In the earliest development of Rebellion: Britannia we were visualizing the systems in the form of various levers, so that the key elements of Briton Tension, Briton Warbands, and Legion Cohesion (which is rather fun to say out loud) all had mechanisms to both increase and decrease them. We might show this in the form shown in Table 1. (It did not look this neat in our original notebooks.)
Moving to the US Turn, fewer cards are drawn by both sides now.
Moving to close a gap in the lines with a pre-planned move, the Germans use a Force March card to shift 2nd SS Panzer into the good defensive terrain at Elsenborn. Needing to maintain a strong line to protect now-exposed Verviers, the US shuffle their Elite Infantry and B/9 Armored north, abandoning the Garrison at Vielsalm to its fate.
At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s imports.
John F. Kennedy, October 1960
Below is an After Action Report for The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russion Front Mission 45.0, Tigers on the Prowl. Enjoy!
Cuius Regio is an operational level wargame depicting the military activities of the Thirty Years War. This is a summary of activity in the first two turns of a Campaign game from one of our teaching games with our playtest group. While this is not a detailed explanation of the rules, but it does provide a description of the flow of the game and the basics of how the game works.
NOTE: The Map art depicted in this article is almost final (pending a few minor corrections), but the counter art is not. This game was played online using Vassal.
The Germans draw a decent strong hand, but lack cards for their most important fights, which will be conducted by the 5th Panzer Army. The US draw a disappointing hand, geared entirely for defence at time when they need to be counterattacking.
Next, powerful German reinforcements arrive in the east, but the US doesn’t get anything this turn. These units can be redeployed to the front lines for the price of a Fuel card, so long as they don’t enter a contested area, but at this point the front line is still close enough for the Germans to use these for off-road movement and initiate combat, so that’s precisely what they will do.
Here the designer of Epipolae: The Athenian Expedition in Sicily, 415-413 BCE (P500), presents his thoughts on why the Levy & Campaign system works well for ancient settings. (All images are public domain from the Illustrated History of the World, 1881.)
The Levy & Campaign (L&C) series of games was designed from the ground-up to model operational-level medieval military campaigns. This includes some modeling of the feudal system of Lords and vassals, obligations and fealty, and organization and service. [1]
Key features in the series include each turn of the game consisting of a Levy phase and a Campaign phase. Each Levy phase is used to muster allies, vassals, capabilities, transportation, and supplies. Each Campaign phase allows players to plan and command the movement and various actions of their Lords and armies, subject to the logistical constraints of the previous Levy phase(s). Each game board has two features: a calendar and a map. The calendar serves as a turn record track that is used to track the availability and service of various Lords and vassals. Each map is point-to-point, where Locales are connected by Ways, which control movement and supply routes. Victory conditions vary, but can be achieved through conquering strongholds, defeating enemies in battle, and ravaging and plundering. [1]
Key Features
The new Vietnam Campaign Mission book from the upcoming Fields of Fire Deluxe is now free to download from the Fields of Fire Deluxe P500 page at GMT Games for anyone with the original game to play with.
Most Fields of Fire campaigns take place over a series of missions that are set days or, at most, a couple of weeks apart. They depict your company as it fights its way through one intense period of action.
However, the nine-mission Vietnam campaign presented in FoF Volume I, sees you in command of a 9th Infantry rifle company for just over 2 years of action. During this time, instead of the continuous promotion of your surviving units and gradual progress towards a completely veteran company as you may be used to in previous campaigns, your company will likely degrade over time. Not just through casualties, but you’ll also see your best units rotated out of the battalion and sent home and will experience a restructuring of the regiment half-way through the campaign that leaves you with yet more green units to lead into battle.
All the while the missions themselves ramp up the intensity as you are sent into ambushes, or try to lead single platoons on patrols through VC strongholds. Even the safety of the Staging Area is not guaranteed in this campaign. Missions see you dropped by helicopter into the middle of the jungle or trying to defend far flung outposts with no place to fall back to.
Below is an After Action Report for The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russion Front Mission 43.0, Green Devils’ Last Stand. Enjoy!
January 5-16, 1944. As battle was raging in the Uman Gap, Konev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front launched a major assault against Wohler’s 8th army’s right flank, driving on the important industrial city of Kirovograd. The plan was to encircle the German defenders with the 5th Guards Army passing south of the city and the 53rd Army to the north. The Russians made rapid progress in both sectors overruning the woefully thin German defenses. For the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Division, already defending a 21 kilometer front with just 3,200 men, were also tasked with holding the vital road crossing, the Krivoi Rog – Kirovograd highway. For the Green Devils’ Pioneer Battalion stationed at Novgorodka the reckoning was at hand.
Major Sidorov looked at the map one more time while kneeling next to a log in the woods. Majors Sidorov and Semenov had been tasked with taking the village currently occupied by the Germans. The plan was a classic pincer attack. Sidorov with his 2nd and 3rd platoons would to attack from the north while Semenov attacked from the south with his 1st and 2nd platoons. Sidorov split his two platoons, sending the 3rd platoon across the road against the village on the east side of the road and the 2nd platoon directly through the woods.
The US draw a single card – an Engineer. The German draw is pictured below.
During the US Admin phase each player can cycle Event cards they don’t want. The Germans therefore choose to replace an event they can no longer use (KG Peiper) and draw a “Hasty Attack”.
