WW1 Legacy Wargame

[Emmersonforest4]

Hi all just because I’m curious! Is there any wargame rules where you can run legacy games. So you can wargame WW1 and depending on your results they affect games later down the line. So if one player is the central power and one the entente, and you battle caparatto and the Italians won next time if you wargame the western front the Germans lose some numbers because they’ve have to sure up the Austrians etc… In board games these are called legacy games where you play over a period of time. Sorry if that dosen’t make sense and I know part of wargaming is replaying the battles and it being historical. However it also sounds fun to me to see what would have happened if for example the Germans didn’t rout the Russians at tannenberg etc…

[fred]

In wargaming this is called a campaign.

A campaign can vary in scale from following a squad through a linked set of skirmishes to the scale you are suggesting of armies fighting.

A campaign can vary in complexity, and size, and is very much down to the number of players involved and the willingness of the umpire running it, and most are the efforts of an individual (or group) rather than something commercial . I can’t say I’ve seen a WWI campaign on the scale you are thinking, but that isn’t to say there is something out there.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

I haven’t found anything on this scale but it sounds awesome; especially if I could weave in some planes (Wings of Glory or the Fighting Wings reskin) and naval (WW1 General Quarters) action. I love campaigns and adding value to your little men (so their lives matter more or at all) is missed in many games or by playing one off; throw away games.

The Pint Sized campaigns made for Too Fat Lardies’ Chain of Command are excellent little examples of this inter connectivity in gaming where losing men in one game can have a real effect on the next. A much smaller focus (platoon) than your suggestion but with a similar idea. Check out fellow LAF’ers AAR’s of these campaigns in the WW2 part of the forum.

Balm

[Emmersonforest4]

Thank you! Yes I will check them out. My dream is like you where you can do a war from start to finish. I’d love to have an army of Germans austro Hungarians and Turks taking on the entente in a campaign. As you said adding in naval and air forces would make it awesome.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

The closest quick fix (that’s usually the best option) would be taking a comprehensive old war board game (something in the Avalon Hill stable for example) and using that to play out the grand scale and your chosen tabletop wargame to play out the conflicts. For example you could play the WW2 pacific campaign using Flat Top for the overview and General Quarters for the conflicts.

The main problem you’ll have will be finding a way to scale the outcome of the tabletop game with the board game and vice versa (e.g you lose half a platoon on the tabletop but the grand scale counters are full companies). The bigger your tabletop games the easier it’ll be.

Really looking forward to see where you go with this,

Balm

[carlos marighela]

Many moons ago there was a set of WW1 rules by Greg Novak, that included a 'bathtub' scenario for the opening months of the war. It further reduced the scale of the games meaning that a division might be represented by a battalion  and you moved from point to point on a scaled down hex map showing much of Europe. As you would be commanding corps or army actions you'd probably be mustering a brigade on the table to fight out the games that developed from the campaign.

As it was a dynamic campaign, there is no reason why a German reverse at the Marne on Tannenburg might not be followed up with a counterattack or a series of developments that goes off the historical plot. Pretty much all campaigns have only the start point as history and varying parameters as to how that may develop. The rest is up to the players. If it wasn't nobody would fight Waterloo or Arnhem because Napoleon or the Germans would always win.

The other popular genre is the 'what if' which feeds in a predetermined premise to the start of the campaign, ie the Italians win at Caporetto, and develops from there.

[leadboy]

The ruleset that Carlos M refers to is "Over the Top", the WW1 version of the Command Decision WW2 game. It is now OOP but still occasionally appears on Ebay, and not only did a "bathtub" Western Front for the opening months of the war, but also a number of other scenarios, one of which (I seem to remember) was Tannenberg.

[Dobbie71064]

There's a book out there called 'The Solo Wargaming Guide' which gives you options for running a solo campaign and generating battles for that. I think it would work really well for WW1 as well. It would give you options for doing the campaign mechanics yourself and you can either play out the battles solo (I'm biased but I'd suggest 'Through the Mud and Blood of Flanders' by Dobbies Hobbies on Wargames Vault) or play them with a local gaming group.