Wargaming the Morrow Project

[gamerguy]

Anyone ever wargame TMP? I have always been interested in gaming the ground combat between the different groups. A Krell push into Amerindian territory, a slaver hostage taking raid, most any group trying to exercise control over an independent village or that village, and its neighbors performing a resistance operation against its oppressor. I was always a player so never got into who was against who and exactly where they were all located.

I think a platoon to company sized (per side) action at most. At the time Squad Leader came to mind but now there are quite a few (too many to choose from?) rules sets or board games which could be used. I don't envision skirmish size actions (one figure, acting as a stand alone unit, equals one person or vehicle) but one where a fire team or squad size group is represented by one stand of infantry (if using minis four to twelve figures per stand) with one vehicle per figure. Of course based on my other posts I don't see many vehicles in use other than wagons and possibly trains. I like 1/285 miniatures so that would be the scale of miniatures I would go with but up to 15 mm should work OK given workable ground scales.

Putting Morrow teams in could add spice for the seriously underdog side but this is gaming the situation not role playing.

[ArmySGT.]

My only current plan is to possibly incorporate 25mm minis. The new Bolt Action Games WW2 line from Warlord Games (https://us-store.warlordgames.com/) Gives me a good variety of weapons. Couple this with the historical and period set, plus a Zombie set to get any tech level group I want.

Down the road though I haven't the space for this right now.

[gamerguy]

My only current plan is to possibly incorporate 25mm minis. The new Bolt Action Games WW2 line from Warlord Games (https://us-store.warlordgames.com/) Gives me a good variety of weapons. Couple this with the historical and period set, plus a Zombie set to get any tech level group I want.

Down the road though I haven't the space for this right now.

Are you talking using minis in a role playing environment or as a stand alone wargame? If the latter what ground scale? Thank you.

[Craig67]

You could also try Striker, its a sci-fi mini's rule set from the old GDW. Nice thing about it is that it has rules for building vehicles. Plus laser rifles of course :)

[ArmySGT.]

Are you talking using minis in a role playing environment or as a stand alone wargame? If the latter what ground scale? Thank you.

As part of the role play. Platoon and Squad level. I am over the big set piece games. I can play that in less hassle by playing Total War or Close Combat on a computer.

[gamerguy]

You could also try Striker, its a sci-fi mini's rule set from the old GDW. Nice thing about it is that it has rules for building vehicles. Plus laser rifles of course :)

I was very involved with Striker back in the day. Presently I have come to appreciate the Conflict of Heroes game system. After returning to gaming last year I wanted to get deep into ASL but after trying CoH I have dropped the idea of ASL. I am starting working Striker into CoH. Striker is great for working up scenarios and TOEs, etc. but frankly is an old game system and shows it's age. Plus the scale of CoH (squad and weapons team size units with platoon to company size battles) is what I feel captures what I would like to game.

If you, or any of you, are familiar with Striker and/or Conflict of Heroes I would appreciate assistance and feedback on my ideas. Thank you.

[RandyT0001]

Recently, I started creating a wargaming map for the Jackson Republic using HexDraw.

[Craig67]

ASL - Far too complex for what it is. I played SL with CoI and that was already too much for me.

CoH, looks ok but what about the command rules ? Do you need to issue orders to your squad and platoon leaders ? If not, why not ?

Striker may be dated but it still has a lot going for it. Command and control rules, vehicle design, weapon design, rules for poison gas, nukes etc.

[gamerguy]

ASL - Far too complex for what it is. I played SL with CoI and that was already too much for me.

CoH, looks ok but what about the command rules ? Do you need to issue orders to your squad and platoon leaders ? If not, why not ?

Striker may be dated but it still has a lot going for it. Command and control rules, vehicle design, weapon design, rules for poison gas, nukes etc.

ASL is a child of the '70s. Both good and bad. As it "grew" chrome and adjustments were piled on. The basic game mechanics became anything but basic.

Striker is also a child of the '70s but with a few years more experience. To me the heart of the system is the design your forces. Not necessarily your weapons and vehicles but your organization. For forces about the WWII to where I feel TMP troops (not team members) would be game-able I like going to squad or weapons team size 'units'. I have done extensive work on Striker and am interested in getting feedback from players on the ideas. At this time purely additional weapons and equipment, adjustments to design sequences, and lots of rules to cover specific 'events'. Most all of these would be taken care of outside of the game table and not effect play-ability.

