How PG continues to grow on me.

[Blackcloud6]

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.

[awdougherty]

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.

This is what hooked me on PG, the fact that you can really master the rules for the most part and play out good-sized encounters, the fact that the game does indeed coax tactics out of you as you get better, and the fact that it really seems to cover a solid breadth of possibilities in 16 pages. The solo-ability of the game was just icing on the cake.

[J6A]

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.

This is what I love about the system. The interplay of this and the morale really gives huge national distinctions, and forces have to be handled in very different ways.

[Michael Murphy]

This is what hooked me on PG, the fact that you can really master the rules for the most part and play out good-sized encounters, the fact that the game does indeed coax tactics out of you as you get better, and the fact that it really seems to cover a solid breadth of possibilities in 16 pages. The solo-ability of the game was just icing on the cake.

The massive solo-ability of PG is what keeps this one up on my game table far more than ASL, my co-favorite game system. With PG I can simulate a battle, with ASL I can simulate a fire-fight. No other game systems need apply here.

[Matt W]

I am constantly amazed at the subtlety of the morale, leadership and leader bonus systems. Through those three game systems we can have armies as disparate as the SS, Japanese, Americans and early war Russians and have each army perform radically differently than the others. Heck we can even have the prewar Hungarians, Austrians and Slovaks and provide a playing experience so totally different from a Beyond Normandy or Road to Berlin scenario as you can get. And this is still all accomplished with 16 pages of rules and maybe a page and a half of game and scenario specific rules.

[upintheattic]

I developed more games than I care to remember during my tenure with AP, but now that the dust has settled and I can approach gaming again as something to do purely for fun, the only AP games I'm interested in are (a) chit-draw games like JP's Third Reich, Great Pacific War, Bitter Victory, etc., and (b) PG. I love the chit-draw games because they're wonderful solo games that can also be played with two or more players, and because the chit-draw system adds just the right amount of FOW to keep me on the edge of my seat each turn. That unpredictability adds a level of excitement I never got with TCS, which to me was just too deterministic because of the orders you had to write and adhere to. And while Squad Leader certainly got you right down there in the foxholes where you could taste the dirt, the rigid sequence of play made the whole thing feel too mechanical; it worked for me on the intellectual level, but not on the gut level.

But PG is whole different animal. It has a huge "wow factor" because players have such broad latitude to do what they want when they want to do it, and because the morale rules combined with alternating activation, opportunity fire, and Fog of War rolls make it highly unlikely that what happens each turn will hew to one's best-laid plans. PG probably doesn't appeal to the cerebral gamer who wants to devise a grand plan and then execute it to see if it works. But for gamers like me who want a wargame that puts one right in the middle of the chaos of battle and forces one to embrace the chaos, PG is perfect.

[vince hughes]

But for gamers like me who want a wargame that puts one right in the middle of the chaos of battle and forces one to embrace the chaos, PG is perfect.

So THATS why I like it ???? I wondered why I went with this sytem and there is my answer.

[broadsword]

PG just seems to have hit the sweet spot between complexity and simplicity. A good choice of scale, too.

The only other series that is a rival for my gaming heart is the Grand Tactical Series by MMP, which uses chit-draw. But I guarantee I won't be playing it as often or as much, because the ruleset is a full step of complexity above PG. Still playable, but even experienced players always seem to have to keep the rulebook at their elbow. Getting comfortable with the games is a real commitment. Playing them when you don't know the system really well takes forever, and 2 of the 3 are monsters to boot.

[Diocletian]

I stepped into PG a few months ago. I have Red God of War and Defiant Russia that I purchased in the past and looking deeper into PG caught my interest. I think the PG rules are easy to follow and the ability to play solo is excellent. I have no other gamers around, so solo is the only way I can play PB. I am heavy into computer wargaming, battalion/company level, so PB complements that well. I can fight a battlion level battle on computer or PBEM , and then step a scale down and play PG at the platoon level to get a new perspective on the battle.

[JayTownsend]

Good writeup Blackcloud6!

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.