Spunkybass Place 3.0

 

I strayed back onto this page and realized that it's been 8 years since my last post - 8 years!!

And a lot has changed in 8 years. Despite several attempts, I've totally given up on 40k, and even sold my IG army (my largest). I still have my Thousand Sons (nobody wants the old sculpts, despite them being my best paintwork ever), AirCav IG (heard it's unplayable in gen-z 40k, but this one I'll hang on to), Ravenwing (this one's for sale) and Eldar (I'll hang on to this, my first ever 40k army) and a few WIP projects (WW1 IG), large boxes of bits and unbuilt stuff.

So what's a wargamer to do when the game he's dedicated 18 years to has turned into an unrecognizable bland gamey beast?

Go back to basics! And in this case, it's historicals. More specifically WW2 and Napolenics. Well, about 90% WW2 lol.

My brother and I wargamed Napleonics heavily in the mid-90s, and still have large French and Austrian armies, some Prussian and Russian and terrain, all in15mm using mainly Napoleon's Battles and occasionally In The Grand Manner, as well as the occasional madness of Chef de Bataillon. Today we use mainly Black Powder for its simplicity.

We also played WW2 in 20mm, first using Command Decision, then moving to the excellent Rapid Fire rules. In the middle of 4th ed 40k we were introduced to Flames of War - the miniature range was so good, we switched to 15mm and I very rapidly amassed two armies - LW British and MW/LW German. Sadly the rules did not do the figures justice.

Then in 2018, we were introduced to the most excellent Battlegroup. It's simply fantastic! It's like someone was taking notes about what we like in a wargames ruleset, and put it down on paper. I feel it's the most optimal balance balance between historical feel and playability. 

It passes all our acid tests for a great wargame. Like at the end of the battle, does the battlefield look somewhat realistic? One person actually said our wargames look more like dioramas then wargames lol. Another acid test - if I use historically correct tactics, will it reward or punish me? Yes! Wanna assault dug-in infantry? Better make sure they're pinned down, or they will gun you down. Conversely, if I am gamey about it, can I use the rules to advantage and win? No! 

We dropped Command Decision because while it's absolutely brilliant, it does not really look great because it uses classic hidden movement mechanics which has chits that may turn out to be 'phantom' units. While that's great for a fog of war effect, it does nothing for the aesthetics of the game, which is important to us because we've spent many man-years painting the figures, least we can do is to be able to see them!

Rapid Fire is not only fun, it's also simple and fast. We enjoyed it tremendously - it feels good, looks good and had some cool quirky rules (hot para drops were so much fun). But we felt it was a bit too simplistic.

Then there's Flames of War. It was okay at first, with principles like it's harder to shoot a veteran etc, but there too many problems with it - digging-in in the heat of battle, bailing out and remounting vehicles many many times throughout the course of a game, tanks assaulting infantry (why?) and our biggest problem with it - Napoleonic-style command radius which causes tanks to bunch up and look like they are making shoulder to shoulder closed-rank charges all the time. 

So since 2018, it's been Battlegroup for us. And while the community is tiny here in Malaysia, it's enough to have endless hours of fun. Hit us up for a game if you're in the area. And if you have 15mm Flames of War models, that's perfect.