Wargame Rules for Armoured Warfare at Company and Battalion Level 1925 to 1950, Bill Farquhar, a pseudonym used by John Salt.
These have just dropped through the post, via the print on demand service ‘Lulu’. I have only had an opportunity to briefly browse them, but my nostalgia button is already in overdrive!
In the 70’s Wargames Research Group (WRG) were the rules staple of most wargamers, reinforced by their use as ‘standard’ on the convention circuit.
Amongst the wide range of periods covered my WWII rules of choice were the 1925 - 1950 Armour & Infantry set. These covered platoon to battalion level action and between these and my 6mm figure collection (pocket money affordable!), I played the hell out of them and several of the pages still are imprinted in my mind’s eye.
In 1979, WRG brought out their ‘Moderns’ set, covering 1950 - 1985 for the company to battalion level game, with an armour focus. The cover looked exactly like the cover shown here, but in a pale blue instead.
Today, John D Salt has brought us a set of rules that sit between the above two sets, that is, the ‘Moderns’ version, but for the earlier period of 1925 - 1950. Essentially the text has been taken from the Moderns set, with things like helicopter and ATWG rules removed and all the 1950 - 1985 aspect has been replaced with WWII troop and vehicle types.
There is much here that is familiar to me and from that commemorative style cover to browsing the content, I have already found a simple pleasure in just owning it.
It needs to be understood that this is an old school style rule set. There are some things that these days can be a little slicker, like observation rules, but that is not the point, these rules are meant to be fully sympathetic to WRG era of the 70’s and in that regard, they absolutely are. It is a job well done.
One of the first things I do when looking at a new WWII system is to see how the author has handled the German Tiger I tank compared to the Panther tank. It always makes for a fascinating study, as the former went into production in 1942 and the latter half of 1943. The Tiger I was a heavy tank, formidable at the time, with a fearsome reputation, but just a year and a half later, the Panther tank, a medium MBT, had made a generational leap in design and their comparison is says much about the nuance of gun / armour rules.
Plenty of systems have them as close equals, some even give the Tiger an absolute advantage, surely something that could only be attributed to elite crews, but this is what we have here;
[The first thing I look at is the Armour Classes page, which is set out just like my 1975 set, only more comprehensive in terms of vehicle types listed].
The Tiger I armour is classed as V front and IV sides and for armour it is grouped in the same class as the A22 Infantry Tank, Mk IV Churchill, KV-1, m41, and the up-armoured T-34. The guide tells us that Class V armour covers 90mm - 120mm and Class IV is 65mm - 85mm.
The Panther armour is classed as VI front and III side and for armour it is grouped together with StugPz IV, Jagdpanther, M4A3E2 Jumbo, SU-100, SU-85M and Centurion. The guide tells us that Class VI covers 125mm to 160mm and Class III is 45mm - 60mm.
The notes indicate that protection is a combination of armour plate thickness and slope, the quality of the steel and fasteners used, plus good design presenting no vulnerable spots of shot traps. Clearly that superbly sloped Panther front armour is at play here. I love this sort of stuff!
I won’t know until I have read all of the rules whether size /profile has also been used to shape the final placings … as the little Hetzer looks good in the stats!
For Firepower, the Panther’s 75/70 gun and the Tiger’s 88/56 are close performers …. i.e. you never want to be on the wrong end of either of them, but when it comes down to actual stats with standard ammunition, the Panther’s gun has the edge over the 88/56 at range (for penetration, it rightly is the case that the 88 has better HE performance), but it is by a present, but small margin, that will really only influence the margins of some of our engagements.
As an example of the performance of these sort of guns, the Panther’s 75/70 is automatically penetrating all armour classes of IV and below. At Class V a die roll of ‘6’ is needed at 2750 metres, with -1 to that die roll for every 250 metres below that. So at 2000 metres the die roll would need to be ‘3’ or higher. This formula is used for each higher armour class thereafter, with Class VI starting at 1250 metres and Class VII (Tiger II, Elefant and Super Pershing) at 250 metres.
For game scale the player uses 1mm = 1 metre or 1mm = 2 metres depending upon size of figures used. I will be using 10mm / 12mm figures on a domestic table, so will likely go with the latter.
There are (of course) To Hit charts and on the longer ranges, the Tiger gets the slight advantage.
There is Target Acquisition and this is obviously done in the old school way (as the rules are a lift from the 70’s text) and on first sight the number of modifiers to this is a reminder of some of the heavy lifting that rules of that generation were built around. However fellow blogger John H. Has play tested the rules and in his review, he felt the modifiers quite quickly became familiar.
I have found looking into these rules a real pleasure. The task was to re-create a rule set that would nicely compliment what WRG were doing between 1973 and 1979 and to ‘imagine’ the set that WRG would have brought out, had they taken that next step in their WWII tactical rule development. In that, these are a perfect fit. It is like stepping back in time. I am that teenager again!
It is a comprehensive set and of particular note, it is fully self contained. All the troop types and vehicles you will want are here, so no ‘Codex’ style supplements - you just buy the rules.
In the links below, fellow blogger John H has a combined review with an AAR that gives a deeper overview than this post. That post also contains links to other replays, so you might want to check that out for some wider opinion.
The Lulu page is here to purchase the rules;
https://www.lulu.com/shop/bill-farquhar/wargames-rules-for-armoured-warfare-at-company-and-battalion-level-1925-to-1950/paperback/product-wdkk97.html?q=bill+farquhar&page=1&pageSize=4
A limitation of Lulu is that it doesn’t print single sheets of card, so they can’t bundle play aids when printing and sending the book. My understanding is that The Wargames Website (UK wargame forum) has proposed to host the PDF, but I couldn’t find it. There is an e-mail address in the rulebook, which I used and John Salt kindly e-mailed me the PDF. Of course, they are on the same deep yellow background as the 70’s original, just adding another level of WRG authenticity.
Fellow Blogger John H’s AAR and review is - Here
https://hereticalgaming.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-farquhar-version-review-of-missing.html
