FiveCore Company Command!
Following my last post and some interesting comments from Ivan, Norm and le Duc, I have taken a look at the Five Core Company Command (CC) rules as a potential hex grid conversion. My thought experiments with Bolt Action and Neil Thomas' WWII rules had left me with a sore head. This one, however, is quite exciting.Here are some bullet points:
- CC table size: 3' by 3'.
- Standard move: 6".
- Dash: 6" plus 1 d6 (say 6" with a 50% probability of another 6").
- Vehicle move: 9" or 12" if scrambling (a bit tricky, see below).
- Squad base: 1.5".
So to my mind, we can use a hex representing 6". My hex grid uses 125mm (5") hexes because I'm funny that way (and it fits my table nicely). Like this.....
My big hexes representing a 3' square table in this picture. Tanks are 15mm (KVs at that), the squad bases are FoW standard and designed for my 20mm troops (I don't mind mixing scales, same as Art of Tactic). The 10p bit is a weapons base but I'll use 2ps in real life. Attachments will be on 1ps. This looks OK to me with a good sized Company Command force.
- Infantry move: 1 hex.
- Vehicle move: 1 hex or 2 if scrambling. A/C = d2 for plus 1 hex.
- Road: vehicle move = d2 for extra 1 or 2 hexes.
- "Stacking": Four squads or mix of four squads and weapons teams. Squads can have attachments as well. Two tanks or one tank plus two squads/weapons teams.
- Platoon order: All units in same hex.
- Obstacles: Treat as hexside with a success roll to cross for movement and a fire combat modifier.
- Terrain: Fills each hex. Hexes count as open or cover. Troops to have indicator if they are peeking.
- Smoke: Completely fills one hex. Might be an issue with smoke grenades (need more than one squad to do this?) but should not be a problem for a light or medium mortar strike.
- Anti-tank fire: Treat as current rules, firer chooses target in hex.
- Anti-personnel fire: Allocate hits to squads first, each target gets a shock dice first then allocate any kills. Apply results at the end of the turn to take account of multiple attacks. Shows need to disperse your troops!
- Assault: All assaults on one hex to be added together as one large assault.
This is just a first pass but the fact that there are no show stoppers here is great. It fits my table, my base sizes and troop scale thoughts. An identical approach can be used for Five Men at Kursk which would allow 20mm tanks to be used as the scale is tactical. Use 6mm troops and you have Brigade Commander. And all on my kitchen table, brilliant!
Hi - looks like it might be third time lucky with the 5 core rule set. Really interested to see how you progress with your conversion to hexes and its fit to a nice small table set up.
ReplyDeletePeter
Some lovely revelations here.
ReplyDeleteI'd considered movement issues before, but smoke filling one hex fits so neatly too.
My own squad bases are 1.5" sq so works for me.
The stacking limits on that size of hex fit perfectly with a certain 'squad leader' game...and of course hexsides present perfect opportunities for linear terrain confirmation.
Some excellent points here - I think a playtest may be in order. ;)
Individual smoke grenades could perhaps cover just the generating unit, with a second such grenade having a wider influence.
ReplyDeleteAt the last wargame show I was at, there was a bloke selling custom dice, so if you want a D2 or a D3, there is a dice that will actually do it (I think you get get try these sort of things done on various web sites). I have been thinking about this because some commercial rule conversions have small aspects that interfer with an easy hex conversion. In Bolt action, 1 hex to six inches works generally, but not for those 'pesky' 9" vehicle movement rates. I was thinking that for this one particular problem, a dice that allowed 4 out of 6 chances (rather than rolling a 1 - 4) for a vehicle to make it into the second hex might be a good way to go.
This could be made more sophisticated with say Tigers and Churchills getting a penalty of 1 and a fast M18 Hellcat etc getting a bonus of 1.
Anyway, just thinking out aloud, but there are similar issues with my Black Powder / Hail Caesar conversion attempts, so it may be a useful device. Having a dedicated dice specially marked up for these tasks might just make the mechanics more streamlined to put into practice.
Thanks for your comments chaps. Yes, an exciting prospect here. If it wasn't for work I'd be busy writing up some conversion notes. I'll have a go later this week. Cheers
ReplyDeleteJay