Crush The Kaiser alternatives

[Lightningf6]

Hi all. With Crush the Kaiser and its variants no longer available I am looking for a set of rules that does the same job. I have Over By Christmas but not the other rules and supplements. I have not been able to find anything else that provides a similar game. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[kustenjaeger]

I usually fiddle about with TFL's 'If the Lord Spares Us', which is great but not, I suspect, the sort of thing you are likely to be looking for if you used Crush the Kaiser (which I read years ago but never used).

I wonder if using 'Rapid Fire Reloaded' tweaked for WWI might work for you?

On the Rapid Fire website (https://www.rapid-fire-uk.com/) there is a free download of a scenario for Beersheba 1917 by Mark Piper which contains some WWI specifics, which might be of interest.  There is also a scenario, also by Mark at https://www.rapid-fire-uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Villers_Bretonneux_WWI_RF22.pdf These are written for Rapid Fire 2 I think but there's not a lot of difference.

Edward

[NTM]

I've had the same dilemma, Contemptible Little Armies was the closest I'd found. Went with 1914 in the end which is element based rather than individual but not an issue for me as not started on any figures as yet.

[Big Insect]

There's a new(ish) set of WWI rules out from Gripping Beast - Zero Hour. I've played it, it's good, but whether it's what you are looking for I don't know as I've not played Crush the Kaiser.
There are some very good/innovative mechanisms within it.

I'm also part way through writing a Great War Commander set of rules, in the same 'stable' of mechanisms as Blitzkrieg Commander, Cold War Commander and Future War Commander, but that is still probably a good 12 months of printing.

Cheers
Mark

[Last Hussar]

What sort of level is Crush the Kaiser? Do you want that?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I'm also part way through writing a Great War Commander set of rules, in the same 'stable' of mechanisms as Blitzkrieg Commander, Cold War Commander and Future War Commander, but that is still probably a good 12 months of printing.

Ohh
Tell us more!     

[NTM]

What sort of level is Crush the Kaiser? Do you want that?

It's a sort of WW1 Rapid Fire imho
Each side fields a brigade of 2 or 3 battalions.
Battalions are 4 or so companies of around a dozen figures plus support.

[Big Insect]

It's a sort of WW1 Rapid Fire imho
Each side fields a brigade of 2 or 3 battalions.
Battalions are 4 or so companies of around a dozen figures plus support.

Then I recon 'Zero Hour' might work for you.
4 of us from the club play-tested it a month or so ago, in a game run for us by the author, using 28mm figures. It worked well, producing a realistic game with a high body count and a fair degree of suspense and random outcomes. It's a bit 'buckets of dice' and other reviews have claimed its very 'GW 40k' but in 1914-18 - but it's also simple & quick to learn, fast moving and the table-top outcomes seem to mirror the realities of WW1 e.g Leave your trenches and suffer pretty horrific casualties. Our 4 player (2 sides) game lasted 3hrs, with set-up and it was clear that the Franco-Belgian forces myself and my partner were playing with were winning - despite a rather cack-handed attempt to capture a village objective that turned into a charnel-house!

[Big Insect]

Ohh
Tell us more!     

What can I say ... it will be based upon the core 'Commander' mechanism - so much of what you play with in BKC/CWC/FWC will remain very familiar. However, some important parts of it wont.

The big challenge with a combined arms WW1 game, at this level/scale, is about how best to replicate the realities of WW1 warfare (particularly in all its diversity). I've done a lot of research into the many existing WW1 rules set, that try to replicate WW1 on the table-top that are not skirmish games or that are not specific action type sets (like the various 'trench-raider' sets). From this research, what is clear is that many sets don't really capture the feel or ethos of the period. They often produce fun games, but as the results tend to become predictable, they don't end up surviving the test of repeated game-play.
It's relatively easy to create a rules set with a lot of figures on-table and a lot of casualties, but building mechanism the encourage players to 'think' and behave like an early C20th commander is actually quite difficult. Similarly, WW1 introduces a concept that is hard for gamers - the idea that the battlefield can actually change during the course of a game/battle. We don't really see this to the same extent pre-WW1 and it's actually less of an issue in WW2 (other than very specific situations - such as the Siege of Stalingrad or the attack on Berlin at the end of the war, for example. We see a bit of it in the urban fighting after D-Day, but the war becomes so fluid as to negate this as a real 'landscaping' issue). WW1 was probably the first war where the 'fog of war' concept around terrain really existed. The idea that a unit could be ordered to "take and hold the wood to their front" only to find that within a few minutes (hours) that wood had completely disappeared! So 'terrain ablation' becomes a realistic challenge for the commanders/players and needs robust mechanisms to model it practically on the table-top.

This is also a war where unlike BKC/CWC/FWC where keeping your units moving or in action is important, in WW1 one of the biggest challenges is stopping an advance or recalling units before they advance into danger or their own pre-planned barrage (for example). So planning your game, communication with formations/units and keeping your forces in-play - rather than bogged-down or suppressed plays a big part in the game-mechanisms.

Similarly, replicating the WW1 'mind-set' with players is important. Casualties/losses are important but in many situations limiting them is not necessarily your primary objective or driver, that is more about achieving what you've been ordered to deliver.

Also, avoiding the 'trap' of the game getting bogged down in massive off and on-to table artillery dual is critical. The game needs to be about the units (figures) on the table, wherever possible.

Anyway ... that's just a taster.
As with all 'Commander' series rules sets, it needs to be fast to play, deliver a high degree of unpredictability (& fun) and will have to cope with Western Front / Eastern Front / the Balkans and Middle East/East Africa all at once ... as well as the technological advancements of the war as well. Without those technological advancements becoming overly dominant.

But as I say, I am a good 12 months away from a printed rules set and have another (top-secret) Commander Rules Supplement to be finished and published ahead of this one.
Cheers
Mark

I'm just glad that my Khmer books are now published and off my desk (for now)