In Search of Rules for WW2

Introduction

In here, I explained why in 2025, I got back into WW2 war-games. 

The first task was to decide the rule set Alex and I wanted to play - see here for a recommended process to approach an historical period. To this end, I conducted much research in t'interwebrary about popular rule-sets. 

Observations

What follows is my interpretation of the articles and YouTube videos available in July and August 2025.

They are offered here in case others might benefit from the research.

Observations are presented by organisational level and rule-set; each rule-set is identified together with its author(s) and year of initial release.

Please let me know if there are glaring errors in any this work.

Now I'm more familiar with Chain Of Command 2, improvements to the detail of some of what was observed in Jul25 became apparent (in Nov25) but the general gist of the observations was the same so no time was consumed to polish them.

Platoon Level

Chain Of Command

TooFatLardies – 2013

• Patrol phase – determines where infantry units may start the game; a good feature.
• Roll typically 5 x d6 Command Dice (CD) to determine which type of units may activate.
• Chain Of Command Dice (COCD) used to record COC Points (COCP) gained from CD; COCP enable additional interventions/ actions.
• Each turn is played in phases; throws on CD determine end of turn, which results in ‘administrative’ actions.
• There are random events tables.
• Units are represented by bases with individual figures so more play-time spent moving units than with rules that have bases that represents groups of troops; however, platoon level means there aren’t a large quantity of bases on the table.
• Actions for combat units may be move or fire.
• Movement distance for all units determined by di(c)e roll(s) with adjustment for terrain and crossing obstacles. Tactical, normal and ‘at the double’ use different quantity of dice and each has different benefits and constraints.
• Commanders can order overwatch and covering fire, mitigate shock and order fire from ‘specialist’ weapons.
• Distant Combat: quantity of d6 varies by weapons shooting; roll to hit depends on range and quality of target. Hit effect table considers cover. Target may be shocked or killed.
• Close Assault: quantity of d6 to roll = quantity of figures; 1/3 probability of shock/ kill; looser may be forced to withdraw.
• National characteristics can tweak rules.

Company Level

Crossfire

Arty Conliffe - 1996

• Player with the initiative keeps playing until initiative lost by: sustaining damage from combat; failing an attempt to inflict damage on the enemy; or failing an attempt to rally. Effectively, both players are active throughout the game.
• Actions may be move, combat or rally.
• No measurement for movement or firing.
• Movement between terrain features so lots of features required.
• Enemy can opportunity fire if active player moves into field of view.
• Distant Combat: Rifle squad throws 3 die to shoot (MG = 4 die); 5&6 to hit; quantity of hits determines pin, suppress or eliminate.
• Close Combat: die roll with modifiers to eliminate enemy units.
• Roll to rally
• No national features; eg, all MG are the same.

Fireball Forward

Mark Fastoso and Jonathan Miller - 2012

• Units (typically platoon) made up of elements (typically squads).
• Units often in concealment and placed on table only when they fire or are ‘spotted’ so initially, lots of documented hidden movement. Once spotted, all elements bar sniper, remain on-table for the rest of the game.
• Side and quantity of units to be activated determined by draws from deck of playing cards. Payer selects unit(s) and sequence for activation. Some scenarios employ ‘initiative chips’ that allow additional activations.
• For each unit, player chooses first element, which may move, spot, fire and/ or rally (depending on whether the element is individual, Recon, infantry or vehicle) in sequence selected by the player. This is repeated for all elements in the first unit. The player then repeats process for subsequent units in the previously decided sequence.
• The opposing player repeats the process, which is repeated until all elements have been activated once in the current turn.
• Movement is across any distance within a radius from the current position; constrained by the quantity of ‘terrain crossings’. Enemy may initiate Opportunity Fire (OF) if movement within LOS but may conduct OF only once per target unit per turn. At end of move, element can nominate one terrain feature within 3” and LOS; enemy must reveal any units concealed by that feature.
• Distant Combat: 
• Fire against nearest element within LOS. 
• Against infantry, 3 different dice - the quantity of each depends upon unit firing – white hit d6, coloured hit d6, and 20-sided range die. White dice with DRMs for terrain and potentially range of target; coloured dice hit on natural 6; and range die increases the standard effective range of the element so can prevent all hits if target beyond range.
• Morale check required for each hit: one failure and element is ‘broken’ so may make a route movement; >1 and element eliminated. Target suppressed if passes morale check when it was fired at during enemy’s activation (not from OF); consequently, target unable to initiate OF until next activated.
• When hit armour, check penetration and roll to block penetration. Morale checks may be required.
• Artillery is off-board.
• Close combat: single d6 per side with DRMs; only loser receives hits.
• Rally is the only permitted action for a ‘broken’ element but other actions may be conducted if element does rally. Six on D6 required unless in base contact with leader, in which case compare against leader moral.
• Spot action: 5 or 6 on d6 enables nomination of one terrain feature in LOS and any elements there are placed on the table.
• Generally, units are generic rather than different features for different nations (may be different ranges – don’t know). One exception is Russian activation. Also specific rules for Japanese.

