Battlefront WWII Extras
| Contents | Description |
|---|---|
| Links to features of interest on the site | |
| Units in Basic Card Set | A list of units that come in the basic card set. Note that several of these have had correction cards produced in subsequent sets or in the prototype cards. |
| Late-war Supplement Information | Information relevant to our Late War Card Supplement. This page contains links to orders of battle, model credits, and links to the various parts of our site devoted to the late war period. |
| Blitzkrieg Supplement Information | Information relevant to our Blitzkrieg Supplement. This page contains links to early war orders of battle, model credits, and links to the various parts of our site devoted to the early war period. |
| N. Africa Supplement Information | Information relevant to our North African Supplement. This page contains links desert war orders of battle and other parts of our site devoted to the Desert/Tunisia/Mediterranean theaters. |
| Far East/Pacific Supplement Information | Information relevant to our Far East and Pacific Supplement. This page contains links to early war orders of battle, model credits, and links to the various parts of our site devoted to the battles in the Pacific and China-Burma-Inida theaters. |
| Unit database | A searchable database of our units, both those in the first card set and prototypes. |
| Prototype PDF creator | Select prototypes from our unit database for printable pdf files. |
| Artillery Tutorial | Guidelines for using artillery in your scenarios. |
| Orders of Battle | A consolidated list of the orders of battle that we have developed or people have given us. |
| Scenarios | Here are some scenarios that our readers and staff have developed. Feel free to download and use them. If you have any that you would like to give us, we will be happy to prepare them and distribute them through the site. |
| How to use the data cards | Our suggestions for organizing your data cards for use in your games. |
| Playtest Rules and Other Freebies | |
| Replacement markers | One of our customers was kind enough to provide us with these suggestions for improving the appearance of your battles by replacing our markers with specially mounted minatures. He also suggests sources. |
| Battlefront Tables from the Rulebook | Dave Franklin was kind enough to send us the document that he created containing the tables that are
in the rulebook but not on the quick reference cards.
Right click a link and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" to save it on your computer. Left click to open it in your browser if you have compatible software: MS-WORD document (65k). zipped MS-WORD doc (10k). PDF file (34k). You need Adobe Acrobat Reader |
| Playtest Rules for Sherman tanks | This page contains some playtest rules for Sherman tanks. There is also a section on HVAP ammunition and a playtest rule for the use of White Phosphorous rounds to simulate a tactic that was used to overcome the shortcomings of the Sherman. |
| Close combat odds calculator | This is a little utility that shows the probablity of victory and defeat for close combat battles using different attack modifiers. |
| Probability Theory | A short and hopefully not-too-boring look at how to calculate simple probabilities. |
| SkirmishCampaign conversion | A guide on how to adapt scenarios published by SkirmishCampaigns to the Battlefront WWII system along with some pointers on developing prototypes. |
| Descriptions of our TO&E | Greg Lyle made some short explanations of the higher level formations that were left out of our original rulebook for space reasons. |
| Using Powerpoint to make orders of battle | Instructions on creating professional-looking orders of battle using Powerpoint. Also includes some ideas on creating web-friendly graphics. |
| Beginners guide to army building | A short introduction for the beginner on the various figure scales and a guide on making initial purchases. |
| Playtest Engineering rules | Paul Bernadino, Ken Natt, R. Mark Davies, and others gave us gave us some prototype
engineering rules to expand on what we have in the rulebook. Carlos Sanz Ramirez gave us a Spanish Language translation of this page: Reglas de Ingenieros. |
| Caves in the Pacific (.pdf) | Bill Slavin extended the engineering rules to cover caves in the Pacific |
| Optional Air Attack Rules | Some ideas for modifications to the standard air attack rules after experience with massive air support. |
| Playtest Air Observation rules | R. Mark Davies proposed some air observation rules for handling the most dangerous aircraft in the war. |
| Playtest Night/Low Visibility rules | Collected from many discussions on the forum. |
| Bridging Facts | I modified my first cut at bridging in light of Paul's engineering rules to be a compilation of U.S. bridging facts. |
| Playtest HMG beaten zones. | Brian Cantwell was kind enough to develop some .jpg images for our playtest MG beaten zone rules. You can
display them and print them or Right click and choose "Save Target As" or
"Save Link As" to save it on your computer. Grazing Fire(130k). For playtest rules on how to use these, see below and the archived forum thread. |
| Playtest MG Grazing Fire Rules | Some playtest rules for MG grazing fire, collected from the forum. This includes the templates provided by Brian Cantwell. |
| Playtest MG Plunging Fire Rules | Some playtest rules for MG plunging fire, collected by R. Mark Davies. |
| Playtest Improved Position Rules | In a rather long thread on the forum, we came up with some ideas for more detailed improved positions, including facing, and different types. These are consolidated on this page. |
| Playtest Sneak Rule | This rule allows units to do small movements without being considered moving for spotting purposes. It adds flexibility to recon elements and allows troops to move into ambush positions. |
| Playtest Moving Overwatch Rule | This rule allows units to perform overwatch after movement. |
| Playtest Interdiction Fire Rule | Here is a semi-official rule for Interdiction Fire by artillery, a way of doing an opportunity fire shot with IDF efforts. |
| R. Mark Davies' Bibliography. | Have you ever wondered how RMD knows all the stuff he does?! Here are the books he has read
with with both mini-reviews and ratings.
