The Commander Series Forum

6 to hit plus the save. Is it me or is the infantry in building almost indestructible in BKCII?

Second : On a regular 4 feet per 4 feet table, what is the amount of buildingds you guys use? The more we play, the more I think the table is kinda BUA clustered... (I'd say, but it's a guess, that the equivalent of 20cm square is our norm)

Antoine,

Re your first enquiry and comment:

The biggest change between BKC1 and BKC2, with regards to BUAs / buildings, is that these are no longer destructible, as was the case under optional rules in BKC1, where it was a six to hit and the building (if not wooden) had a save value too, but also had a hits limit, and these hits were carried over from one turn to the next. When the limit was reached the BUA / building collapsed and knocked out all those inside.

Now it appears that Pete / BKC2 is emphasising that buildings become rubble and remain an obstacle, or potential hiding palce for enemy infantry, after bombardment, a la Stalingrad? So only engineers can knock them out now, under BKC2, page 34; and not any unit with HE capability as under BKC1 optional rules.

It doesnt say it but I assume if Knocked out by engineers then the building / BUAs garrison is KO'd too. So partially you are correct to say buildings are more 'indestructible' than before.

RE point 2 how much BUAs to use.

This is not specified by rules and is to taste or scenario.

I think figure scale which you are using to play your games also plays a great part in deciding this. So when I use 6mm (or 1/300th scale AFVs and infantry) then I may be able to deploy several big towns on a 6x4 feet table (approx 180cm x 120cm) using 1/300 buildings; but if I use the same size table wiht 20mm figures and AFVs then suddenly even a single 20mm building could be a huge obstacle on the table (so I often use 15mm scale buildings with my 20mm figures to reduce the space taken up by BUAs or single buildings).

So the extremes would be Stalingrad, and all table may be buildings / rubble and streets or occasional open spaces; and an encounter battle in rolling hills or open plains (no useful historical examples come to mind) where there may be few if any buildings, but more gentle rolling hills?

Hope these coments help?

Carl Luxford

Thanks Carl, it does help.
I agree with you : rubbles are sometimes if not always more easy to defend than standing buildings and you can't destroy them in the game (well.. it just doesn't show !).
In fact, I guess my question was to be considered with the other one : hidden units.
Last night, my opponent only deployed the units that were in the open and kepts secret the deployment of the other. I know that I couldn't have fire at units that were physically on the table but considered as "concealed", but we both got really bogged down by this "hidden deployment" choice (not in the rules, anyway -so it's our mistake).
Anyhow, I still do find that infantry is really a mess to knock down in buildings,which probably should be the case.

Most BKC scenarios do not work well with lots of BUA as they act as strong points and slow things down. If playing 10-15mm, try going with a farm complex (big enough to hold only one infantry unit) or two, or a small village big enough to hold a couple of infantry.

In BKC II, the trick would be to get a couple of infantry to close assault the defenders in a BUA in the flank/rear. If the defenders were suppressed this would help. If the casualties are equal, another round is fought, with both the attacker and the defender in the open, and the defender should be overwhelmed.

Playing the rule that units taking hits from artillery are automatically suppressed would also help.

Steve

Thanks steve I really think that settles it.
I'm not a big fan of automatic suppression, though and think we'll try to stick to the "few houses" ou farm block. last nite, playing with BéVéPé (hi lad), we had some 15-20 houses on the table and yep, it really slows the game.

So what is the solution to Infantry in BUA's? How could a Stalingrad type scenario be played if it near impossible to dislodge dug in infantry?

I am not a big fan of game systems being dependent on outside factors, like how much of a certain type of terrain is used, in order to function properly. This is one of the things that bothers me about games like crossfire, the game only works well if the table is littered with terrain features. I'd like to believe that BKC II does not fall into this category.

I don't think the terrain needs to be changed to suit the game with BKC. You just have to accept that as in the real thing combat in densely BUAs was a slow and methodical process....or you have to pull up the Russian 203s and do some direct fire boom-boom.

Greetings

I suspect that BKC2 will require a meatgrinder approach to extensive BUA with a need to winkle out the enemy with Close Assault and/or lots of HE.

Might be interesting to do as a scenario. Historically BUAs swallow vast numbers of troops on both sides in comparatively very small areas. See http://www.wwii.ca/page44.html for the example of Ortona (dubbed 'Little Stalingrad' where 1st Canadian Division fought 1.Falschirm.Div - the Loyal Edmonton War Diary at this link is interesting - though note the use of 6pdr and 17pdr to knock down buildings, use of tunnels, 'mouseholing' etc.

Regards

Edward

My game group has played several stalingrad senerios and I have to say they are a blast. Yes infantry is hard to dislodge, but I think the trick is designing your senerio objectives to force people to move their troops to take victory points.

Also the russian God of War artillery strategy works well to suppress the enemy in buildings. Or large amounts of German bombers to prep the enemy position.

Tsupressing troops in BUA and then getting them to fall back fall back 10cm.

Flamerthrowers workwell also. As do engineers. Even though it is rubble it is still a BAU and there is nothing to stop a game master from saying the engineersbring the building down more killing the occupants.

Last with stalingrad type games we play the walls as BUAs. So if there are large gaps in a rubbled building it is not treated the same as the walls. Troops behind a wall (BUA) not behind a wall but in the rubbles area (partail cover.

This allows for flanks and weak spots in the buildings.

Also playing stalingrad games on a smaller table top so troops are not so spreat out (3x3 not 4x4 for example) helps.