In the coming month I am expecting 2nd Punic War campaign to come to an end and I will have to start thinking about what the next campaign will be. The likely candidates are ones involving my recently completed 1550 Samurai armies or WW1 Palestine armies which are currently getting painted.
Part of the enjoyment of campaigns for me is the making of the campaign map or tools. To help in this process I will often look at maps from the time or from books I have been reading on the subject. Here are a couple of images from which I will likely draw inspiration.
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| A map from "The Last Crusade". |
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| A Japanese print grabbed online from https://exhibits.stanford.edu/views-portraying-place-space/browse/japanese-views. |
Here is a quick potted history of some of my previous campaign maps and tools.
October 2016 - American War of Independence
I never finished this campaign. It was one of my earliest efforts and lacked clear objectives and victory conditions. The idea here was to show the movement of forces in the form of arrows as they moved on the campaign.
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| AWI Campaign Map |
February 2017 - 100 Years War
This was based upon the Medieval campaign from Donald Featherstone's book "Wargame Campaigns". The book's ideas were adapted to use squares and proved a most enjoyable a close campaign where the English had to escape to their waiting ships.
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| 100 Years War Campaign Map |
February 2018 - French Indian War
This campaign was the Jon of Palouse Wargaming Journal and had Jon managing the campaign solo while I played out the resulting tabletop battles, again solo. Details here http://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/2018/02/solo-campaign-relay-for-french-indian.html
A most interesting campaign thanks to Jon. From memory Fort William-Henry was fought over 3 or 4 times and has since been seared into my memory.
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| Jon ran the campaign using an online tool. |
September 2018 - English Civil War
This area based campaign ran from September 2018 to March 2020 and involved some 28 tabletop games as forces tried to control the various regions.
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| ECW campaign map with the regions to be fought over. All drains on an A4 sized piece of paper. |
March 2020 - Western Desert
A linear campaign based upon the KISS Rommel campaign rules with a few additions for multiple campaign units, and using Lock 'n' Loads Tank on Tank board game rules.
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| The Western Desert was drawn on artist quality paper which gave it a nice texture. |
June 2020 - Jacobite Campaign
Not so much a map but a tool based upon the Snakes and Ladders game. Others ideas, concepts and variations can be found here - http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2021/03/snakes-ladders-campaign-system.html
This gave a quick and contained campaign using One Hour Wargames scenarios.
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| A generic 18th century campaign based upon snakes and ladders |
May 2021 - Ancient Campaign (2nd Punic Wars)
A campaign based upon ideas from a multi-player political simulation game in Phillip Sabin's book "Simulating War".
Every one of those proved to be inspirational, and well worth the effort involved.
ReplyDeleteWith campaigns you certainly do benefit from the effort put in, even for the smaller campaigns involving only a handful of tabletop games.
DeletePeter, in whichever direction you choose, it will be fun to follow your exploits on the campaign trail. On our FIW campaign, that was such great fun. Yes, Fort William-Henry proved to be a vital focal point for both armies. We saw it change hands more than once.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jon a most enjoyable FIW campaign and certainly helped me test out my grid-based rules at the time. I suspect the next campaign will be a mini campaign for a Samurai setting.
DeleteI must look up your posts for Featherstone's HYW Campaign - it's one that's tempted me from time to time.
ReplyDeleteBut... don't count your chickens... now you have a plan to move on, what are the odds that Rome won't stage a revival just to spite you?
True, Rome may stage a comeback. If they do, I will have had more time to complete the WW1 Palestine campaign armies and will most likely use this as a campaign setting.
DeleteSome great maps and ideas there Peter:). I tend to find that a period will tend to dictate the level of complexity or not, required to set up a campaign, the map, forces involved etc. My current Operation Cygnet is quite simple compared to say the SYW one a ran a year or so ago. Both used the same maps but the details were somewhat different due to the size od forces involved along with the difference in 'technology'.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you choose I'm certainly looking forward to seeing the map and how the campaign plays out.
Thank you. It would have been interesting using the same map for your two different campaigns.
DeleteThe Last Crusade is an excellent book on the Palestine campaign. It's my go-to reference work for the theatre.
ReplyDeleteI got the book from the library, but am considering buying a copy as covers the campaign very well. As you say an excellent reference book.
DeleteI just love the simple elegance of your campaigns and the way you think ‘outside the box’. No interest in Samurai whatsoever, but I can’t wait to see how you handle it!
ReplyDeleteI am at the stage with the campaign ideas where I need to start creating the map and counters.
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