John, I started reading Harry Turtledove's first tome in his series WorldWar (4 books) about aliens invading earth in 1942, and quickly became totally caught up in it. Being a HotT gamer, I also immediately started envisioning opposing armies to game the story. In the books the ghetto in Lodz, Poland plays a big part in the story, and both the Polish Police and the Jewish Ghetto Police ally themselves with the aliens, so will make a perfect Horde element of the Lizard army – they are only armed with billy clubs so Hordes seems very appropriate.
Just to be clear there is no pretense of anything glorious or honorable about the ghettos or the treatment of the Jewish people in WWII. If I thought making such an element would in anyway convey that thought I would come up with some other subject for the element.
I truly like to create my armies as closely as possible based on the source – in this case his four books. So I have limited my troop types and personalities only to those people listed in the book, the tanks only to those specifically mentioned in the book, etc.
My first two armies will be a Russo-German collaboration on one side, Led by Otto Skorzney and Henrich Jager. The opposing Lizard army will be lead by the leading intelligence office Drefsab.
The only other army that is really described in any detail is hte American army so down the road I will work that one up too,. but need to get these first two finished first. They also mention the Afrika Korps and the 8th Army, so some possibilities there as well.
Each book is about 550 pages, give or take, and I have found them so well written that I started in mid April and will be finishing the last book this weekend.
Hope this helps,
Terry
