The Few special ability & the Limited Transport/Light Towing combinations make the motorcycle halftrack a neat little unit. Whereas most people think it is totally useless, using your card gives it value IMO & it sees quite a bit use in some of my Axis builds. My Italians use it often, move artillery, MG's, light mortars & Spotters around. Cheap transport & handy...
Glad to hear the Few SA made that unit much more playable and used!
Updated some German cards that were previously used in my Crete/Pyrrhic Victory scenario and are now slated to appear in Strike North. This includes the Fallschirmjager, Wehrmacht NCO, Fallschirmjager Hauptman, Gerbirgsjager, and Heersbergfuhrer. Some new info is on the Blackburn Skua thread. For now I'm putting aside my design work for any aircraft in this scenario while I concentrate on finalizing work on the Action at Tretten scenario. I have plans to playtest this soon, so right now this is the priority. I will work on creating a list of substitute units for all of the custom units created in the next day or so.
Do you have ideas as to what units would be good proxy pieces for the many custom cards you are making?.......
Here is my current list of all unit types I am planning to use or I'm considering to use for my Strike North design. Some custom units such as the Sledge Transport have yet to be developed.
I have a large collection of AAM units, so it's easy for me to pick these substitutes. Of course, you can use any available figure that you might have in your own collection. I picked substitute figures based on how well they would match the figure I'm trying to represent and use national figures that would otherwise not show up in Norway. Axis and Allied minor nations are great for use as substitutes.
French Army:
Lebel 86M93 Grenadier cost: 3
Canon de75 Modele 1897 cost: 6
Bold Captain cost: 7
Hotchkiss MG Team cost: 7
Hotchkiss H-39 cost: 11
Custom Cards for French Army:
MAC 24/29 Machine Gunner cost: 4 Substitute: Soviet Degtyarev DP-27
French Foreign Legion cost: 5 Substitute: French MAS 7.5mm Rifle
Chasseurs Alpins cost: 7 Substitute: French Alpine Troop
Mortier de 60mm Mle 1935 cost: 6 Substitute: US Mortar M2
French Forward Observer cost: 6 Substitute: Romanian Vigilant Lieutenant
My friend, George, and I met last night to do a quick run through of Action at Tretten. I came up with an 80 point Allied Army consisting of mostly British and some Norwegian forces. The Axis side had 120 points of German units. As we played out several turns I made some mental notes on things I wanted to change. Tonight I typed up the starting forces with some modifications into my Action at Tretten scenario rules.
George is very good at trying out different things just to see if it's allowed such as attempting to cross the map's river with infantry. I initially ruled it would require 3 successful movement rolls; one for the first cliff, a second to cross the river and a third to climb the opposite bank's cliff. Upon reflection I think I will just make the river terrain impassable. Historically both sides restricted water crossings to bridges, fords and iced over lakes. From what I've read, the rivers were free of ice during this time period.
I posted a unit card for the German 105mm LeFH18 Field Howitzer in the custom cards section. I'm strongly considering the creation of two Polish unit cards: Independent Podhalan Rifles (probably same stats as determined Infantrymen) and Polish Motorcycle Recon (basically the same as the Slovak Motorcycle Recon).
Also added three new AAM cards to the Custom Cards section: Horse Drawn transport, Truck Transport and Sledge Transport.
Over the last two days I managed to finish two more maps. One for Kvam and the other for Kjorem. Although these were separate battles, they occurred very close to each other in time and place. Kvam occurred on April 25-26, 1940 and Kjorem occurred just upstream from Kvam on April 27th. I designed the maps so that they could be laid side by side for a larger battle area if desired.
The Tretten map was tweaked a bit. I moved some forest hexes a bit more up stream from the bend in the road in order to make it more reflective of the historic battlefield. Even though half hexes are out of play, I'm considering adding some terrain onto the Tretten maps half hexes just for decorative purposes. I also changed some of the wording for my terrain rules in such a way so that Ski Capable troops could ski over any available snow cover on snowy hills and clear hexes.
