"Roleplaying Commander's Involvement In Your WWII Games" Topic

My own preference in WW2 Company, Platoon or Squad level gaming is to have the various leaders acknowledged and referenced during the game. In my involvement in sports I've seen first hand how the introduction of a individual with genuine inspirational leadership skills can utterly transform the effectiveness of a group. From my reading of historical warfare I believe it applies all the more to the "real battlefield". So we like to give the leaders a greater influence on some of the proceedings, (for better and for worse, depending on the leaders) How to interpret this influence is the difficulty, we don't want the game to be completely dominated by their use either.

In my close gaming group we normally have at least a few weeks before a game and the players are encouraged to do a little research in between times on the characteristics and personality of the major commanders. Some poetic licence is allowed of course with the lesser known ones. Depending on the quality of troops involved the player is allocated a random amount of Command Points to assign to his leaders for that session.

The players are also encouraged to roleplay to a level that they're comfortable when decision making with certain personality's (I have found a certain amount of alcohol helps the acting involvement considerably.) In recent months we even print out commander cards (inspired by IABSM) with the appropriate photo attached. Like the rule component in lots of rule sets these cards can be used to interrupt your opponents turn. Whatever system we use (right now its the excellent Battlegroup ones) the use of these ideas have utterly transformed the enjoyment factor… immensely!

Anyone else try anything like this, ideas and other suggestions very welcomed

John

Check out the similar TMP thread

TMP link

It had some good observations of the effect of a few good leaders of men.

Years ago, Miitary Modelling had a good suggestion for solo gamers to rate each of the commanders, both your own and the oppositions, as aggressive/average/cautious. A simple die roll would then be cross referenced,whenevr a reaction was needed, and the outcome acted out. If I remember correctly an aggressive commander would advance on a 4-6 an average on a 5-6 and a cautious on a 6. Simple, but it did add an extra perspective without bogging down the game.

It sounds very Squad Leader, and I haven't tried it in FoW (although I have used heroes sometimes).

Why not just us IABSM? That seems th produce what you are talkin about.

@Tin Solider Man I do like IABSM especially the Big Man concept which I've borrowed heavily from but personally I didn't like other elements of game play. I much prefer Battle Groups approach to shooting and movement…etc

@ubercommando I've never played Squad leader, meant take a look

@Milites I Really like that idea

We did a game of IABSM set on the outskirts of Berlin. Each player played one commander on the table. Each commander had his own agenda and his own victory conditions apart from the general battle. I was one of the Soviet commanders and my goal was to make sure that one of the other Soviet commanders was NOT the first leader into Berlin. One of the Germans had "protect the HJ lads and get them out alive", another had "get yourself and your secretary out alive, with the money in the staff car".

Thats brilliant! Thomas I'm going to steal that idea too. Thanks

Yes, personal (and secret) objectives add a lot to any game.

I ran one where an Austrian commander had the objective of 'make one major tactical blunder during the game'.

I really love this idea. We usually have at least 4 players so this would add a whole new dimension.

This to me is fundamentally unsound practice. If its a single player game you are stuck with your own set of incompitencies. If you a poor general thats what you are. I cannot make you better. If you are good I cannot make you poor. If you have 4 players you will have 4 different generals and you should get all the "friction" you could want possiblly too much.

Randomly deviateing the game is just reducing a test of your understanding of a situation and how to optimise a solution, to a mere game of chance which can be had elewhere for a lot less cost than our models.

I wouldn't limit the players themselves, but applying such things to lower-level (non-player) commanders could be interesting.

I ran one where an Austrian commander had the objective of 'make one major tactical blunder during the game'.

I don't need that as an objective. I do it all the time anyway!