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How PG continues to grow on me.
I had a love-hate relationship with PG. I picked up the game back in the late 1990s (2nd Edition?) and a buddy and I played it a few times. The game really hit with my friend but I had issues with the unbalanced scenarios and I never could grasp my head around the activations and what the assault mechanics were depicting. I played it a few more time with another friend when we were on AT for the Army reserve. He didn't like it so I set the game aside for awhile. I also discovered VASL and went off to play ASL and was not happy there was not a PG version. If there was, I bet my first friend and I would have played PG like crazy.
I tried TCS as I really like the orders concept and that you cannot do whatever you want with your units. But the orders system is complex and tough for solo play and I stalled on the system waiting for the update that took years to come. Plus, like all Gamers' games, it has a fiddly combat system with too much wristage.
I started wargaming with Panzerblitz in 1970. So the platoon level game is about my favorite scale of tactical gaming (now I do love ASL, but that is a different write up). Some years ago, I tried PB again but it just wasn't doing it. I played the computer Campaign Series but burned out on it being a playtester for Talonsoft. I wanted a platoon level game that I could play solitaire without getting bogged in rules. My PG stuff was sitting in box in the bunker, edging closer to the "for sale" line. I found out there was a third edition of rules and one evening said "what the heck," and set up a game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. What was the difference this time?
Well, when I went into ASL (also for the second time); I disciplined myself to set aside all preconceived notions. I decided to accept the rules and not question the why or the "reality" model. I then applied this to PG and it worked. I enjoyed the games much more than when I played the first time and questioned the "why." Now I sat down and figured out how to make my plans work within the game system and started discovering some interesting aspects. The biggest one was the PG has a foundation of being an infantry centric game. When one thinks about it, WWII was still an infantry centric war or for some armies, a combined arms war with infantry playing one of the premier roles. PB/PL ultimately failed because they were armor centric and late-war armor centric at that. But WWII actions, I'll bet, were largely and primarily infantry fights. PG grasped that and once I figured it out, the game really came into focus. Assault s made sense, artillery resolution made sense, armor movement now was clear and even the LoS rules make sense because of the infantry centric approach. (I used to hate the PG LoS rules but now I think they are the cleverest in tactical wargaming.) One aspect of PG that I think is nearly shear genius is the leader/hex activation and alternating activations systems. When done right in with particular national force design you end up with a very good and clever C2 system. With the C2 system, along with the movement, combat and artillery models, I think you end up doing just what TCS tries to do without the burden of the complex orders system and paper work (I was in the real Army and as a result, I hate paperwork). In the first PG go around, I did not feel there was much difference in the forces in PG; and when you look at the counters and combat values there does not appear to be many. But they are there, and they are subtle (which is realistic in my view) and they come out in play; sometime decisively.
Once you internalize the PG rules, and it does not take long to do so, one can play good sized brigade and even higher level unit actions in reasonable amounts of time. This is a big plus. You can focus on the tactics and not get bogged in rules nuances. You can play these alone without a burdening effort or you can play against others; the experience is there. I am still discovering nuances and new aspects of the game, they keep drawing me back and further into the system. Good job to AP and the designers of the system and scenarios. I'm glad I stuck with it.
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