Dirty Dozens - A New Modification for No Limits

[Torben]

Well, seeing as Road Warriors is now finally completed I had some time to consider what to do next. And as I mentioned on my blog, then I watched Kelly's Heroes the other day, and it really jogged my imagination.

So I've been contemplating all day for how to do this and I've finally settled on the following facets of the game:

- The rules will be based on No Limits, scale is going to be 28mm, based individually.

- Each player controls a squad, no more, no less.

- Squads that players can choose between:
-- US Grunts
-- German Wehrmacht
-- British Infantry
-- Russian Infantry
-- French Resistance
-- Local Resistance Groups (Norway especially, but also the fledgling forces of Denmark as well came to my mind).

- A squad, like in Road Warriors, Mordheim and Necromunda, will gain experience through the game and slowly become hardened heroes of reknown, or dastardly thieves.

- Some micromanagement, with injuries, skills and upkeep (going to be hard fighting a war without food in your stomach).

- A new way of handling purchase of equipment; usually - depending on which nationality you choose - how you act post-game and what not. Current ideas include requesting new items from HQ, and bribing the correct echelon for more equipment or even tanks!

- The Squads are more pulp-like in their portrayal of the war, and they're all a rather shady lot; not nessecarily evil but just looking out for themselves firstly, then about that war secondly. Bank Heists and what nots!

- A rather light-hearted look at the dealings within the military; like court marshals, Section 8's, Purple Hearts, Ranks and what not.

That's the basic idea at this very moment. I'm starting it and things are subject to change as I go along; but I would like to hear from anybody intested in this project as possible playtesters - or just any general ideas for a campaign structure, mimicking such films as Kelly's Heroes, Dirty Dozen and what have you

In fact, any general feedback is highly appreciated

Cheers, and happy gaming!

[JollyBob]

That sounds like a pretty interesting idea. I think you could be on to something there.  

One thing I would suggest is that you lump all the Resistance squads together, but give them a specific advantage like the mercenaries in Mordheim get, dependant upon which faction they belong to, i.e. the Maquis get more clandestine public support and therefore better provisions, while the Norwegians can add an extra two men to their roster due to the depth of feeling against the invader. That kind of thing. Does that make sense?

That way you could introduce another military unit, such as the Italians, or even Japanese, just to give a bit more flavour and variety. You could have endless fun with those two national stereotypes in your games.  :wink:

Are you planning to confine the action to Europe? And will it be possible to expand the idea into a Weird War setting, as it sounds really good to me so far.  :mrgreen:

[Torben]

Well, there have been other suggestions for Astounding Warstories, NUTS and Patrol - but so far, almost all of them (with the exception being Astounding Warstories) are not exactly what I was looking for in the first place.

But I really dig your idea about lumping the Resistance together into a common group; so consider your idea yoinked! And a stroke of brilliance to make them like the Mercenaries from Mordheim

However, I've hit a snag in the design process: The encounters themselves. You see, I have a hard time handwaving why any Allied unit would fire at another Allied unit - after all, they are in this together! so any ideas on how to handwave why Russians would fight Americans would be very much appreciated

Because so far, I can only accept that one will always play Ze Germans and the other side will have an Allied squad consisting of their elite squad.

Oh, and the Italians and Japanese are going to feature later on, as well as the Weird War stuff! I just wanted to work on the basic campaign structure, before overwhelming myself with a whole lot of niché things; such as weirdness, other theatres and so on.

[Mainly28s]

Well, if they're all akin to the Dirty Dozen/Devil's Brigade stereotypes they'd fire on their "allies" out of general principles...

[Cory]

We ran a similar campaign in which nominally allied (US/UK/Aussies) units were prevented from firing on each other - fists only. Those fights were usually restricted to stealing supplies from each other, fights for turf in the red light district, etc.

[JollyBob]

If you're going for a Pulpy feel to it, then "allied" units could easily be scrapping over a heist, suffer a friendly fire incident, get lost in the fog and misidentify another group, or like cory says, be mixing it up in the local house of gentleman's relaxation.

If you were doing weird War straight away, I would look at sources like the Light Brigade comics for inter-ally strife (Evil Angels! AAAH!   ), or for more regular stuff, have a read of a couple of Sven Hassel novels if you can stomach them. His characters will fight anybody, friend or foe.  

Oh, glad you like the idea too. Happy to be of help.  

Edit: Just thought, if it was a late war setting, the Americans and Russians would be slowly coming round to the idea that they would be sqauring off next. Why not have a scenario where they are both trying to capture a V2 base or scientist for their own rocket programme?

It would fit in with the "special unit" idea as well, as the mission would have to be very much hush-hush.