Friday, May 15, 2009

Campaign this Fall - Plan Made

After much discussion with people and looking at sources I think the most interesting situation to campaign will be “The Periphery Campaign” of early World War II, AKA “Wavell’s War”. “Wavell’s War” constitutes the actions in North Africa, East Africa (British Somaliland), The Balkan’s, and The Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon) that were fought while Archibald Wavell was the Commander and Chief British Forces in the Middle East (1939-1942).

The campaign will not be a campaign in the strictest sense but rather a series of games representing the campaigns and operations that mark Wavell’s War. Some of the games may be interconnected (The Italian invasion of British Somaliland followed by the later British Counter Attack) where the results of one battle may have an effect on the victory conditions and organization of the following battle.

The games will be played using “Spearhead” with 15mm Figures.
I understand the scale of Spearhead is not necessarily in line with the scale of the games that may be played and that some orders of battle may be adjust to allow for playability; however my end goal is to run a relatively large battle sometime late winter or early spring 2010. This big battle would be on the order of 4 divisions aside fought on 40 linear feet of tabletop, I hope that is more than a pipe dream.

For this I am currently committing to providing:
Italian Colonial Command ~12 Battalions of Colonial Troops, 3 Battalions Black Shirts, 1 Armor Battalion
German Ramcke Parachute Brigade - 4 Battalions of German Fallschirmjagers (Basically already completed)

Fitz tells me he is interested and has approximately one British Brigade for the Desert and would be willing to expand.

If enough interest is generated I probably will paint more figures but for now this is what I have committed to.

If figures are available we may do some of the action outside of what is normally considered Wavell’s command, West Africa, South East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Rim.
For this I have approximately two divisions of Imperial Japanese Army and some IJN ground forces.

Let me know if you are interested. I'll be honest I am looking for people to paint Infantry for both sides. Historically there were 10 infantry battalions to 1 armor battalions in the theatre so you will see a realitivily few armor (and similiar) commands on the table top for these games.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Campaign this Fall

I have decided that I would like to run/play a series of connected games or a campaign of some sort this fall (2009). That was the easy part the difficult part is what comes next; what the hell do I want to run.

Fantasy
The Lion vs. the Dragon (Clan War in 25mm)

Ancients using “Field of Glory”
Punic Wars (15mm)
The Wars of the Triumvirate (Caesar’s Civil War in 25mm)
First/Third Crusade (25mm)

French and Indian War – Drums of War along the Mohawk in 25mm)
Seven Years War – (Koenig Krieg in 15mm)

Napoleonic – 1809 Campaign (in 15mm)
Napoleonic – 1813 Campaign (in 25mm)

American Civil War (Fields of Honor in 15mm)
American Civil War (in 25mm)
Franco Prussian (Fields of Honor in 15mm)

Great War
Eastern Front (Great Wars Spearhead in 15mm)

World War II
Wavell’s War (Spearhead in 15mm)
Sicily/Italy (Spearhead in 15mm)
A Bridge too Far (Spearhead in 15mm)

That’s a pretty long list, considering it doesn’t include Modern Micro Armor, a few other fantasy games, and more weird periods than I can count.

After some thought I am leaning towards doing something a little out of the whack for me, okay not out of whack, just my usual I don’t have figures painted up for it but it sounds interesting, Wavell’s War in 15mm. I am not exactly sure how to make it work, but I am still working out the plan. Of course I would need to paint up Brits, Italians, and Germans and maybe something else. I am thinking the Red Bull Infantry Division would be entertaining, but that is too late in the war for now.