Dear List
The rather odd title comes from the name of my rules, abbreviated OGABAS, but which means "Oh God! Anything But a Six!
About a decade ago when I was forming up some of my Imagi-Nation Armies, I became interested in "the ending problem." That is, when was enough enough for and I should stop painting and move on to a new army.
Freed from the folderol of historical accuracy (whatever in the world that means) I was able do some design work on what would make good preconditions conducive to a good battle, which mainly meant how much of a "footprint" the bases of the armies would take up on the table top and ratios as to the maximum numbers of stands you would allow. It also dealt with maximum troop mix and when in a campaign, you would never be caught out with units you could not put on the table top because they weren't painted or even bought.
After about a year I finally got it down and there is no need to go through the whole agee-bagee's of how this was arrived at. The only thing necessary is that it works. Please note I use 28-33mm troops and play on a 6 x 12 or 6 x9 table top depending if it's upstairs in the huge living room or downstairs in my large wargame room.
OK, some terminology. There are two Strategic Units in the game. The Army, and the Brigade. There is NO connection between the two at all. Armies are not composed of brigades and while an army through being unsupported can break down into two brigades etc., you cannot build it up again.
All armies in the game, regardless of country are identical and consist of 25 tactical units (five line infantry 2 elite infantry, two heavy guns, two light guns, four heavy cavalry, four light cavalry, 1 dragoons, and 5 wagons. The table top values are identical. At the army level you can have as your "elite infantry" either a grenadier or light infantry regiment, or you can have six units of SCUM! These are skirmish light infantry. You are also allowed ONE regiment of any type of your choice. Each army also has officers whose ratings have a direct effect on combat. you hae 1 offcer of a value of 4, 2 of a value of 3, 4 of a value of 2, and 5 of a value of 1. You also may have ONE unit of any type, or in lieu of this two more officers of 2 and four more of 1.
The Brigades are NOT all the same, and vary by type, but a specific type in one army is the same as the specific type in another. Their form is
1 #2 officer 2#1 officer
1 wagon
1 light gun
1 Dragoon regiment
4 regiments of type.
The types of brigades are line infantry, elite regiments (only 3 of type), Cavalry (the gun is a horse gun, the wagon a pack train, and 2 heavy and 2 light regiments, artillery, Engineer, Headquarters (just another army's worth of officers) Frei Korps, Militia, Barbarian or savage allies, siege artillery, pontoons, wagons blah blah blah, and I also use this format for some civilian units in the campaign, like a "Court" Brigade, etc.
The advantage of the system so far is that in any battle you may have only two strategic units, 1 brigade, 1 army, 2 brigades, or 1 army and 1 brigade. This makes an excellent means of varying forces and nothing gets out of control, but it also means that you can know the maximum number of units you have to buy and paint, for your opposing armies so that you never have to do a rush job. It also means that one side never gets wildly out of balance. We have had face-ups between 1 brigade (the smallest) and an Army and a brigade_ the highest, but the game system has terrain and victory conditions to balance it out, and an abstract resolution guide if the battle is too uneven or uninteresting.
We don't use a campaign map. We have found it a completely useless and bothersome step.
With just the OB you already have most of the means of setting up a self-regulating campaign and scenario design tool.
My point in posting this is simply as an example of what you can do with simple paper, a simple plan, and with little work at all. I see so many people setting up these enormously complex campaign systems and they, I feel, loose sight of the real thing we wish in games, which is to have fun table top battles.
Otto