Game of two rules

Game of two rules

Just before Christmas I purchased a copy  of Battlefronts Flames of War Barbarossa and  it got me thinking, should I continue  using FOW or move on.  I could just switch over to Battlegroup Kursk.

I have already dabbled into he realms of Chain of Command by Two fat lardies, to which I am assembling a late war German and American infantry army, and the test game that I  have  already  played  still leaves me wanting to play more of it.  Having invested heavily in my FOW armies it seems a waste to sell them on. On the overhand converting my forces to be used with BGK is quite minimal,  with only a few specialist units needed.

The biggest question that has crossed my mind over the last 10 years is whether FOW is a balanced game. More so with the late war books being released. To be honest it was the Ardennes books that made me loose interest in FOW.  I have not played a game since the release of the 3rd edition rules.  The last competition that I  attended was being held at Derby university and I  left there felling rather angry, not all of it was down to the rules, a lot of it was down to the people that I  had played.

Then came the news that they were releasing a new set of rules. This annoyed me greatly as for the second time I had purchased set of army lists only to find that they were to be obsolete within few months and that they were going to re-release a updated set of books.

For FOW I have all the Early war and Mid war books that I need. The only late war books that I own are the Normandy compilation hard back set (1st edition) and the Fortress Europe book.

For BGK I own the main-rules which does Mid war Russian front and I also have the Normandy book.  The only  two future releases that I am interested in will be Early war invasion of France and Barbarossa.

So onto the question at hand, do I continue with FOW, but restrict my self to the periods I am interested in, and defently do not enter any competitions.  Or do I switch over to BGK.

I have devised a test where I play two games, one with FOW  and then the same game with BGK.  This will also serve as a introduction game for friend who has been pestering me to play FOW.  So I  have chose mid war Russian front selecting armies fro  the Eastern Front compilation.

First up is the FOW 1500 pont game. Which I  have played solo to reacquaint my self with the finer points of the rules.

German Panzer Kompanie  1505 points
HQ             2 Panzer IVH
1st Zug     4 Panzer IVH
2nd Zug    3 Panzer IVH

Soviet Mixed Tankov Battalion 1500 points
1st Company     10 T-26 obr 1939
2nd Company    10 T34 obr1941
3rd Company     7   KV-1s

Having not played in along time my fist run through made  me realise I need to work on my tactics more.  The Soviets just steam rollered the German armour.  In the first turn alone they  bailed one Panzer IV and destroyed two more.

The Germans could  not recover from these loses and only managed to knock out two T-34s in return.  By the end of the game the Russians  lost 3T-26 and 6 T-34s.  The Germans had lost 6 Panzers.  This leaves me defently thinking that there  is a balance problem.

In hindsight  I should have concentrated everything on the T-34 company.

More to follow...