Chain of Command - WWII platoon scale wargames

[chad]

Hi all,

well, it was my birthday yesterday. This is a boring and irrelevant fact. However, more relevant (and hopefully more interesting) is that as a present I received a copy of the 'Chain of Command' rules from my dear wife and children (how did they know...). These are for platoon scale wargames - around 30 infantry figures a side with varying levels of support depending on the scenario being played. Support can range from extra leaders, engineers or extra infantry sections through anti-tank guns and other crew served weapons all the way up to off table artillery support and tanks of varying power.

The company that makes the rules have a blog, with an introductory set of notes you can look at here:

toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=3282

The recommended scale is 25/28mm, although any scale of figures should work. I was thinking about maybe diving in and buying a platoon or two - would anyone else be interested in joining me in trying these out?

[chad]

No one??? How about pictures of toys you could buy:

store.warlordgames.com/collections/british-army
store.warlordgames.com/collections/soviet-army
store.warlordgames.com/collections/german-army
store.warlordgames.com/collections/us-army

[dan]

If it works with FoW basing and scale I could give it a go?

[chad]

Well Dan it works with 15mm, but not with FoW basing - you need single figures for Chain of Command (as it's a skirmish style game) so unless you have some spare figures you can single base then FoW bases probably won't work - I say probably but you could always abstract it out.

Then again FoW bases would work very well for Crossfire......

[dan]

That'd work too.

[Katie]

I have some part-painted 28mm Germans. What do the org charts look like for CoC?

I've also got, in storage, unpainted American army & airborne. And various vehicles. I've got some British Airborne as well, but none of the support stuff done.

[Katie]

Oh, I have a tonne of Russians as well but i have no idea whether I've got enough support for them.

[chad]

Organisation charts are pretty generic - you can find some army lists from the website I linked above - the main rule book has 44-45 NW Europe and late Eastern front lists. So for Germans the basic grenadier platoon is a platoon and a panzerschrek team, then three squads consisting of an 'obergefreiter' wiht an LMG team of three men and a six-man rifle team. Then depending on how well you roll for your support options you can choose fairly low level support like engineering teams, then crew-served weapons like machine guns, anti-tanks guns, mortars. Higher levels of support get you armoured support, which starts out as armoured cars, all the way up to JadPanthers and SturmTigers. However, if you're a high quality platoon (e.g. Fallschmirjager) vs a low quality platoon (e.g. a green Soviet platoon) you'll generally have less support available than your opponent. Either way, you'll probably only be able to deploy one tank plus maybe a crew-served weapon at most, but if you choose to take lower support options you can have more of them. So basically you don't need FoW levels of figures. Note that most indirect fire weapons of medium mortar size and above are only represented on table by FOOs, so you don't need to worry too much about figures for these (so put away those Nebelwerfers now!).

Sample 1940s German army list here: toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=1832, and a blog about selecting your army support here: toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=1739

[simonb]

Chad,

Have you decided what scale to use? WW2 isn't normally my thing, but I have seen many reports extolling the virtues of CoC, so I could possibly be tempted. Meanwhile I'd better try to make some progress with the Hittites.

Simon

[chad]

I was thinking about 25/28mm, but then remembered I have a load of spare 15mm stuff that would probably save a bit of expense. I'll need to dig out my spares boxes and see what I have.

[Katie]

I only have 28mm stuff for WW2.

I'm not averse to getting some 15mm stuff -- I've been wanting to try the Battlegroup rules and although they work in 28mm, you need a HUGE table.

[Katie]

Although since I have Normandy both sides in 28mm & vehicles, I'd probably want to focus on Eastern front if I was switching scale; and PSC conveniently has Germany and Russia in plastic. (There are some nice army deals there).