Zipped MS-WORD document (19k). PDF file (72k). You need Adobe Acrobat Reader for the pdf |
| Powerpoint Drawing Tutorial | Microsoft Powerpoint is an extremely useful tool for developing orders of battle and maps.
Here is a .zip file with a tutorial on how to use it to draw things. Zipped MS-WORD document + demo PPT map (17k) Note that you need Winzip or its equivalent to use it, but if you are dealing with PPT files, you want to have Winzip anyway, because they compress to about 1/6 their normal size. |
| Gaming Sheets | David Sheriff was kind enough to develop and share with us an EXCEL spreadsheet that he and his
group uses to keep track of morale, losses, and other paperwork. You can either
display it and print it or Right click and choose "Save Target As" or
"Save Link As" to save it on your computer. Gaming Sheets(30k). |
| Build Your own | We do not claim to have every unit covered in our cards and prototypes. Here are some Guidelines for Building your own Cards developed by Mark Hayes and others. |
| Andy's Aircraft | Andy Parkes used Mark's BYO guidelines to work up ground attack values for many WW2 Aircraft. |
| Andy's German Pioneer Vehicles | Andy Parkes sent me some prototype cards (GE-P80, GE-P81) for some early war German Pioneer vehicles, and also gave me the rules for their use, which can be found here (.pdf): German Pioneer vehicles. |
| Paddy Green's Built Up Sector Options | Paddy provided us with some ideas on making built-up sector combat more realistic, including
some ideas for multi-level buildings. Zipped MS-WORD document (116k). PDF file (88k). You need Adobe Acrobat Reader for the pdf |
| Paddy Green's Artillery Templates | Paddy provided us with printable templates for UK artillery patterns, as used in the Normandy scenarios. Print them
on clear acetate on a color printer and you will have easy artillery overlays to use in your games. Zipped .pdf files (433k). |
| Alternate KO Vehicle table | The standard BF rules indicate that destroyed vehicles burn and cause the equivalent of permanent smokescreens. In vehicle-heavy scenarios, this can soon cause the battlefield visibility to drop to zero. Here are some optional rules discussed on the forum: Burning Vehicle Alternatives. |
| Battlefront Tables in Español | Carlos Sanz Ramírez sent us a translation into Español for the common Battlefront tables: Tablas Battlefront WW2 (pdf 41k) |
| Lucas Willen's optional rules | Luke is a frequent contributor to the forum who has developed some optional rules that he uses in his games. Lucas Willens' optional rules. |
| Lucas Willen's Morale rules | Luke distilled his ideas from a long discussion on morale and combat effectiveness in 2011 into this set of is a morale optional rules. Lucas Willens' Morale rules. |
| Dan Fraser's Squad Leader Conversion Guidelines | The popular Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader(tm) board games cover a similar scale to BF and can be an excellent source
of scenario ideas. Here are a set of guidelines for converting SL and ASL scenarios to BF, contributed by Dan Fraser . Dan Fraser's SL/ASL conversion Guidelines. |
| Paddy Green's base stickers-modify to your taste | While organizing the 2007 Bovington convention mega-game, Paddy Green et al prepared an Excel spreadsheet with the stats for each stand that could then be printed out and put on the stand bottoms. This meant that they didn't even need to use cards, and probably greatly speeded play. Paddy sent me the attached (zipped) MS-Excel document which can be modified for your games if you want to use this method. Zipped MS-Excel (110k) Note that you need Winzip or its equivalent to use it, but if you are dealing with Excel files, you want to have Winzip anyway, because they compress to about 1/5 their normal size. |
| Paddy Green's Rules for medals (zipped MS-Word, .png file) | Paddy gives us a way of recognizing individual stands in a long campaign. Requires some paperwork but adds some color (or colour if you prefer). So far only German and UK, but could be expanded to other nations. I think the idea here is that you cut out the pictures of the medals and paste them on the base sticker (see above entry) where appropriate. |
| Mitchell O'Callaghan's point system (zipped MS-Excel, MS-Word .8Mbyte) | Mitchell and his Australian group have taken on the daunting task of trying to develop a general points system for BF. The ZIP file contains an Excel template with the points values, a document to help plan your MEs, and a document to help figure out what to buy. |
