30YW Imaginations Campaign; The Second Battle of Gruyere

[anton ryzbak]

Having weathered the first assault by the forces of Ferndalia the Freedonains must once again fight for survival;  https://epicureanwars.blogspot.com/2020/12/under-pressure-second-battle-of-gruyere.html

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Wish I had the drive you got to put on games!

[anton ryzbak]

Battle Bush Sigur

I am blessed with a permanent game room and retirement, which makes things a lot easier.

I like battles to have meaning, that means a campaign or connected-scenario sort of thing. After years of trying to get people to manage their nations in campaigns (some did very well, others were unable to do basic math to figure out a budget) I hit upon the idea of what I call a "wind-up" campaign. The nations are set on a course of conflict, I handle all the logistics and budgets while my AI ( a handful of dice) makes the decisions until a battle is imminent.

I then set out the armies and give the players the overall scenario and they take over the tactical command of the troops. Using this method the players do not get bogged down in tiresome bookkeeping but still are mindful that the battle does not occur in a vacuum. Several times battles have been lost but the strategic situation has been saved by a timely withdrawal. I love the period so it  does not tire me to do the behind the scenes stuff and the players can run different forces simply by switching sides.

This system is adaptable to other periods and other scales. A long time ago I ran a series of games where the players were platoon sergeants in the same Company after D-Day. They had to manage taking objectives while keeping casualties to a minimum because the replacements were not as good as the boys that they commanded  when they hit the beach. I was using Crossfire rules but of the Two Fat Lardies systems does something similar or you could always use Bolt Action.