Inter War Imagi Nations

[Blofeld]

Has anyone tried to do Inter War imagi-nations? I'm interested in starting an imagi-nation campaign using 1/72 Soviet and German forces but I'd find it more tasteful to use imagi-nations free of the war crimes associated with these two forces. I'm slightly stuck for tips and advice on starting imagi-nations, particularly in this period. I'd be interested if anyone has any tips and advice for someone starting an interwar imagi-nation
I hope this is the right board
Thanks in advance
Blofeld

[FramFramson]

Well, there's always good old San Serriffe 

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/san_serriffe

[Arlequín]

  "... beaches where terrorism has been virtually eliminated".

Has anyone tried to do Inter War imagi-nations?

Yep right board. 

I've had a go at a couple, although I was never satisfied with them. The problem with using 'real' forces as imaginary ones, is that virtually everyone 'not in the know' sees them for what they are, which defeats the object. Given that your Germans and Russians are going to be '1941' at the earliest, passing them off as 'interwar' is not really going to work very well either.

For me the best imagi-nations are the ones that go out of their way to disguise that facet, VBCW being the obvious one that does this.

Being an SCW fan, I can envisage a somewhat fanciful scenario where it ends in a tie and Spain is split into two. After France falls to Germany, the Nationalists receive German equipment, as Spain did in real life, while the Republicans continue to get Soviet equipment ready for a re-match. The only drawback is that both sides are likely to commit similar atrocities to the ones you are trying to avoid.

Eastern Europe/Balkans might be another option, with one side sponsored by Hungary (Germany in other words) and the other by the Soviets.

To be honest though, your only boundary is your imagination... there's no rule that any if it has to be realistic.
 

[dadlamassu]

We use Morvalonesia as a generic setting for our Pulp and Inter-War games

http://www.morvalearth.co.uk/Morvalonesia/Mvnsia_Games/Mnsia_Intro.htm

[von Lucky]

I have played in a game run by Battle Group Boston/South, based on Duck Soup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Soup_%281933_film%29

A collection built up over the years, there were a number of tanks that never saw active service.

You could also set the game in the Tintin universe:
Borduria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borduria

Syldavia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syldavia

[fred]

How about this as a starting premise.

At the end of WWI Russia and Germany both fragment - Germany back to the various regions pre-unification and Russia to something like it is today?

This gives you lots of small states vying against one another.

[commissarmoody]

How about this as a starting premise.

At the end of WWI Russia and Germany both fragment - Germany back to the various regions pre-unification and Russia to something like it is today?

This gives you lots of small states vying against one another.

that's a cool idea

[fred]

Glad you like it.

Now if someone can take this and make it in to a fully fleshed out background that would be great ;-)

[Bogdanwaz]

I've done this with a version of Ruritania and Graustark, based on the way there were presented in Space 1889.  Here's an explanation:

http://bogdanwaz.blogspot.com/2012/01/lets-try-this-again.html

Here's the start of a pulp campaign about the Fascist invasion of Ruritania in 1939:

http://bogdanwaz.blogspot.com/2012/01/roxy-smothers-and-lost-treasure-of.html

[FramFramson]

Tintin demonstrated long ago the principle that you can always cram another small country into the Balkans or in central-eastern Europe (anywhere south of Bohemia, really) and no one will notice.

Personally, if I had the money to get figures made, I would be trying to make Gallian forces, (Gallia is a from a video game where all of Europe is an imagi-nation in 1935. The landscape looks Dutch, but the characters wear German-style equipment and uniforms, and the nation practices Swiss-style armed neutrality using Israeli-style universal mandatory conscription, i.e. the draft applies to women as well, though there's a larger age range for men).