I've been debating with myself over how best to eventually distribute my Norway maps and scenarios. My SgtFury AAM website easily holds Word, PDF and photo files up to a certain limit. This works fine for most things, but not for high quality map files which are too large to store on my free Weebly website. After investigating the cost to upgrade the storage capacity I decided to go ahead and do it. Now I can upload and store any sized files onto my SgtFury website. As a test I uploaded the full sized Action at Tretten AAM map file to my site and linked it to the Tretten Scenario thread on this site. It seems to work fine. So if you are interested to download and print a new AAM game map, go right ahead. I have plans to eventually design and post around a dozen or so AAM maps with scenarios. A major reason for posting map files is so that players can Beta Test them for me. Play on them, get a feel for them and then let me know any suggestions, comments & ideas. Assuming some players will also attend MaizeCon in October 2018, it will also be a chance to try out the units & maps before the big strategic game; Strike North.
Here is a list of the battle sites I'm considering for scenarios with maps:
Tretten, Kvam & Kjorem - Maps done / Scenarios to be worked up. These battles were part of a series of engagements that occurred in the Gudbrandsval Valley in southern Norway.
Bagn, Balbergkamp, Dombas, Gratangen, Hegra, Namsos/Vist/Steinkjer, Narvik/Naval Battles, Narvik/Land Battles, Nordland, Otta, Spiller's Raid/Midtskogen and Vinjesvingen - All being considered for design work. Some of these may be divided up into multiple maps since they represent long periods of time and large areas covered.
The Tretten, Kvam and Kjorem maps have been tweaked a bit. Even though half hexes are out of play, it didn't look good to leave them blank. So they are filled with terrain as needed. Identifying names have been added to the bottom corner of each map for ease of reference.
I created and finished a new map for Lapphaugen which took place in early April north of Narvik. Afterwards I discovered that I was possibly mixing up battle sights, so some changes need to be made to that one. Once this is accomplished I will post & link the maps to this website.
Tonight I had a design meeting with my friend George and we played out a basic Germans verses Norwegians battle. We completed 5 turns in one hour, so that was very promising. The scenario involved 120 points of Germans against 80 points of Norwegians. Besides the new map (Lapphaugen), we tried out my rules for snowy terrain as well as a new idea: snow storm during a battle. At the beginning of play I rolled 2d6 and got a 7. I took 7 cotton balls and randomly dropped them onto the map. Each cotton ball represents heavy snow fall. They act just like Smoke. LOS is blocked into, out of and through the hex they occupy. At the end of each turn during the casualty phase a 6d is rolled for each cotton ball to determine movement. They can move in six different directions.
The idea seem to work pretty well. Each side took advantage of heavy snow fall to move unmolested around the battle board. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it hinders you. We even had both sides running into the same snow squall to avoid enemy fire. The Ski Capable SA and leaders helping with movement really added some nice elements to the play. The snow storm seemed to really help the weaker Norwegians by allowing them to safety maneuver Ski Troops here and there. The German Gebirgsjagers had a hard time dealing with the Norwegian NCO's ability to allow friendly units to reroll cover rolls. But they are tough and were able to take a lot of damage without getting eliminated. The result of the playtest was a tie. Overall I'm very happy with the feel of the combat using the new units and concepts.
This coming March 24th will be major playtest during which I hope to run three games in a row in one day. Hopefully this will give me a good fix on how well the multi-game concept I am envisioning is working.
Many more maps need to be done. At a minimum I want 4 or 5 maps for each of the three main battle zones of Norway: South, Central and North. After this next big playtest I plan on taking a break from the design work. Spring is almost here, so I will need to devote time for outdoor yard cleanup and some other projects that are waiting to be done. I will still be doing some design work during this period, but I really won't be in high gear until mid April rolls around. In any case I will need a break from my current pace simply because I've got "Norway on the Brain" syndrome.
