"imagi-nations" Topic

I suppose because I'm from the generation who's Fathers fought in the war, I've always avoided playing the "enemy", the Germans, Italians and Japanese. However I do wargame the Finns in the "Continuation War" since they fought for national freedom not a dark ideology. My Finnish Airforce uses the usual aircraft but also others that were not used, FW190's and Fiat G55's and even Spitfires!
Wars between South American states, for example, real or imaginary, allow us to use whatever aircraft we want without the historical baggage of the Second world War.
Have any of you used any "Imagi-Nation" to wargame Second World War era conflicts?

Nah, with so many regular nations to chose from for the conflict, and so many historical fights, I've never bothered making stuff up like that.

No. They'd have to wear someone's helmets and fly someone's aircraft, so to me they wouldn't be an imagi-nation--just historicals painted wrong. For me it works better in the 18th Century with similar cuts of uniform--identical if you use Spenser Smiths--and tactics.

Plenty of dark ideologies, and LOTS of historical baggage. But when I prepare armies for the Peloponnesian War, I don't worry about the helots back in Sparta or the slaves in the Athenian silver mine.

I have an imagi-nation (the Princely State of Jhamjar, one of the tribute states in India) for interwar gaming (ca 1919), to allow me to use my WWI British, ANZAC and Indian armies in games (as I don't have any appropriate Ottoman or German forces to counter my Imperials). I haven't stretched it to WWII, though.

I imagine that there's plenty of scope to stretch the Very British Civil War to include all sorts of aircraft.

Tintin's world includes San Theodoros (somewhere in Latin America) plus Syldavia and Borduria in Europe to inspire gaming.

I suppose because I'm from the generation who's Fathers fought in the war, I've always avoided playing the "enemy", the Germans, Italians and Japanese.

I fall into much the same category. My father, who served in tank destroyers in WW2, was an international businessman for the entire time I was growing up. He traveled across Europe many times each year, importing wines and spirits from France, Italy, Sweden and the UK. He built the brands J&B Scotch, Bombay Gin, and Grand Marnier liquour into the names that they are today. Working with the Swedish Government's national liquor producer he virtually invented Absolut Vodka.

But he never once went to Germany on business, never considered doing business with any German company, and would not even allow a high school friend of mine, a foreign student from Germany, into the house.

I am in international business. I now go to Germany multiple times per year. But I don't, and won't, run a German army in my WW2 wargames. I did briefly start putting together a German force in the early 1990s (just after my father passed away), as a pre-built "opponent" force. As any experienced gamer knows, if you want to play your game, sometimes you have to provide a force to your opponent.

But I gave it up within a very short time. I just couldn't get into it. I took no pleasure in acquiring and painting interesting German kit.

Fortunately, I have no objection to the other Axis nations. So I have a substantial Italian force, and a substantial Romanian force. I can study those nations' experiences in the war, I happily collect and paint their equipment, and I am equally pleased to supply and/or play either side of their campaigns. I find them no more, and in many ways less, objectionable than the Red Army of the same period -- an army which fascinates me to no end.

With Italian, French and US forces I can easily create any number of interesting early-to-mid war scenarios, covering 1940 through 1943. With Italian, Romanian and Soviet forces I can pretty well cover the Eastern Front from Barbarossa through the summer of 1944. With US and Soviet forces I can also run what-if scenarios from 1945 through real scenarios of Korea. And I have early through late Cold War Russian, US and French kit to allow continued imagined scenario up through the end of the Cold War, and even into the post- Cold War era.

So I never really felt a need for imagi-nations. I can play enough what-ifs that have a genuine IRL historical basis.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

The bizarre mix of weaponry on both sides is one reason I sometimes consider doing the Israeli War of Independence.
Besides, there's no reason to build up large formations, since they were frequently just one or two of a kind.
Grelber

I have done a game with Mexican AF vs. Luftwaffe-- it still amounted to P-51s vs. Me109s.

And yes, I know the Mexicans should be flying P-47s, but the available models were P-51s. They still looked sharp in Mexican colors.

Only as skirmish games, a out growth from my Horse & Musket ImagiNation.

I have not because as noted above by Thresher 01 there is so much to choose from

I haven`t even read any fiction (except my daily news feed obviously) at all in the last 20 or so years – far too much real history to read :)

I'm another in the "too much real history" camp. I don't think I'll be alive long enough to game all the interesting actual battles of WWII I can read about. I'm still behind on dozens of the classics that "everybody" has played!

I do like what-if scenarios, but they're usually variations on actual battles or almost-battles or coulda-campaigns. Last year I wrote a whole CY6 scenario book of not-quite-historical dogfights between Vichy and USN air forces over/near Casablanca in Nov 1942 (inspired by the book Wildcats Over Casablanca); the French did send up planes to fight the USN planes covering Operation Torch, but the real life campaign was too one-sided to be fun, so I spun the scenarios more evenly to make competitive games with unusual plane matchups.

- Ix

I suppose you can speak for yourself. My father was a Marine in WWII and fought in the Pacific. I was told by some of his friends that "he was good at killing Japs and killed a lot of them." During the Korean War, he was in the Navy and stationed in Japan. He loved the Japanese people and used to tell a lot of fond stories about interacting with them while stationed there. Mentally and emotionally, he could separate fighting against the Japanese empire and loving the Japanese people and culture. In fact, he had friends from all different cultures and nationalities and as a result, I learned a lot about the world as a child.

I doubt you would need to create fictional nations to create an "Alternative WWII". Bring Turkey in on either side and you will have a real mix of kit to match anything the Finns used. Let Franco try to take Gibraltar or invade Portugal. The German invasion of Switzerland. French North Africa fights on, with its fleet intact, after the fall of France.

Read the Harry Turtledove novels esp the War That Came Early series (good but none remotely compare with Guns of the South though) where Hitler invades Czechoslovakia instead of the Munich deal and ends up fighting the Russians, with the Poles on his side!

I feel like you about modelling the worst SS units or any NVA. I could never tell my Mom that my SUV was Japanese and worse, made by Mitsubishi. She had memories of Hong Kong in late 1941.

One of my imaginations, the Kingdom of Svijany, named after one of my favorite beers :), I´ve taken all the way up to WWII.
As a small nation they have to rely a lot on imports, and it´s quite fun procuring all those great 1930s export aircraft, tanks and so on. I also had big fun kitting out the late 19th century navy with Elswick cruisers, gunboats and an occasional armored ship, all bought off the rack of course to save money.

Friend of mine's dad (American) was a prisoner of war in Japan in 1945 and forced to work in a Mitsubishi plant. After the war, he had no problem with the Japanese or even his son's purchase of Japanese cars, but he wouldn't touch anything Mitsubishi.

I ran a short solo campaign based in the ‘Adriatic principality' of Freedonia. It was loosely based on Greece, but allowed me to pull in influences from various minor nations. The Air Force was based on Yugoslavia's, for example. Had a few entertaining games as the Freedonians bravely fought off the Italian hordes with assistance from a squadron of RAF Kittyhawks.

For imagi-nations ‘proper', however, I'm a traditionalist and would stick with 18th century.

My WWII gaming has come down to my Chinese bandits fighting both the Japanese and Soviet forces of my friends.

I don't have an issue with German forces but I do find that when I read books about the battles of the eastern front I find them really dull. It's not a lack of action, it's a lack of engagement. It's like reading an account of a gunfight between pimps and drug dealers. Both sides are equally appalling, so I don't really care who wins or how.