WW2 Mini-campaign part 3

Once a side declares an attack on a square the next step is the placement of terrain on the wargaming table. All battles in the campaign are played on a 4' by 4' tabletop with a 6" square grid. Each table will have a standard set of features for North Western Europe to which additional features are added based upon the features on the campaign map. There are four campaign map features, which are woods, rivers, clear and towns. Clear terrain is to be treated as farmland.

The standard features for the tabletop setup are:

• 4 fields
• 4 woods
• 2 buildings
• roads are placed to run through villages

These are placed anywhere on the table after other terrain features determined by the campaign map are placed on the table.  These features are:

• For a town 2 buildings placed on adjacent squares
• a river across 8 squares and 2 bridges (or fords).
• 4 woods
• 2 fields

These features are first placed in the inner zone a set of 16 squares in the centre of the tabletop. Rivers must travel through this zone. The terrain is placed in the order of river, town, woods and fields.

With all terrain placement, if there is a feature already in the square, then re-roll.

Terrain is placed in this inner zone squares by a dice rolls. I use a D4 dice (but you can use a D6 re-rolling any 5 or 6 scores) rolling once to determine the number of squares across and a second time to for the number of squares down.

When placing towns the first building is placed and the second building is placed in one of the 4 adjacent squares, this is determined by rolling a D4 (don't place diagonally). There may be a situation where the second building is placed outside of the inner zone when the fist is on the edge. This is allowed. Once the first building is placed place a straight road though the building, roll 1, 2, 3 for north to south and 4, 5, 6 for east to west.

Above the first buildings are placed after rolling a 1 and 3 (1 square across and 3 down). Then a second 3 is rolled on a D4 for the placement of the second square of buildings. The road is placed through the first layer building square north to south after a 2 was rolled on a D6.

When setting up rivers rolls 2 D4 to identify a square in the inner zone where the bridge will be, then roll to see if the river flows north-south or east-west.

In the above layout the first bridge square identified was 1 across and 2. Then on a D6 a 5 was rolled for an east-west flowing river. The second bridge is always placed 4 squares away from the first bridge.

The approach with trees and fields is much simpler, roll 2 D4 to determine where they are placed in the inner zone.

When there is a situation of a town and river to be placed on the tabletop, then the town will be placed on either side of the first bridge in the inner zone.

For the remaining standard terrain features the same approach is used except for the whole table grid. So use a couple of D8 to determine the squares across and down for placement of the items. Whenever a building is placed lay a road connection between it and the nearest road, if one has not yet been laid, then roll to determine if the road runs north-south or east-west.

A Stuart Tank (Armoured Reconnaissance Unit) and new 20mm balsa wood buildings

Once all terrain is placed, the defender gets to choose the side they wish to defend and place units anywhere on their side of the tabletop.

The next post will cover deciding force make up and how battles are won or lost.