While I was not planning for release on September 1st when I started working on the project, it ended up becoming a natural release date for the Orders of Battle book as I finished writing it roughly a week ago and have been proof reading and tinkering with stats and points up until now. This is the first time I've done something that resembles a complete self contained gaming resource (and anything on this scale). I've had similar projects in the past, but they were always leaning heavily on existing rules or army lists . This project however only requires the Flames of War version 3 rulebook. All army lists, stats, special rules and whatnot can be found within this book. The reason for me writing this book was simply because I grew tired of waiting for someone else to do it, and doing it well enough to give me a peace of mind. There have been a few resources on this subject released over the past couple of years but none of them offer a complete picture of the Polish campaign or all of the armies involved, and have so far (imo) only come off as not fully comfortable attempts dealing with a subject that is to them a highly unfamiliar territory. And while "something" is better than nothing, I just could not get over what a wasted opportunity this was, and what Early War gamers were really missing out on.
It took me some 6 weeks and roughly 200 hours to research and write this first half which covers the Polish, Slovak, German and Soviet armies and their army lists. My main goal is to bring this highly overlooked and overshadowed campaign of World War 2 to light, and show how diverse and interesting it actually is. I've invested a lot into this project, so this is not a half hearted attempt or a quick fix of existing material. The project soon grew out of proportion, perhaps out of a subconscious desire to do something similar to Norman Davies' "God's Playground" but with focus on Miniature Wargaming
Release of the Orders of Battle book does not mark the end of this project, I will shortly start writing and compiling the second half, the campaign section "Poland in flames". The second half will offer several operations as seen through the point of view of various armies as well as a lot of isolated battles. It should offer a dramatic recreation of pretty much the entire September Campaign on a whole new level and with a much more detailed approach than I could offer in version 1 (now much thanks to this OoB resource).
Both books will hopefully, beside offering an enjoyable addition to Early War gaming, also provide some bits of history about units, battles and equipment that might be interesting and valuable.
Important to know before delving into the pages of this book is that is is solely written with the September Campaign in mind. Unit ratings, specific units, special rules etc are meant to represent the circumstances and armies during the invasion of Poland. It is as such not advised to mix this book with any other if you are thinking about running an event, tournament or even friendly games.
Information about the first half of the book now available:
The September Campaign v.2 is a nonprofit free downloadable supplement for Flames of War v.3.
The book will be a "living" resource, meaning that updated versions will be published if needed and a FAQ document will be maintained. There will also be room for discussion and keeping track of news and updates of this project over at the What Would Patton Do forum (the best internet community dealing with FoW).
The book includes 4 armies, 13 Polish lists and 4 Polish characters, 15 German lists and 2 German characters, 3 Slovak lists and 5 Soviet lists. Not all army lists are "competition material", but a majority of the lists should work for tournaments and organized play if you wish to use them that way.
The second part of this project containing all the campaign section content will be released within the next 6 weeks. This book will perhaps be more useful to the whole WW2 EW community as opposed to the OoB book which is very much aimed at the FoW EW community.
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Download instructions,
Follow the links to my Google Drive, and click "Archive" and then save to your hard drive. The preview of the book looks like crap in Google Drive, for some reason. The real deal looks as it should. You don't need to have a Google account to access and download the file.
DOWNLOAD LINK TO FULL COLOR VERSION
DOWNLOAD LINK TO PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
How to support this project?
Simply by using and sharing the book. Seeing and reading about people enjoying the contents of this book would make my efforts worthwhile.
If you like what you see and badly want to support the September Campaign further you can make a small donation to my paypal: alexanderkawczynski@hotmail.com
If you have questions about the contents of the book, the Polish campaign of 1939 or any other related topic you can check out the September Campaign thread over at the WWPD forum HERE.
Other questions can be emailed to me at: alexanderkawczynski@hotmail.com and I'll answer as soon as I can.