One aspect of Striker, which affects lots of games IMHO is orders. Unless you are playing with a referee who will interpret your orders and 'operate' all your units, how do you play a game where you are giving orders which a unit has to act upon without much interpretation? This is a big bugaboo to me and creates an immediate disdain for many of these games.

A couple solutions come to mind other than an impartial referee. In order to perform actions units must be led by a leader with enough initiative for them to follow. Then the units under their 'command umbrella' function as the player wishes. If the leader is incapacitated they either panic and flee or stay put, maybe returning fire if fired upon, until another leader is able to exert control. The other solution is what I like about CoH. Every unit acts as the player wants but has limited amounts of actions they can perform in a game turn. This is where troops are trained to have an inherent initiative and skills are given rein to make their own choices. This is the way most armies have operated since before WWII. Troops are trained and depended on to act out basic battlefield tasks. In the level of the games I envision, a few squads to a company, their 'orders' are pretty well the victory conditions of the scenario.

In CoH all units have a basic action point allotment. All game actions have an AP cost, firing, movement, close combat, rallying, creating defenses, etc.. In the basic game mechanics all units have the same AP but depending on (troop quality?) or the type of equipment the AP cost for various functions varies between countries and at different periods in the war. In addition the effects of high initiative leaders is abstracted by giving additional 'command points' which the player can allot to whichever troops they want whenever during turn. In optional rules the number of APs a units has can be random or further randomized and 'hidden' by having a unit check every time it performs an action to see if it has finished its turn. What makes this more elegant is each side alternates performing an action one unit at a time. So all of ASL's phases can be simulated by a basic game mechanic. With a little imagination, or the use of advanced rules, you can further swap around which units perform actions. This is as opposed to one unit per side alternating until it has 'spent' all its action points then go on to another unit. There are also rules to allow groups of units to perform actions together which can give them an advantage by getting to an objective as a larger more capable force, all be it as a potentially more 'juicy' target. Units an also combine attacks making them more effective as well.

In my integration of Striker and CoH I plan on using the following mechanic. Each unit has an AP allotment equal to its morale level. This makes the range between approximately 5 for militia to 9 for long service professionals. I am still thinking on how to determine the CAPs generated by officers or high initiative NCOs. This compares with the basic allotment of 7 for all troops in CoH. But I will have fixed AP costs for all actions. At higher tech levels, or depending on the type of weapon system, units may well return to four troop fire teams or even individuals. After all a trooper wielding a FGMP in a TL 15 battle suit is probably as powerful as many modern warships.

After some months of consideration I have come to the conclusion the best approach would be integrating higher tech into CoH rather than trying to integrate CoH's good spots into Striker. I really like a lot of CoH's game mechanics plus as a miniatures gamer for decades I appreciate the ability of a good hex based game to eliminate many of the arguments which always happen when playing on an open game board. I know a lot of miniature players will be crying and pulling fist fulls of hair out at that statement but I know a lot more agree. Gone are the days of 'just how far did that unit really move?' and my least favorite 'how exposed is that vehicle nosing its way around that building, and how far can the gun traverse now?'. All units exist for game terms in the centre of the hex and all effects of the terrain, or other contents, of the hex apply to all units occupying it.

Flame suit on? The rules for CoH exist on the Academy Games web site for free downloading. All you have to do is register. Although they then do send you info on upcoming games, etc. I have not seen more than one or two emails per month.

https://academygames.com/games/conflict-of-heroes-series/product/awakening-the-bear

BTW in my humble opinion the effects of nukes, poison gas and heavy artillery are best left to an operational level of play which would have little to no effect in a game simulating platoon to company actions. The level of support units would be limited at this scale but should be applied to the troops before the scenario either reducing the forces available, modifying the victory conditions or limiting the allowable game time before their effect would render the scenario over.

[tsofian]

I "wargamed" Operation Lonestar extensively several times. I had a boatload of Stan Johansen miniatures using his Wasteland Warriors http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/Road.htm for the savages and his Boxer Rebellion http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/boxer.htm for the Cav and the beret wearing mercs http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/mercs.htm for Morrow team members with various Minitank and other 1/87th scale vehicles and lots of terrain. I used everything from WRG Moderns to the Twilight 2000 miniatures rules to homegrown stuff.

I still use much of this just for the role playing games, including some custome built vehicles that substantially upgraded Combined Team 13's prospects for success.

I do hate that I went 20mm and not 15mm when I invested, because this is the only 20mm gaming I do, but hey 15mm wasn't what it is now then and 25mm was way too pricey and didn't offer the near perfect matches that Stan's very reasonably priced lines do!