"Piquet, Field Of Battle scenario ideas?" Topic

Hi gang,

While gaming other ww2 games, i'm still interested in
playing "operational" games and FoB ( 1 stand is a
company) allows that.

I've got a problem, i'm not very good at designing
scenarios in general and even less when i can't work with
a unit cost table. (i know shame on me^^).

So for those of you who play this rule or other similar
games what kind of "ready made" scenarios do you use,
apart from your own creations^^?

I bought the Division Commander scenarios and campaign in
the Pacific pdf:
sabersedge.com/cwp

but still have difficulties to see what units i'm supposed
to use to translate the scenario into something usable for
FoB…

For operational games I usually go with a historical scenario – all the hard work is done really, just lift the terrain from the map, translate the OB into whatever size units your rules use and if you can't think of anything better, set the victory conditions as doing better than the historical counterparts. Job done.

You do sometimes have to ad-lib a bit when accounts are vague or maps non-existant or tweak things to fit in with what you have available to use.

I wouldn't fancy trying to come up with hypothetical operational games, real life is much more interesting and even the vaguest account can usually be turned into some sort of game.

Divison Commander uses battalions as the basic element with divisions as the formation, so that is going to make for some pretty biug FOB battles – perhaps you could reduce them down somehow?

thanks Martin, i really appreciate your observations,
always been a good help :)

Got any cheap source of historical scenario by chance?
I'm going to google that right away, for now, most of
my ww2 links concerns national TOE and OOB…

I usually lift them from books which inspire me, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't do something with the Division Commander scenarios? There are some decent operational scenarios in some of Bruce MacFarlanes other rules, notably Great Battles of WW2 (I use the Agira one as my standard test scenario for new rules) and Drop Zone.

Have a look on the Megablitz yahoogroup as well, my Operation Battleaxe one is very manageable, but again, maybe a bit bigger than FOB caters for.

The Spearhead Scenario books are good for division (or smaller) sized actions but the terrain is a bit abstract in some of them.

Also the Crimea has a load of interesting scenarios--A very manageable "operational" theater..

Yes, even Mansteins account in 'Lost Victories' is good enough to do some interestign Crimean games.

thanks guys, i'll check the books i have in stock, the
yahoo group and the possible scenario books and hope
i can get something out of that :)

Fantasy alert! The Spearhead scenarios are not historical. Of course, that may not be an issue for you, but they are all totally made up as far as I can tell. Oddly, no mention of this is ever made on the covers of said scenario books.

What theater/time period are you interested in? There are plenty of history books out there to lift from, but if you give us some details, we can perhaps suggest something suitable for you. For US actions, the US army histories known as "The Green Books" are awesome for operational level inspiration.

"they are all totally made up as far as I can tell"

Hmm, well some are, some aren't, the North African ones are OK. The Russian ones are something of an 'artists impression', but they are at least playtested scenarios with asymmetrical sides and interesting victory conditions. Obvious silliness (like T35s in teh Baltic States) are easy enough to fix.

More realistic eastern front scenarios are the TAC Publications 'Eastern Front 1944' ones. Very good, include a mini campaign covering the Siege of Tarnopol. I think they also do one covering the Hungarian Fast Corps, as well as an excellent one covering 1939/40 (Blitzkrieg). I helped playtest some of the latter ones, so I may be biased.