I would probably insert it as a very small country between The Netherlands and Germany. The map of Gallia looks very much like Ostfriesland, so maybe it would just be that, with the assumption that in this world that bit of land was never a regular part of the German Empire (Holy Roman Empire leftovers or such). I would make the eastern adjacent territory (basically Oldenburg) another small independent principality, but this would be a much more pro-German place, one which had been more regularly German (maybe they were independent prior to 1871, joined the Empire, and were split off as part an obscure provision of the Treaty of Versailles) and one looking ultimately to be absorbed in the Anschluss. But for now, they could go to war with Gallia independently.

So the two could duke it out, with the Oldenburgers receiving some German support.

That's really a shameless fanboy thing on my part, but really, Europe has many little fragments that people often forget about. There's nothing wrong with just cramming a tiny country in somewhere considering this is all just for fun.

[FramFramson]

Oh and you can always create tiny Mediterranean island nations. Or a fourth Baltic state.

[Arlequín]

By tying yourself to both real and later forces you create your own stumbling block, as Panzer IVs and T-34s had somewhat limited export potential due to the war itself. In the Interwar period things were far more flexible, Italian CV33/35s got as far away as South America and nearly every army had some Renault FTs knocking around.

My own on/off project is set in Trans-Carpathia/Ruthenia (its a real place, go look), who voted not to join Czechoslovakia in my reality. Another option is the setting for the movie 'Grand Hotel Budapest', or even the old classic 'The Lady Vanishes'... you could even bring Ruritania into modern times oops.

Some great settings coming out here folks btw... nice!  

[FramFramson]

Agree with the tank points. The FT-17 is far and away the most ubiquitous tank of the interwar period. Another pretty common one is the Vickers 6-ton/Soviet T-26 (the Soviet version was a licence-built copy with not much variation).

If you want to use better-quality German or Russian materiel (FYI, Panzer IVs were not even in service until 1939 and would not technically be correct for the interwar period at all, but maybe Panzer Is or IIs, conceiveably), they will almost certainly have to be genuinely Russian or German manned, in a Condor Legion type of arrangement.

Or you can just tweak history as needed and do what you like.

[moif]

I resolved this problem in my campagin world by resetting history. I wanted to run pulp skirmish games and interwar tank battles (especially with some of the weird and wonderful designs of the interwar period) but although the former was easy enough the latter proved very difficult given how few tank vs tank battles actually took place during the 1930s. I solved this by introducing a secret order of the British Empire; the Lords Temporal, who have the a functioning time machine/time portal that allows them to go back in time (but never forward). This way the British could go back five, ten or twenty years and avoid the pitfalls and mistakes which led to the empire dissolving. My campaign therefore exists in a parrallel time line where the Lords Temporal (who are only twelve in number) left this time line in 1940 and returned to 1919. We live in the world they left behind.

This new time line allows me to bend history so I can stage all those tank vs tank battles I want to, and since I build my own tank models, I can introduce new variations on desigsn that were never developed. Since the British do away with Hitler in the new time line, the Germans never send any troops to the SCW, Guderian and his Blitzkrieg never happen either; I can develop the tank war ideas which were generally considered post WW1, with lots of old school rhomboid designs and multi turretted tanks instead of the more technogically advanced designs.

My imagi-nations (great expression BTW) are thus real nations whose technological development has either been stunted or promoted according to my needs. Germany for example dissolves into civil war in the late 1930's and Stalin tries to annex it (and Poland) in 1939. The British and the French fight back. This gives me a good excuse to fight British A1E1 Independent tanks and French B1 tanks against Soviet T28s and T 35s. (I also armed Denmark with British surplus Vickers medium Mk IIs).

The time machine idea also gives me the means of introducing 1940s rocket technology into the 1920-30s.

[Red Orc]

Some of us discussed the possibility of extending Ruritania into the Interwar period. If it's part of the Austro-Hungarian EMpire after 1866 rather than being absorbed into Germany in 1871, then it might be independant between the wars.

Also as Arlequin says, the movie 'Grand Budapest Hotel' provides some inspiration. There was a thread about it around a year or so ago... http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=64445.0