By Tom Burgess,
Last year Jökull Gislason created another great Firestorm Campaign packet for Villers-Bretonneux. This year well run this campaign on the WWPD forums as a global effort. Our plan is to run the campaign using the historical format suggestions from Jökull.With just seventeen battles played over four turns this will be a relatively quick and easy campaign. To make this happen we’d need only a few clubs to get these battles fought and reported on the WWPD forums. http://forum.wwpd.net/viewforum.php?f=22
I. General Concept
There will be a German and British C-in-C who will issue the orders for each side that determine where battles will be fought and with which troops. As a battles are generated they will be posted in the WWPD forum and clubs can then request to fight them. When the battle has been fought, the club must post an AAR for that battle on the WWPD forum to count.
All required dice rolls will be done on-line via http://www.pbegames.com/roller/ , The C-in-C’s will be on the email line to receive the results and the results will be posted on the campaign log in the WWPD forums for all to see.
II. Turn Sequence.
We will follow the general turn sequence with slight modification. The main modification is that all battle locations and forces for a turn will be determined in the Planning Phase rather than waiting until the Battle Phase to determine each one by one as they are played. The intent here is to be able to have all battles for a turn played simultaneously to keep the campaign moving.
The first turn will start Wednesday July 1st, 2015.
III. Planning Phase.
The two C-in-C’s will meet on-line at the WWPD Forums with the Organizer to conduct the Planning Phase for the upcoming turn. All battles will be generated and posted so clubs can sign up to fight them.
Once battles for the turn have been determined, clubs will have two weeks to play them and report the results. This should mean that the campaign will take about eight weeks to play out.
Planning phases for each turn will be generally conduced as follows:
Turn 1 – July 1st
Turn 2 – July 15th
Turn 3 – July 29th
Turn 4 – June 12th
C-in-C’s could be anybody, even if they can’t play in the battles. C-in-C’s could even change between turns. We already have a volunteer from Texas for the British C-in-C who cannot play in battles because of his location. Likewise I’d like to get a German C-in-C who could not otherwise participate in the campaign to volunteer for that role.
“Attack Arrows” can be placed from any zone a side controls into any zone controlled by the other side. The only exception is that a zone that is attacked, cannot have an “Attack Arrow” placed on it in to the zone(s) it is being attacked from. This means that we could have multiple separate battles in the same zone, in which the defender will have win all of them to retain control of the zone. Additionally, only one attack can originate from any one zone.
Since our battles are all resolved simultaneously, a side could win a battle and advance forward in to the zone it attacked, only to find that an enemy attack captured the zone that side attacked from, leaving it cut off.
To be committed to an attack, Firestorm troops must be allocated to that attack. Any uncommitted Firestorm Troops are considered defending the zone they are in.
IV. Battle Phase.
Once the battles for the turns are posted on the WWPD forum clubs can choose and play any of the ones they want.
Signing Up for Battles. When signing up for a battle you are acknowledging that you/your club can muster enough forces to include bonus Firestorm Troops to fight the battle. Your opponents does not need to be actively participating in this campaign, though it’s best if they are.
Many players/clubs can sign up to fight the same battle. When doing this, you are committing to follow up a decent battle report/AAR on the WWPD forum. These AARs only need to meet the standards for used for previous WWPD Global Campaigns.
Forces.
Bases Points: The base point level for game in this Campaign will be 1250 points, as recommended by Jökull.
Firestorm Troops: Firestorm Troops will use the forces outlined on pages 22-24 of the Villers-Bretonneux Firestorm PDF.
Tanks: This campaign will use the “Historical Play” option on page 8 Villers-Bretonneux Firestorm PDF. This basically means that tanks may not be included in a force unless there is a Firestorm Troop Tank unit in that battle. This also means that tanks will not be available in turns three and four.
How Battles Count. Any battle can be played and reported any number of times by any club/players. In past on-line Firestorm Campaign I ran I averaged the results of each game played to come up with how the actual battle was counted in the campaign. The problem with that was that it drove outcomes to general “average” result.
So instead for this Firestorm Campaign for each battle one AAR from all those posted that battle will be randomly chosen using the PBEM dice roller. Thus, the more winning AARs submitted for a side in that battle, the more likely it is that side will win the battle. However, it is possible that even if a side won all but one game played for that battle that lost game may be the one that counts as the battle result for the campaign. Such are the fortunes of war!
Unresolved Battles. Any battle that remains unresolved for the current turn on the Monday following the last weekend of that turn will be resolved using the PBEM Dice rolls and the “Generals Wargame” option on page 27 of the Villers-Bretonneux Firestorm PDF.
V. Strategic Planning Phase.
The two C-in-C’s will meet on-line at the WWPD Forums with the Organizer to resolve the Strategic Phase for each turn. These will be done on the following Tuesdays during the campaign:
Turn 1 – July 14th
Turn 2 – July 28th
Turn 3 – August 11th
Turn 4 – Not needed other than to tall final victory points.
So there you go! I hope this Villers-Bretonneux Firestorm Campaign works as well as the one we ran on the BattleFront forums in 2009. I hope that any clubs/players out there with Flames of War Great War forces gives at least one game a go and contributes to the campaign in some way!
If you're interested in being a part of this effort, just drop into the WWPD "Global Campaigns" sub-forum and let us know!
Tom has been playing wargames since the late 70’s, and Flames of War since 2007. He maintains a gaming website www.battlevault.com for the BattleVault Gamers of Kentuckiana and posts and moderates WWPD as Iron-Tom.
