Battlegroup Market Garden weekend

[Fire at Will]

Fought over the weekend at the Airbus Sports & Social club on Deeside. Friday afternoon was spent setting up the terrain for the game and here it is from South (just beyond Eindhoven) to North (Arnhem). Note a few more buildings were added early on Saturday







Veghel


US airborne landing zone (spot the crashed glider)


Horrible swampy group




Waal bridge and canal


Arnhem




I was quite involved with my games, so only a few pictures of the games in progress and other bits and pieces that caught my eye.

Fighting in Veghel


British Paras fighting in the swampy ground (My paras fighting on a Lend Lease basis to Steve B from the club)


XXX Corps in action


Sami's (from Finland) panthers in action


Paras hunting down German armour in Arnhem


I didn't take any pictures of my first game(??), but here's the secoond


A bridge too far! a Brummbar destroyed one of my canal bridges, but luckily I had built a wrecked one.


Some pictures of those very nice paper and foamcore buildings seen in the Battlegroup. Still not convinced that they are robust enough for "normal" wargames use






Day 1 ended wit the Allied players marginally ahead by +3 points. For my games with the US airborne I marginally won the recce scenario in the morning, but then marginally lost the flanking attack in the afternoon. It had been quite an intense day and no chance to look properly at what was going on on the other tables, even the adjacent ones.

Day 2 saw my US airborne in defence of Veghel so here's a picture after my deployment


Things then went rapidly downhill as I was immediately intensively pounded by artillery an lost my single AT gun, which I was hoping to cover the bridge. From then on it was a hold at all costs and by the end I had just managed it. So I managed a marginal win, while the Allies as a whole did badly with the overall score being -4 in the Germans favour so winning them the campaign. So it was again a bridge too far!

Thanks to my opponents Steve, Graham and Guys who were a pleasure to play against.

[Adler]

Excellent looking game
L

[Kalinovsky]

Are the paper and foam core buildings those from Wikkywok on eBay? I’ve always wondered about those.

[mausmann]

Excellent game, thanx for posting....

[Fire at Will]

Are the paper and foam core buildings those from Wikkywok on eBay? I’ve always wondered about those.

I think they are the same, but there are none on ebay to cross-check at the moment

[Ed mac]

Looks like you had a great game,loved the scenery

[Don McHugh]

Loving all the terrain.

Am I right in thinking this is a series of small games linked by a theme rather than one big table?

Do the BG rules not allow you to play large multiplayer games?

Don

[Fire at Will]

Loving all the terrain.

Am I right in thinking this is a series of small games linked by a theme rather than one big table?

Do the BG rules not allow you to play large multiplayer games?

Don

Correct

They don't like multi-player as they get unmanageable. The only knock on effect is if your side loses on an adjoining table you have to immediately take a chit!

Not at all sure about the canal on the north of the Waal - I think that it's a modern addition.

[Zacman]

Nicely done again Will.
Mike

[sediment]

Correct

They don't like multi-player as they get unmanageable. The only knock on effect is if your side loses on an adjoining table you have to immediately take a chit!

We have played larger multi-player games with Battlegroup. For a full days play, about the largest force an average player can cope with is a full company/squadron plus supports. Each player needs to have their own force list and break point, rolling their own orders each turn. You could allocate an overall CO with their own orders dice to roll and allocate as necessary, but probably an additional complication that isn't needed. For a weekends gaming, you'd probably need two or three different battlegroups, so you have reinforcements for day 2 and/or just in case you get something nasty happen, you never know when those big guns will land! Alternatively, what we did was to play individual tables, which formed part of the big picture, but were more like little cameos of a much bigger action.

One of the best ways to play this might be to have a map showing the larger disposition of forces and play out games where the map forces meet - that would certainly make for an interesting campaign and could possibly be organised so individual games were played in different locations/clubs, perhaps with everyone coming together for the big finale.

Cheers, Andy

[sediment]

This is a link to one of our bigger battlegroup games.

https://sedimentswargameblog.blogspot.c ... -caen.html

Cheers, Andy

[Don McHugh]

Having been very lucky to play in a number of very large games over the years, I couldn't see how the BG rules would work.

Playing around a large table covered in figures under the control of several players is for me one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby.

The key to these games is to have a team of people prepared to put the work in to bring them together and a set of rules that allow the game to flow.

Don

[Greebs]

Thank goodness there are so many folks willing to throw their hat into the historical ruleset ring that there's something to suit every taste.

While I can guarantee I lack the breadth of experience of multi player games you do, for myself, I find the more players are involved, the greater the tendency to either break up into a series of two-player games that happen to be played on a shared table, or simply grind to a halt under the weight of all those players chatting to/across each other without actually getting much gaming done.

[mausmann]

I’ve been lucky enough to both host and take part in many multi player large games, and for me they have been great fun to participate in.

Without the organisation and willing players, as Don points out, it can devolve into a splintered game as Greebs suggests.
However if handled correctly with the GM maintaining connectivity it can still work. We’ve sometimes allowed different sections of the large table to move at their own pace to continue the playability of the game. That way no-one has to wait for a slower part of the game to catch up.