"Reaping the Whirlwind Campaign for TfT" Topic

The campaign system we've been playtesting at the Devon Wargames Group since March 2019, with the odd global pandemic thrown in that rather delayed matters, has reached its inevitable conclusion with a download of the rules we tested that are designed to enable players of Target for Tonight to refight Bomber Command's campaigns against the Rhur Valley and Berlin.

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Suitably entitled 'Reaping the Whirlwind' the download includes everything you will need to run an eight game linked campaign or longer should the fancy take, and I've included the Cyberboard module I used to administer our campaign test should you prefer to run things digitally.

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Future plans to update this will include a play through of the ideas to fight the Rhur Valley campaign, the Peenemunde raid and maybe a Dambuster add on!

If you want to know more and get the download, just follow the link to JJ's

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JJ

Wow! :)

Thanks for that – outstanding!

I've got some reading to do now.

Cheers JJ

PS Page 20, 20% of 20 counters is 4 counters, not 2.

😊

Doh!, yes well I'll put that down to working in the late hours to type it up. I guess v1.1 will be along soon!

Cheers BB

JJ

No probs 😊

As I'm not on Faceache I've a couple of questions:
RAF Nightfighters: is there any difference in the game between Beaufighters and Mossies?
Also is it just a 50/50 die roll for which type gets placed?

Bomb runs: I've got the rules and can see you've added the target markers, which is great, but are the bombs only released on a J,Q,K or are they automatically released if the bomber enters the aiming point hex or the XY hexrow?

Cheers,

B

Thanks for sharing.

Looks great.

I look forward to eventually running some of these games for the Berlin Raids, AND the Battle of the Ruhr.

The latter period is interesting due to the difficulty of hitting the targets because they are much smaller, hidden in valleys, and frequently covered in ground fog and industrial haze. They were also very well defended by flak, and the RAF bombing techniques during this earlier period were rather limited.

Blind bombing techniques, as well as those of the Pathfinders and Master Bombers greatly improved for the Berlin Raids, later in the war, though the huge size of the city mitigated that considerably compared to other, smaller targets.

BB – The nightfighter selection is left up to the players. In our games I randomly selected the German types by those available to the groups in the area of the target or on route.

For the British I rolled for the Intruder NF based on the mosquito being more commonly used so a Mosquito on a 3, 4, 5 or 6 and a Beaufighter on a 1 or a 2.

At this level of game there is no difference in the nightfighter capability other than the pilot skill, and the types is purely in the game to add narrative.

The X-Y bomb line is not used with the campaign module as the play is centred around city maps and target indicators. The J, Q, K auto release rule is there to represent jumpy bomb aimers and creep back potential. In the Berlin campaign module, if you send Main Force to Berlin more than twice in a month, bomb aimer quality drops by one, so determined become steady and steady become jumpy. If you send them four times you reduce again and five times, everyone is jumpy so will drop bombs on any picture card.

Provided a picture card does not cause an auto-drop the players can aim their drops according to where they think the markers are in relation to key parts of the city. Also once the bombs are gone the players still need to keep drawing cards to get off the target run thus running the risk of flak or nightfighter attack until clear of it even though they have dropped bombs.

Hope that helps.

JJ

Hi Thresher,
Great and I too am looking forward to playing the Ruhr campaign which should be quite different from Berlin. You're quite right about the target issues over the Ruhr slightly offset by the shorter range to the targets and the increased use of Gee and Oboe to help improve target marking.

In addition Bomber Command's bomb lift potential is smaller, more so in the first few months with many squadrons still operating the Wellington. This will improve later as 1 Group will re-equip and join 5 Group, having all Lancasters which will up the lift capability markedly by adding in more cookies to the mix.

So if you play the mid period where this change occurs you should find the change in the initiative and capability recreated which was part of the design idea that also adds to the technical updates included in the main rules.

JJ