Flames of War

Battlefront Miniatures - 2002

• Arguably, slightly bigger than company level – aircraft and artillery may support. Appears to be primarily an armour game. Ground scale is significantly different to the figure scale.
• Measure for movement and combat.
• Command Radius (CR); penalty for shooting if outside CR.
• Distant Combat: 
• Check range, check Line Of Sight (LOS), check concealment. Quantity of dice to roll is a function of weapon to fire and the amount of movement undertaken. 
• Roll to hit is a function of target with DRMs.
• Hits are assigned to other targets in the unit (within 6” of hit target), even if they weren’t shot at.
• Roll to save based on offensive capability of weapon and armour of target; then roll Firepower Test to establish level of any damage. (Lots of dice rolls).
• Infantry can become pinned.
• Artillery is on-table; template used for fall of shot. Aircraft bomb in similar way to artillery fire.
• Close Combat (Assault): ? - prior to completion of this summary, I’d decided I’d not enjoy FOW so ceased research.

Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI)

Peter Pig – 2000; latest version was 2025.

• Grid based.
• Each ‘square’ of the grid rolls for quantity of Action Points (AP) with potential for re-rolls based on distance from Company Commander. Every element within the square may consume the same quantity of AP.
• Actions may be move, combat or rally.
• Movement costs AP – quantity of AP varies by terrain being vacated and entered.
• Distant combat (DC) costs 1 AP with a max of 3 DC per turn – 6 to hit on d6; quantity of d6 determined by type of weapon and modification factors. Saving throw – modified by terrain. Enemy survivors may return fire. 
• Eliminated unit replaced by ‘body’ marker. Two such markers for a platoon represents 1 ‘problem’ (loss of officer also 1 problem). When there are 2 problems, moral check required that can result in removal of a base. Cost 2 AP to remove a body marker.
• Close Combat (Assault) costs 4 AP – 3 die per unit with modifications.

Battalion Level

O Group – (might be company level)

Reisswitz Press (sister of TooFatLardies) – 2020

• Looks like something to evolve into once platoon and company level have been mastered. 
• Storm of Steel has some useful introductory videos:
• Review of Rules.
• Company Areas, Reserve Companies, Phase Lines and Consolidation.
• The Company in the Attack.
• Combat Patrols.

Rapid Fire

Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh – early 21^st century

• Abstraction of unit size so something platoon size represents a company; not appealing.
• “Play using the standard Rapid Fire 1:15 figure and 1:5 vehicle ratios for brigade-level engagements, or use for 1:1 skirmishes or even 1:45/1:15 divisional level battles…”.

BattleGroup

? – 2012?

• Has keen followers.
• Claims to handle from platoon level to at least Battalion level.
• Unsure that Reserve Move is realistic; a reserve move marker can be placed, then played at any time; in the enemies bound, a unit can reserve move after all enemy have fired, then it can move again on its own turn; this doesn’t appear realistic.

Conclusions

We decided that we'd start with relatively small organisations so specifically sought a platoon level game, with the intention to scale up force sizes and choose different rules as our confidence grew and we 'were promoted'. We opted for Chain of Command and awaited release of version 2 in the Autumn of 2025.