

Been a busy few days so behind on postings

Did manage to finish the Die Fighting II game with Prussians coming out on top mainly due to their Left Wing mounted Command annihilating Russians horse and then turning on the flank of adjacent Russian Infantry Brigade.
Quite a satisfying game as initial try with DFII, lots of decision points in the game especially with Command Dice Allocation and in particular that of the CinC.
Once things go against an army its status can degenerate very quickly in DF.

I then used exactly same forces and table (no time to re-arrange) for try out of 18th Century Principles Of War rules.
Really like sequence of play (reminiscent of old WRG 1645-1815 set) and the fact that hard for mounted to charge home against steady Infantry.
Rather more bookkeeping involved, as units use Strength Points, but use of small dice alleviated this.
Tactical movement system rather generous maybe for 18th Century troops but otherwise a fine and very playable set of rules.

Also played a game of Field Of Glory Renaissance at Stephens (he is big fan of these) with my Early Imperialists against a Later Swedish force.
This proved to be a very interesting game with a lot of bloodshed on both sides.

Another turn of Die Fighting II

Managed another turn today with ongoing solo game.

Quite a lot of Cavalry combat due to multiple Cavalry Action cards being turned.

As I play I am noting an overall streamlining of the game system compared to original DF.

Several 'chrome' type rules have gone such as Blown Cavalry, and indeed Skirmisher rules these are replaced by entries on the Period Templates or the use of the Black Dice and therefore less of a rules overhead to remember.

Cannot find a firm definition of how units count for "supporting both flanks" (think it was discussed on Repique Rules forum ?) or if or how multiple unit melees occur and one or two rules/concepts take a couple of readings to sink in but otherwise so far have always found an answer on the 'Quick Sheet', the PDF or the Period rules.

Really liking the ability to restock Resource Dice per Command and the CinCs ability to 'share' his hoard of Resources which is a key Command aspect in the game.

The card phasing system works well with the unknown factor of which cards are in the Discard pile each turn. 

I enjoyed the old DF variants for card phasing but this is again an easier system to play and yet still evokes a good game narrative.

So far so good will be interesting to see how the Infantry clash goes.

Die Fighting II using Seven Years War kit

Trying out the new version of Die Fighting by Bob Jones in solo venture using my Seven Years War Prussians and Russians.
I used Warfare In Age Of Reason to roll up a tabletop and used the dice values of units from original Die Fighting to generate a couple of reasonably equal forces but with Prussians attacking as such.
Rolled for Leader qualities but stuck with generic values for units (ie Elites are Crack, Line are Average, etc).
I used Bobs suggested x 3 initial dice per command (instead of x2) to generate Resource dice.
The new card system is very nice (I thought I might miss the more varied system of DF but no) with a maximum of 6 phases per turn out of a basic 8 card deck (I placed some of the solo type cards into Russian deck).
This works well to generate usual Bob Jones turn chaos !! my favourite method of gaming especially when going solo.
Already this has seen the Russian Cavalry Brigade on their right get the drop on opposing Prussian mounted.
However they failed to cause any damage and indeed lost (albeit narrowly) the initial Melee Combats.
Artillery has only just got targets and Prussian Infantry are advancing steadily.
The moving and combat systems are essentially the same as in original DF with a few tweaks to the Dice Templates outcomes with main one being addition of 'Black dice'.
These are 'awarded' if a melee lost badly and are rolled as a minus total (this was late optional rule in DF) but can be rallied off.
All the usual re-rolls of lowest and multiples dice, extra 'Free' dice, Command dice are present from original rules still based on varying troop quality and tactical circumstances.
Also now a loss of 13+ dice results in a destroyed unit rather than just a costly Rout, I like this as DF felt a bit bloodless at times.

Biggest and most welcome change is the generation of Resource Dice.
In DF this was based on unit values to generate an overall army total but in DFII it is now based on Commander quality.
Each Commander generates his own pool of dice with the CinC having a 'bucket' he can distribute to other commands at start or during game.
Also on the Restore card (Known as 4R card) the Commanders get to roll to regenerate used dice.
This I really like as in DF the resource dice seemed to dwindle rapidly especially when attacking whereas now they can be restored and indeed Inert Brigades can accumulate a good old stock.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out over course of full game which I hope to complete over next few evenings or so.

Only real downside for me is the PDF style rules (combined with a nice video presentation) as I would still prefer a good old style printed set, but that is just the old curmudgeon in me !!