WWII INFANTRY SKIRMISH RULES:
Battalions In Crisis!

It works very well as long as each player has no more than a platoon of infantry and a couple of vehicles to control. Any more force than that, per player, and the game bogs down horribly.

There are a few vague rules and omissions, easily remedied by common-sense house rules.

I used to use the rules from Yaquinto's Armor/88/Panzer games for one-to-one miniatures gaming. I think Battalions In Crisis! is more playable, with as much detail and a better representation of infantry capabilities. No rules set is perfect, but Battalions is very playable and has a good "feel" for what is happening on the battlefield at this scale. It's also a lot of fun, and that's why we game with miniatures - isn't it?

Our club loves BIC! Yes, it is detailed, but that's what happens when you get down and dirty at 1:1.

My buddy and I presented a game at TwisterCon last year and we had 14 players - 7 German and 7 American. We recreated the Command Control system through the players. Each player had no more than a squad of infantry or a platoon of armor. To get the full benefit of BIC, I highly recommend using a chain-of-command system. It forces players to work together for a common goal. After playing BIC, we never hear gamers say "Well, my flank held, what happened to you?" Everyone is in it together, and the CO commands the battle.

Get BIC if you like skirmish-level WWII.

I bought these a couple of months back. They are very good if you want to play strictly 1-1 games, as the info on vehicles is amazing - when you fire AP at an AFV and you get a lucky roll, you can do stuff like put one through a vision block or a turret hatch, bogie wheel, etc., etc. - great fun!

Seriously though, it does make things like Tiger tanks a bit less invulnerable, as there is usually a (slim) chance of disabling it and maybe killing a couple of the crew.

The infantry rules are good, fairly fast, and deadly to boot - set up a MG and dare someone to come at you across open ground. They do give a reasonably fast game with quite a few figures, but I seriously advise you to only field one or two AFV's, because of the detail involved in killing them.

I played a game at my club with 5 people who had never seen the rules before, with a couple of sections each, and they worked very well.

On the downside:

• There are no rules for Anti-Tank rifles! Odd, when the basic set is for up to 1942-ish!
• I had to remake the playsheets. I reduced them to 75% size and cut and pasted them, as there is too much irrelevant detail on them, and a couple of tables left out that are needed.
• The cost !
• I can't get hold of the 1944-45 module, apparently it's in re-print but as yet no sign of it :(

• German 75mm armor now has two shots per turn (like every other 75/76mm tank gun).
• German armor has a +1 to hit to account for better optics vs French and Russians, or a -1 to the latter two nationalities. (Those big Soviet anti-tank guns would certainly blow you into next week... if they could actually hit you.)
• Tanks with single-man turrets were also given a -1 to hit.

Although these did increase complexity a little (research before the scenario played and actually remembering the change during the game), play balance improved significantly and we all enjoyed the increased realism.

As far as armor penetration and small arms go, you can make many different assumptions about how rounds will work in any given situation. The same goes for small arms. If you read reports of actual small unit actions, such as Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russian, you will find that our game creates the correct effects when you use the correct tactics. We have many ex- and current military who use our game and swear by it. The artillery effects are considered very realistic, and this by artillery officers from both current and past history.

Obviously, I am biased, but we are always looking for feedback from the owners of our rules. Our address and phone number are in every copy of our game that we sell, and we answer every phone call and letter from players.

The feedback that we have gotten often finds minor points of disagreement, but the overwhelming response is what a good time people have with the rules. I will be running games or tournaments at the following conventions, and I urge anyone who is interested to come and play a game. Pointcon at West Point 28 April, Nashcon at Nashville 26 May, Historicon in July at Lancaster, Southern Front in November, and Cold Wars in March 96 at Lancaster.

If anyone has comments of questions, they can reach me in the evevning at (301) 860-9492 between 7:30 and 9:30.