After doing a goodly amount of research and exploring the options, I've decided to use the old "Barbarossa/25" "bathtub" campaign booklet as the basis for my upcoming Barbarossa Campaign. The campaign basically scales everything; forces, map, and timeline at 1/25.
I tend to overeach with respect to scope in my gaming projects, and Operation Barbarossa is kind of really big in scope, so I'm trying to avoid going too big with this.
I spent time over the last week outlining the campaign booklet and making changes to accommodate my tactical table top rules. I will probably use "Lacquered Coffins" to handle most of the air to air combat, though may give a table top conversion of Mustangs and Messerschmitts (half original scale with 6mm models) a try for some smaller encounters.
I 'm considering adding in a few extra units, as I'd like to get some use out of the T-35s and a few other miniatures that I have. These additions will be minimal, so I don't think they will throuw the game out of balance.
Games will probably be played mostly in 6mm with some smaller battles in 15mm (should small enough battles actually occur). I also expect that the campaign will be played in a fairly small window of time; months, as opposed to years as most of my other campaigns are played.
Converting the Command Decision style order of battles back to 1 to 1, and checking that I have all of the appropriate miniatures still needs to be finished up. I may yet have to order a few figs, but there shouldn't be much needed at this point.
All things considered, the project is progressing pretty smoothly at this point, and the campaign will still likely start late summer or early fall as things stand at the moment.
I do have some reservations about the "bathtub campaign" concept, and have considered that the battles or campaign in entirety may not feel "right" to me. Should that happen, then I will move to using "Europa: Fire in the East" as the strategic component of the game, and anticipating that down the road, I will want to revisit at least portions of the campaign in greater scope, I am making some accommodations now to transfer my bathtub version tools directly to a more expansive version of the campaign.
We'll just have see how it goes.
"Overreach" in gaming project scope? Say it isn't so! Actually, I reckon many of us are guilty of the same. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThe bath tubbed version should still yield you 10 or so battles per strategic turn, that will feature a German Infantry regiment, or an armored assault force. Against this you'll have a Soviet Rifle Brigade, somewhat attritted, along with reinforcements For thee or four turns the fighting would be at that pitch. Later games should reflect German units having losses. Don't think we ever got to turn 5, but had a blast!
ReplyDeleteYou should be generating 10 or more regiment size actions per strategic turn for the first four turns. That is as far as we ever got locally. Great resource, maybe do one of these in the future.
ReplyDeleteBarbarossa 25 is well worth having just for having! Useful campaign map, and plenty of ideas and background info to work with. Somewhere in the back of my mind is to use it for rescaling to operations level action with my own kit. I'm a bit short on the early war kit, though...
ReplyDeleteNot heard of the 'Barbarossa 25' resource before but looks interesting. I bought 'Barbarossa - kicking in the door' off Wargames Vault to try running a campaign for remote players but life intervened.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the campaign, overreach is underrated in my view. :)
That looks like fun. All my Eastern Front "campaigns" have tended to be of linked scenario type, although I did write Race to Leningrad many years ago to produce something more dynamic. Andrew Rolph took that and expanded it into so much more. I specifically wrote the "Leshnov" scenario so 8th Mech Corps can use their regiment of T35.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, thoughts, and good wishes. Been a busy week, thus my slow reply here. Work continues on the campaign, got the German unit rosters converted for use with my rules this with, starting the Soviets tonight. Thanks again!
ReplyDelete