Quote from: Fenton on 01 October 2015, 11:39:59 PM
When playing we have always go e with one tank/stand= platoon. I thought most people did

Depends on period and location. Makes no sense for Aussies in Vietnam in CWC for example, and for many of the 'Bush Wars' you would end up with one tank model and 12 infantry stands.

The rules scale well including abstractions from 'company' to divisional and even corp sized games, but getting players to understand that a single model represents up to a squadron or even a regiment is challenging.

We certainly play bases as platoon size units but then we're mainly doing Eastern Front with the odd foray into Northern France.

Points limits are in bands of complete thousands so units you can't field in full at 1000 points are available at 1250, 1500 or 1999 or whatever.

Points values have worked well for our group and I'd be loathe to lose them. As a group we've not been interested in refighting real actions but in fighting campaign battles or fictional one-offs. Believable formations in fictional situations is normally our aim.

Points values are useful as a rough analogue of strength, particularly for less experienced players.
If they are in the rules and you don't want to use them, don't.
If they aren't in the rules it is a bugger to come up with them.

Note I think I saw a FWC game being played once, that is as close as I have got to this family of rules

Welcome to all the new posters
We are mostly harmless

Quote from: Last Hussar on 01 October 2015, 11:38:05 PM
Get rid of points, put in proper lists.  I believe there are certain units you can't field the max per 1000 points without going over 1000 points.

Whatever you do, don't get rid of points.

Quote from: paulr on 02 October 2015, 04:22:48 AM
Points values are useful as a rough analogue of strength, particularly for less experienced players.
If they are in the rules and you don't want to use them, don't.
If they aren't in the rules it is a bugger to come up with them.

tHIS

Quote from: paulr on 02 October 2015, 04:22:48 AM
Points values are useful as a rough analogue of strength, particularly for less experienced players.
If they are in the rules and you don't want to use them, don't.
If they aren't in the rules it is a bugger to come up with them.

Note I think I saw a FWC game being played once, that is as close as I have got to this family of rules

Welcome to all the new posters
We are mostly harmless

Points values are great if you haven't had time to plan, and it's 30 minutes before you have to leave for the club, and there hasn't been the opportunity to work out a historical scenario or OOB, or it's FWC and there isn't one!  

Some people also seem to really enjoy the 'game-in-a-game' of working out alternate lists and options. The FWC stuff is really interesting for that, because of the immense variety of tactical doctrines you can employ, not just directly from the rules set like cybernetic organisms or swarms, but also the trade-offs between decisions like - 'giant stompy walkers' or light infantry loaded up with missiles..  heavy armour or shields? Auto linked orbital bombardment or laser weapons? And innumerable permutations thereof. So I have 'light and agile' eurofed, heavy and shooty low-tech South African Federation, tunnelling worms, high tech infantry with dropships and lots of missiles, conventional high tech Pax Arcadians and so on.

http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.com.au/search/label/FWC

and the BKC stuff

http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.com.au/search/label/BKCII

Welcome from me, too, Sparker. 
Cheers - Phil

Welcome to the forum Sparker.

May you quickly rise up the ranks.

Hi Leon,

Thanks for your feedback.  Quite understand the commercial decision, you have a business to run.  Personally, I don't have any significant gripes with BKCII, the games I have played with it work really well.  So, when do the next batch of moderns hit the streets - anything planned for the Vietnam range?

Hi Jack!

Thanks again,

Andy

Hi, Sparkles. Its surely bad enough for your sanity that you are a friend of His vonship* without joining us reprobates! Love your blog, btw. A warm welcome from me, too!


* For those not in the know, Von Peter Himself - another good blog (if you like 28mm - and Napoleonic Prussians)

As others have said, keep the points. If you want to do historical formations and set up games based on historical actions you can. And you can disregard the force structures and min/maxes quite happily. But as others have said they provide a simple, easy way to get a couple of forces on table for a game both players can enjoy with some vaguely even chance of getting stuck in without requiring masses of set up time. They do give a decent approximation of real world formations anyway (not perfect, but then even real world TOE and strength returns aren't either!), and if you actively try to follow a TOE they work even better.

Scale - I'd love a "proper" one stand = one company variant but that's significantly out of the realms of "slight tarting up to reduce ambiguity and plastering the Pendraken logo everywhere" Depending on model scale and game size I can visualise *KC as either one to one in figure scale or up to platoon scale quite happily.

Stands being reduced in combat capacity as they take fire - you could do that, and Warmaster proper does it with massive units like Dragons or Giants. Problem is, where to draw the line? The accumulated hits don't necessarily represent just actual damage, or at least not "permanent" damage, but rather are a measure of how shock and awe'd the guys are, and how close to melting away, driving at high speed out of battle to "resupply" somewhere safe, abandoning their vehicles or blowing them in place as irreparable they are.

As hits come off at end of turn (but suppressions don't) you still get the effect you see IRL - either units keep fighting, or they hunker down (suppressed) or they skeddale (hits value reached). When that's applied over the whole formation/force etc you see it replicate what happens at the higher level as some are fine, some under fire but shrug it off, some hunkered etc etc.

I wouldn't make major changes to how things work - maybe make an "official" optional rule for hits stay on (my preference is just for AFVs, as we've found infantry get too brittle otherwise), or possibly say any unit with (for instance) six hits that suffers four or more in a turn but doesn't get KO'd is reduced to four hits to kill for the rest of the game, and possibly rolls one less die in firing. But despite some odd subsystems the overall effect works ok, and it's simple and unambiguous and doesn't require book keeping during play!

