I hope you enjoy this review of 'O' Group, the WW2 Battalion Level game by Dave Brown.

10/10 review. 12/10 for cat.

Adding a second comment, another challenge for relative newcomers may be devising asymmetrical scenarios that offer both sides a good chance of winning. Overall the rules focus on a battalion vs battalion level, but game hosts must consider allowing the attacking side to have a enough bonuses in units, fire missions or activation dice to overcome the advantages defenders always enjoy (especially if they have superior armour - as your Panther ably demonstrated in your earlier AAR).

Very good review - I’m anxiously awaiting my first playthrough. Looking forward to seeing your additional videos. I especially liked it when the Panther made an entrance and plopped down in the middle of your table. Pretty sure I remember that happening in your playthrough videos as well (just a different panther)😺😸. As you can tell from my avatar I’ve got one myself - he’s always trying to redeploy my forces!

Representation of scale : I suppose there is a big jump in understanding needed. With a game (Napoleonic) where a battalion weighs in at 30 figures ie. 3 Grenadiers, 24 centre company and 3 Grenadier company they soon learn that the light company along with the other light companies in the brigade will form a skirmish screen to the front of the battalion . The grenadiers may occupy a strong point like a farmhouse or a small wood or even a bridge. The Centre companies are formed with the remainder of the brigade. After playing a game with other Wargamers the basics are easy to pick up. Because of the slightly abstract way O Group works it isn’t all black and white, Patrols, at the start and no troops on the table, so nothing to see (a bit like Wellington). Also the Troops on the bases may not all be riflemen. Wargamers are often a conservative lot and will dig their heels in and may even mock the game especially when loosing. So explaining this to them is tiring but a must if you want them to continuing to play the game. Ahhh the advantage of a solo game. 😎

Very interesting review. I have the rules but haven’t had the time to get into them yet, but this was encouraging. I’ll need to watch your AARs to see how you’ve handled solo play. By the way, you mentioned the author’s son replying to rule queries on the O Group FaceBook group. Actually that’s the author Dave Brown himself using his son Christopher’s account, so the answers are straight from the horse’s mouth. 😊 Dave has also does an excellent job answering questions in the O Group section of the Lard Forum. It’s great to see such commitment to the rules from him. Bodes well for the future.

Really helpful introduction Alex. I'll be keen to watch you r other videos on O Group.

My Fav ww2 rules at the moment!!

Good reviews, Looking forward to hopefully seeing you do another battle report

Great and fair review of O Group. I would have liked them to have added basic battalion OOBs for the Japanese and Italians to get players started in alternative theatres. I still have to play my first game so I’m looking forward to your video releases.

Very thorough review - thanks. I will pick these up eventually I'm sure!

Great explanation of the game. Essential Viewing before a first game. I need to sort out my Lardies password so tha I can find what I’ve bought before ordering all the European theatre scenario pdf’s and the IABSM & CoC booklets. It’s odd all my Napoleonic player friends want to play full battles at brigade level. And O Group is advanced gaming for WWII at Battalion level. The first needing hundreds of figures and the second needing about a hundred. 🙂

Great review, thanks. Been looking for a game to play using 6mm WW2 and I think I’ve found it. Just got to finish my other 6mm projects now and decided on what models to purchase 🤔. Looking forward to seeing some more reports in the future, keep up the good work 👏👏👍.

Good review, keep up the good work. One of my favourite elements of the game is recce, not many rule sets actually allow recce units to work as they did.

Very thorough, nice work.

But what does the cat think?

The village, Bucknall, where I lived until I was 11 had tarmac on the main road but the hill running into Hanley town centre was cobblestones so I w kuldip imagine on the continent during WWII that all the older town centres would be the same. Builders in the mid ‘30’s had to use tarmac as a condition of planing permission, or perhaps they were cheaper to build?😊 Where did you get those roads from they look exceptional. Very instructive video, i’ll have to watch it again later but I have some 15mm plastic soldier company Brits to paint so I’m looking for a tutorial as they’ll be my first khaki army to paint for a while.

I agree that one of the many strong points in these rules is the simplified system for firing which speeds play - you can shoot platoon at platoon in seconds. As a fan of Napoleonic "General d'Armee" by the same author - David Brown - I only wish the firing/combat rules for GdA were as quick as O Group, given the scope of the games.

Again a great review, interesting and informative, I look forward in watching your AAR,s of the rules😃 this is possibly going on my list of rules to get 👍 sinces ww2 is my game play, more so nowadays (question: how do you feel that 'O group' plays solo?), although, this year's projects are of different periods🤔 anyway keep up the good work🤓👍🧐

Great review. O-Group had replaced Battlegroup as my preferred WW2 rules. While I really enjoyed Battlegroup I really found it more of a platoon level simulation type game with many of its mechanics being of the skirmish level variety. While it could be played at company plus level it REALLY bogged down. O-Group for me retains enough WW2 flavour, with some really outstanding mechanics (Combat Patrols & Recce etc) while still keeping up a good pace to allow the play of larger scale actions with the focus of command at Battalion rather than Company / Platoon.

Good review. Glad you did this as a follow-up to the playthroughs. I'd like to see some of the campaign support for this that was given to Chain of Command. How would this play in Burma & etc?

Fantastic review as always. As a 6mm player I love bigger games as obviously I can get more figures on a table, so with that said does O'Group allow for more than one battalion in its rules?

I like your rural roads a lot. Did you make them or are they something I can get a hold of?

When I first saw how command and control worked I thought that this would be a great feature in a co-op game. With each player controlling a company against a randomly generated enemy (like in Tiger Leader or Patton's Best). This way you could run a two player campaign without simply fighting each other over and over again. This would be my dream game and would probably result in me playing twice as much.

As a solo player seeing and hearing what other gamers think is more than helpfull

Is the cat your 2iC? :D The game looks interesting. A little off topic, but where did you get your Japanese miniatures? I've been waiting for Plastic soldier Company to release some 15mm ones, but they haven't yet.

Played these rules for the first time yesterday, my first table game with other players for years and they work really well, I do wish id watched this review first. having played the game you cover all the key elements. For someone whos been out of the hobby for 30 years probably it took a bit og getting used to the scout markers and using them cleverly, but appart form that it was pretty straight fwd, i didn't like that rules that much

I am wondering how the O Group rules compare to Brown's Panzer Grenadier Deluxe and also to I Ain't Been Shot Mum. I try to find fun ruleset but I am wondering if the O Group is too crunchy compared the other two. There is also Battlegroup ruleset in the same category I think.

A great review. No you can use your experience and another run through game.

Have you tried the RFR rules, cut down version? Pretty fast and deadly.

Hi there, given your many games with Rapid Fire do you think their scenarios could be easily adopted to O Group?

Are the vehicle stats limited to one theatre / time period?

Did you play rapid fire in 20mm as your Japanese troops looked in that scale? Also why don’t you play O group in 20mm if you do have a 20mm collection? Thanks

What's the stated ground scale?

Don't know if i overheard it🤔...is it scale bound or agnostic? I'm searching for rules that fit 10mm or less. The rules sound very smooth and way more to realism then other sets. Hurts my eyes when i see games were heavy artillery shoots on infantry 10 inches away💀

Would these rules work well with armour as well as a battalion (ish) worth of infantry? Would a company of tanks be too much?

Shiny cat..