Three maps are definitely done now. I still need to rework the Lapphaugen map and create a Gratangen map. For my upcoming group playtest I have posted all the units cards, maps and campaign rules as they stand on my SgtFury website. You can look at it here:
The campaign rules are really just a rough outline at this time. Eventually it will get edited and added to. No scenario rules just yet. I tacked some historical notes on the end just to give readesr an idea of what may be involved in any particular battle.
When I have time later I will create unit cards for Norwegian Engineers, Scouts and the King's Guards. These units may not show up in many scenarios, but I'd like to include them in the available Norwegian Army units list so that future players can design their own armies for a scenario.
Also reworked the Norwegian Madsen LMG to include a reworded Prone to Jam special ability.
Now I'm turning my attention to preparing for this Saturday's group playtest. The main goal is to try out the concept of sequential scenarios with armies carrying over from one battle to the next. This will use the Tretten, Kvam and Kjorem maps. The forces will be Germans verses British with a few Norwegians tossed in. In between battles each side will receive some reinforcements. The way to victory will be body count, in other words, how much of the enemy did you kill. The other maps, Gratangen and Lapphaugen, will be Norwegians verses Germans and will be a test of the Norwegian Army's ability to fight. The main thing to figure out is are there enough tools in the Norwegian's tool box to make them interesting and playable as a nation.
I'll post an After Action Review once things are wrapped up on Saturday.
Today I had 3 gaming friends over at my place and we play tested 4 scenarios: Gratangen, Lapphaugen, Tretten and Kvam. Each game was two player and ran for about 1 1/2 hours each. Two games were played at the same time. The first two were Norwegians verses Germans while the 3rd and 4th were British against Germans. Armies were preselected to reflect the historic mix of the actual battle. All four scenarios were assault style. (120 verses 80 points)The first two battles also included active snow storms which hindered LOS randomly.
I had a fifth map (Kjorem) ready without any scenario produced for it just yet. I simply ran out of prep time, so I just showed everyone the map.
Overall the results of the play test were good. Everyone said the scenarios were balanced and challenging. In the next few days I will polish the scenario write ups and then post them for everyone to see.
Even with low point totals of 120 verses 80 I don't think any of these scenarios can be played in an hour. 1 1/2 hours seems to be more realistic. So I have to either accept that time frame or create scenarios with lower point totals. Historically, not many high point units such as tanks or other vehicles fought during the 1940 Norwegian Campaign. So it was very much as infantryman's war. That means a lot more units on the game board and more decisions to be made. I don't want to rush players. I want them to enjoy the game. So I'm going to shift my thought process and go with games that last around 1 1/2 hour each.
This is an important consideration because I'm envisioning four rounds of play for the overall campaign game. So if I wish to do 4 rounds of play , realistically I need to plan on 8 hours. The good news is, all four rounds wouldn't have to be played back to back. So maybe I should divide the play time in half. Play two rounds lasting four hours, take a long break for lunch and then do the next two rounds later for an additional four hours. If you plan on attending MaizeCon this coming October let we know your opinion on this. Would you play an 8 hour long campaign game broken down into two 4 hour sessions?
As a Norwegian, I'm (not surprisingly) quite impressed and interested in your project. You seem to have a good overview and access to a lot of research material, so I reckon that that will take you most of the way, but if there is some Norwegian specific stuff or anything else you wonder about, I'll be more than happy to help you out. Just shoot me a message or write in this thread, and I'll do my best. Either way, I'll definitely be following this project closely.
I'll also see if I'm able to do some playtesting later, but that won't possible before June or so.
As a Norwegian, I'm (not surprisingly) quite impressed and interested in your project. You seem to have a good overview and access to a lot of research material, so I reckon that that will take you most of the way, but if there is some Norwegian specific stuff or anything else you wonder about, I'll be more than happy to help you out. Just shoot me a message or write in this thread, and I'll do my best. Either way, I'll definitely be following this project closely.
I'll also see if I'm able to do some playtesting later, but that won't possible before June or so.
Thank you for your offer to help out. I just might do that when the time comes. The internet and Google Translate in particular have been a big help for me. Your local knowledge may be very helpful for some things.