For myself, BKCII works fine as it is. Yes, it needs a few things clarifying or some better explanations, plus a better layout. Other than that I wouldn't tamper with it. The core selling point for me (and this applied to the original BKC) was that I got everything in one book, with no need for supplements etc. Will I buy BKCIII? Most likely not as the current book, despite its minor flaws, provides me with a perfectly good game as it is.

When I get some time I will actually list the points I feel that need addressing, some of which have already been touched upon.

Hi all, joined so I can add to the debate on this.

Played BKC since it first came out. In fact, The very first game I ran was at a Club Special night, where I ran it as Quizkrieg Commander - questions in increasing order of difficulty - get one right, you get a move and another question. It went down so well two weeks later we had 11 people with copies of the rules. The basic reason we all loved it was that they were simple, intuitive and a good mechanism for moving toy soldiers about on a table, which is all we really wanted. Bear in mind I was able to read the rules twice and immediately understand them well enough to turn them into a Military History Quiz with shooting that worked perfectly on my first go* There are not many rule-sets out there that can make that boast.

I actually thought BKCII was a bit of a retrograde step. with the first edition You were able to look at a player's tank and go 'hmm, medium tank, mid war - it's gonna be move 20, x attacks, 4 hits and probably a 5+ armour save'. with II you had to look it up. But I got used to it and really think a major re-write would be a mistake.

So, change nothing....... but if you are GONNNA......

I would LIKE to see - and bear in mind this is all from the perspective of a man whose focus is on a GAME, not necessarily REALISM. I believe the game should always come first.

- Anti Tank guns get an armour save back - or some other mech that makes them slightly less fragile. also, as it stands if you kill the horse you lose the gun, and horses die really easily. They are a tad too fragile now.

- a fix for spotting. For example as it stands two groups of infantry can end up hunkered down opposite each other, with no way of knowing the other unit are there until someone's nerve breaks and they open fire. It may be realistic but it's not fun in the game - and i LIKE games more than realism.

- the upgrade for infantry with Anti -Tank weapons is good, until someone chooses to ignore the base with rifles to shoot the base with the bazooka. Gamey, but that's what a wise man will do.

- clear and precise rules for cover and indirect fire

- the assault rules in i were a mess, ii were better but still a bit of a faf.

- we play pick-up games mostly. Many of our gamers were raised on systems like DBM where the rules are the rules, and if the rules allow it, and it's to your advantage, you do it. Behold - massed artillery. I would like much stricter max/mins to take this into account. Scenario and orbat gamers can of course ignore these!

-Better lay-out. The rules themselves are only a few pages, it's daft that we find ourselves leafing backward and forward trying to find things we should know, but we do.

- Blunders - the first edition Blunder effects were so mild as to be almost harmless. The second edition ones have some real stingers in them. A middle ground would be better.


Things I would very much NOT want to see;

- a return to the general availability of suppressing fire against armour. It can slow the game down a lot when a desperate man tries to suppress tanks with every rifle, mortar, machine-gun and pea-shooter as he has nothing else left to hit them with.

- a major change to the order mechanism. It's simple, it's clean and it works. Yes, sometimes you may roll terribly and not get a command off. Yes, sometimes your foe rolls 9,8,7,6,5,4,...... and slaughters a unit - but they are rare and it's a game. and frankly, it can be quite hilarious. If you MUST change them, perhaps consider allowing players to purchase a couple of re-rolls as part of their force selection?

- in fact, i want to se no MAJOR CHANGES at all, the rules work. I cannot think of one set of rules that was markedly improved by a subsequent version. I can think of quite a few that were killed stone dead by a major re-write.

- Supplements. No, please - it's wonderful to have one book, one set of rules, all the army lists in one place.

May I finish these suggestions with a re-iteration of my general point – I approach the game as a game. Many people will look at what I say and think 'Hmmmm but no SENSIBLE player with a knowledge of the game would choose to reverse their tank , then move it forwards at an arc to ensure the opposing player always has to Opportunity fire at the front of the tank – that's not realistic' and I agree with that argument – but I also agree with the counter argument that when playing chess you don't go 'Hmmm – Knights didn't actually charge in an L-Shape, that's not realistic – we shall make up a house rule to fix that'. Wargame rules are wargame RULES, and are a structure around which you hang your game. Two strangers should be able to meet, arrange a game, and play using the rules without having to explain that when 'WE play it's not kosher to target the lad with the Panzerfaust if he is not the closest infantry target', or 'WE always say you cannot have more Hummels than were actually manufactured by Rheinmettal-Borsig'  and so on.


Pat

* almost perfectly - I misread the rules for artillery and allowed the FAO to use them again and again just like other shooting if he got the rolls off.... ouch.

Welcome to the forum, Pat ! 
'Sane' Max ?......Not sure that's appropriate with this bunch.   
Cheers - Phil

oh, and stick to the soft-back format, 'Perfect Bound' means all your pages fall out, and cheaply bound hardbacks with saddle stitch can never stand up to the rigours of use. Oh, and the lamination on your covers always peels.  

I know a good Printer if you are looking......  No I can't get you a discount.  .

Pat

The points and limitations are the worst part of the rules. I see this game a scenario driven system, which works best at a brigade/Rgt level. The limitations are therefore fairly silly. That said some restrictions on artillery should be made.

Sillies in the rules are based around mortars, which should have an area effect, and cant fire smoke, which is one of their main rolls. Futher the tank commander at Admin Box in Burma 45 was most scared of the Japanese mortars - yet the rules don't allow them to engage AFV. The but here is that if the mortar is off table it becomes artillery, and can.

IanS