| Luke Willen's Weather Rules (.pdf) | Luke has some suggestions for incorporating weather effects into the game. |
| Bovington 2010 Engineering Rules | Some more detailed engineering rules developed for the Bovington 2010 demonstration game. |
| Bovington 2010 Fog of War/Alternate Position Rules | An interesting alternative method for doing fog-of-war/hidden deployment developed for the Bovington 2010 demonstration game. |
| Onboard Artillery Options | Some optional rules that can be used to avoid giving onboard artillery an unwarranted advantage and also clear up some anomalous situations. See some of the discussions in this Forum discussions. |
| Optional Obscuring Sparse rule | An optional rule for having certain types of sparse terrain effect lines of sight. |
| Tank riders | An attempt to (hopefully) put to rest arguments about how to use tankriders. |
| Alternate ManeuverTest(.pdf) | Joe Marmilic gave me some alternate maneuver test rules after a forum discussion. They use some of the concepts of Regimental Fire & Fury to make the commanders more important. |
| Landing Craft (.zip) | Bill Greenwald developed some templates for building your own Landing Craft. Print these out on cardstock, and cut and paste them together. This was extracted from the Battlefront Yahoo group. |
| Tactical Thoughts | |
| Artillery Basics | Some thoughts about using artillery. |
| Woods | Some thoughts about tactics for fighting in woods. |
| Towns | Some thoughts about tactics for fighting in towns. |
| Archived Forum Threads | |
| Archived Forum Threads -I needed to free up some space in the forum and decided to consolidate some of the discussions. I did not edit them, but just copied and pasted, so the discussions are "warts and all". All ideas herein are the opinions of the authors of the threads and do not necessarily represent those of the Fire and Fury Games. Anyway, if you are interested in some of the ideas that have been discussed at great length, here they are. | |
| Points Systems | This is compilation of many long discussions about why we do not have a points system for developing scenarios. |
| Attrition and Incremental Casualties | There are several vocal proponents (hi Luke) of incremental casualties and different levels of disorder. Here are consolidated discussions about these ideas. |
| MG Grazing and MG Indirect fire | The MG grazing optional rules are provided above. These discussions provide the background for these rules and discuss the real-world factors behind them. |
| Painting and Terrain | Some ideas on painting and terrain-building (which were put in the main forum instead of the painting forum). |
| Miniatures and Scales | Thoughts on adapting BF to different scales and on the relative merits of different lines of miniatures. |
| Surprise and Two Shots | Discussions of the "two shots" defender advantage, along with some ideas for simulating surprise attacks in Battlefront games. |
| Moving Overwatch | The discussion that led to the moving overwatch optional rule (see above). Starts out discussing how to balance scenarios with tanks. |
| Close Air Support | What started out as a discussion of Air Support in the Desert turned into one of the more interesting historical threads that we have seen, led by Roger Kumferman. If you are interested in the history and evolution of CAS, take a look at this thread. |
| Naval Gunfire | Here are some forum discussions on naval gunfire support at Normandy. |
| Pershing | Here is another forum discussion on the Pershing Tank |
| Orders of Battle | These are orders of battle and discussions thereof which were posted on the forum. They may since have been overtaken by events, but I didn't want the discussions to get lost. |
Free Stuff Policy
This page designed as a center for the free distribution of home rules, prototypes, etc.. Our payment policy is simple-We don't pay for contributions, but we don't charge for distributing them either! If you send us something for inclusion on the site and we think it is appropriate, we will format it and give you full credit. Also, if we decide to use a contribution in a published supplement, we will work out proper compensation at that time. If you have something that you would like us to include, please let us know if you want us to include your contact information in the page (by default we will use only your name, but we can include an email address or URL if you want us to).
We make extensive use of .pdf files, which can be read using the free Adobe Acrobat reader
