"New campaign: Spetsnaz vs Contras, 1986" Topic

Hi all, I just started a new campaign and blog, and I may get more active on this board as a result.

I've got a what-if scenario in 1986 Nicaragua, and I'm using various Two Hour Wargame rules and a virtual tabletop in PowerPoint.

Here's a taste of the first encounter:

It should've been a simple mission. Patrol an abandoned fishery in rural Nicaragua where the Soviet top brass want to establish a route for getting some kind of volatile materials into the capital. We tried to keep a low profile, but things went very wrong, very quickly.

It was 1986, and a small spetsnaz squad was scoping out the area around an old fishing facility outside San Juan. It should've been easy. Make sure no one's hiding out in the buildings and investigate rumors of Contras in the area.

But then an anti-personnel mine went off, instantly killing Sgt. Petrovich.

This was very troubling. Why would some old building in the middle of nowhere be booby trapped? They regrouped and continued to scout the area, making sure it was safe before they moved their comrade's body. Then they ran right into Contras. Luckily their training kicked in instantly.

And a grenade thrown by Lt. Aleskeevich finished them off.

But before the Soviets could finish checking the buildings…well, you'll have to check out my brand new THW campaign blog to find out what happened. It just went live!

Link here: missilesinmanagua.blogspot.com

Thanks,

josta59

Thanks. It was hours of work and there were many uglier versions before I landed on this one. For the grass I did a Google search for grass used by others for such purposes. I found the trees, river, soldiers, and the red truck at JuniorGeneral.org. The hill is just a couple of decagons and the buildings and roads are simple rectangles. I used lots of shadows and bevels to try to make everything look nicer.

It was just a matter of working and tweaking until I liked it. And doing it in PowerPoint makes it super modular because now I can just copy and paste terrain features to a new slide and rearrange them. I have my encounter data and character cards in the same file. The difficult stuff is behind me now, and I can just have fun gaming and blogging.

I'd be more than happy to send anyone my PowerPoint file so they can just use it if they don't want to make their own. Just send me a PM.