G Company (aka Company Fire Lite)

tl;dr new rules available over on the side bar called G Company. I also changed the link for Company Fire to point to the living copy of the rules so they are as up to date as they can be.

First a caveat: these rules have not been play tested thoroughly, but they spring from a previous play test that was an abysmal failure, followed by tweaking during half-a-dozen subsequent games, so I have higher hopes for these out of the gate. Changes may yet follow.

Although it clearly is based on Company Fire, I changed quite a bit  by marrying some of my ideas from CF with inspiration from One Brain Cell Toy Soldiers , a set of rules I played when I first started gaming lo those years ago (After playing quite a number of 1:1 rules since, including expensive professionally produced sets, I think you could do worse for 1:1 WWII games than these). It seemed therefore that a name change was in order: G Company.

Lo-fi test game. The yellow pentagons are disorder markers.The triangles represent artillery targets.

The turn sequence is the same general mechanism as CF -a deck of cards, some of  which are movement, some are fire, and some both. I felt this was absolutely necessary if I were to claim any family resemblance to the former game. I do however allow a card's side to move and fire in the same turn regardless of card drawn, and all of the other side's units have a chance to fire.

Theoretically this increases the amount of shooting, which helps speed things up, as does the increased rates of movement (with some restrictions - I may port this over to CF as I rather prefer it I think). Close combat is automatic between adjacent units regardless of their composition or status, but lone weapons teams and disordered units are still penalized so a bit more deadly there too.

In the name of simplification, I have reduced the number of adjustments and dice to be rolled during shooting and close combat. Group fire in particular requires far less dice.  I also reduced the states a unit can be in from four to three, which helps move things along a little more quickly.

All of the above helps, I think, for it to feel more "cinematic" and game/toy-like rather than an attempt at simulation.

That said, eliminating units easily is still difficult - it is possible to have many of your units become bogged down as disordered.

I just can't get away from the ideas that the nature of this kind of combat is to shoot to force the enemy to hit the dirt - maneuver and  close assault to finish the job and that it's easier to pin the enemy than to kill them with small arms fire.

If it turns out this is too simulationist in play,  I suggest automatically removing disordered markers at the start of each turn (ASLSK removes pin markers at the end of the turn automatically, and that's what gave rise to this idea - since disordered here functions like a traditional pin in other games). This removes the chance that they'll be removed from play at the start of the next turn (which is an intentional possibility to reflect failing morale, wounded men being unable to physically carry on, etc.) and also means they'll be able to advance on the enemy

Or, to increase unit removal if you think they're sticking around too long, you could adjust the unit status table - say 3 or less is removal, 4-5 is disordered, and 6+ is good order - which more closely aligns with the odds to recover in the 1BC Toy Soldier rules linked above (just flipped a bit).

As in CF, vehicles are included more as a necessary evil than a design focus.

The intent is to provide quick infantry games that feel WWII-ish and reward good tactics, but  something far less complicated than CF. To make things more "toy soldiery", tanks are tanks - I don't worry about heavy or light, or front vs side or rear armor or anything like that. Even LOS is greatly simplified. However, the rules are simple enough to modify if you want heavy tanks to be different from your medium tanks.

But you probably want to play a different game if you're really into vehicles and I am not offended if you do.

I purposely left out lots of explanatory material - nothing on mines or bocage (which I only added in the first place because I needed them for games I was playing) and at just four pages, the rules function as their own QRS.

Hopefully, for anyone who has played a wargame before, making any judgement calls about grey areas won't be too difficult and any missing bits, especially for mines (which I've never settled upon) and terrain, can be grabbed from CF if necessary.

And of course, as if it needs to be said, feel free to hack these up to suit your vision as needed.