Playing the the horn of Africa in the 1920s-1930s

[commissarmoody]

Hello I was looking at playing a fictinal arfrican campaing in the horn of Africa. I was wondering how the T&T system works and if it might be what I am looking for to create what i am looking at doing.

[Westfalia Chris]

Hello I was looking at playing a fictinal arfrican campaing in the horn of Africa. I was wondering how the T&T system works and if it might be what I am looking for to create what i am looking at doing.

First, it´s hard to tell you if T&T is what you´re looking for if we don´t know WHAT it is you´re looking for...

By saying "the T&T System", are you referring to the actual tabletop rules or any campaign applications? We have not yet done an official piece for the latter, so you would have to create some campaign rules for yourself. The rules themselves are rather straightforward, but are mainly focused on smaller forces of up to 3-4 Units per player, so the turn is not slowed down too much. If you have multiple players you can have more than one player per side, forming "teams". The Heroes allow for a certain storytelling/roleplaying element.

As auxiliary designer of the original rules and author of the SCW book, I would suggest looking out for the following in a campaign setting:

1. Chronicle the progress of the Leaders over the course of the campaign. Maybe allow the players to roll for a new skill if they "acted" very well in a game, or have them roll up a drawback if the Hero is removed from play in a game (remember, in T&T, Heroes never die, and Villains return suitably scarred).

2. For units, I´d suggest setting up a simple experience system. For example, if a unit survives three consecutive games without being reduced to 50% original strength (i.e. no more than half of the original number are KILLED in the three games), you may give them a chance to advance one level, up to a maximum of Elite quality. Likewise, if you have higher losses, a unit might be downgraded due to the influx of inexperienced recruits. European Units might only receive reinforcements from time to time (when they arrive from Europe), so you might have to group several units together when their individual numbers get too low.

3. Any vehicles should be used sparingly, and/or be subject to rules for mechanical failure, especially when in the field without immediate access to a decent base of operations. If a vehicle is destroyed, you should not be able to use it in further games, although you might scavenge it for parts for other vehicles.

Those are just some ideas. Keep in mind a certain "backwater feel" when it comes to "high technology". Don´t overpower units. Use Heroes for a storytelling aspect. And, most importantly, have fun!

[Plynkes]

Once I've painted a few more Dervishes I certainly plan to use T&T for this setting.

[former user]

Hi @comissarmoody
don't know about Your experience with campaigns

the approach @Chris outlined above is very nice and works nice, since going along with RPG principles
we (we being the people with whom I used to play) have played campaigns in this manners for many Years, and from what I can judge as a "user" of T&T by now is that these rules should be ideally suited to such an approach


there is however a "dark side" to this approach, depending of course on the size of the campaign - if You stay with a skirmish level of forces, I would see no problem.
Fighting campaigns on a bigger level however used to cause a lot of account work, with keeping track of unit numbers, point costs, experience levels etc.
this is not a drawback as such, but You have to keep it in mind

the other spectrum of campaigning as far as units are concerned  (characters stay with the same approach, since it is the fun of it) would be to create army lists and simulate the experience of Your army and the evolution of Your "empire" through the availability of more experienced units and elaborate technology or the restriction of these in the case of poor campaign performance respectively.
this saves You the accountant work and also discussions with other players, since You do not have to reveal the composition of Your army and can agree on general army list terms.
another experience I had with @Chris approach is when we played an elaborate Mighty Empires campaign for 2 years, is that if You take records of the evolution of Your empire (like in Axis&Allies rules eg), players tend to concentrate on this and to preserve their armies, thus resulting in fewer actual battles  (No, @Chris did not mention this, but it would be a logical consequence since You start keeping track of points costs for which You have to pay, etc)

whichever approach You choose, You should keep in mind on what You want to focus on, actual battles or the campaign set - both approaches worked fine for us

in case You experienced this already, sorry for carrying coals to newcastle
I just wanted to offer the other side of the campaign spectrum
maybe others could be interested as well

[commissarmoody]

Thanks to both of you, I was thinking of keeping things relatively low intensity skirmish anyways.
Kind of had an out of the way Italian colony in mind for awhile, with non Ethiopians in the northern highlands, random nomad craziness from the western desert, disgruntled first gen land owners/miners/ local ethnic majority in the central planes and Shaman inspired head hunters/independence movement in the southern swamps/flood planes.
I don't really know much about the RCTC, but I am thinking of small force really with only like one reinforced company of actually Italian troops, with only one or two squads being on the table at one time.
TO&E of the colony
3 platoons of motorized infantry, who alternate with one platoon on active service in the bush with one on refit and the last on garrison duty guarding the capitals airport, customs/post office/train station, and governors house. This way I don't have to filed that many of them because they are all parceled all over the place.
 the reinforced part is an Armored car sqd (one or 2 Lancia and CV 3/33) and some light art for those troublesome hill forts (not actually going to be used because they don't really fit in a skirmish game). Kind of keep them off table support.
thinking of about 3 planes for adventures involving the heroic men of the Regia Aeronautica and pilots.
The main bulk of the force will be the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali, with a butt load of Askari.
That's the plane right now, its still a work in progress because I am still trying to finger out the protagonist and antagonist.