in the begining...

[Draq]

so ladies and gentlemen, presuming you are starting a new v1 campaign right after kalisz, how do you set everything up? # of players, characters per player, amount and quality of gear, vehicles/mounts, and supplies, geographical position, soldier nationality, branch/job/specialty per soldier, etc... im trying to compile a range of data within which to make my own campaign. I want input from actual players/GMs.

[LT. Ox]

Great questions. I am in the very same boat as my son in-law wants to have me DM a game for him, his sister and my Grand Kids (4). Sister wants to play a Medical type i.e. A surgeon or such from a mash. Son in-law would like to be a special ops Officer. The Kids just want to play with grandpa’s miniatures and on the big game table (4’ by 8” sand table)
Hmmmm! Soooo why is that group together near the rally point of Kalisz and how much equipment to have them try to use and keep track of. Me, I am retired and have all the time in the world to make lists and various problems for them to solve. The thing is they have no military experience other than their father being in the Army and a CIA analyst and cop. Well that may count for my daughter marring into their clan.
So we will let them start with pretty much whatever they want (notice the royal we, in DM mode already)
They will be here in an hour or so, I will let you know what the plan is then and you can have a laugh.

[LT. Ox]

Ok here is a list;
Two Lav one recovery type and one refitted C and C( them can swim)
Two HMMWV, one weapon mount ( M-19) and one medical conversion.
Two Bradley M-2
One M-113 or the mortar ammo carrier convert
One Five tone Truck, one 5,000 liter tanker
One M-60 and One M-1
Perhaps a few horses and tack
This brings us in around fifty to sixty personnel of various types.
Main group is an A-team, With the Doc and three medical people then the two squads of Ranger Infantry. Six or so mortar trained Joes the two tank crews and some transport personnel oh yeah the recovery and repair people that is another six.
We may have to do some negotiations
He calls the group “the Four Captains”
A-team leader, the Doc, one of the Tankers and the Infantry Captain.
He started with the A-team and picked the rest up while resupplying in anticipation of the breakout.

[Twilight2000v3MM]

My favorite campaign that I ran with the original modules I had the bulk of the players be from the 256th Brigade. They were a recce section.

The C.O. was in a VBL M-11 with a PC scout and a PC Driver/RTO. The second vehicle was a German Wiesel MK I with a 20mm AC. Gunner/Commander was my youngest player (GREAT player!) and another PC (he was just a crazy driver!)

A lot of fun and meyham. The PCs could get just about any equipemnt they wanted but it had to fit in the vehicles and because they had to have amphibious capability... no trailers. So they opted for a lot of alcohol fuel and food and went with the minimum ammo for the 20mm for the Wiesel (200 rounds?). They also mounted a M249 as a co-ax bore sighted with a 500 round ammo bin. The VBL had an MAG MMG I think they only had 1250 rounds for it.

They lost the Wiesel in the Black Madonna module. When they came out of the tomb one of their nemesis caught up to them an a large firefight started. The Wiesel got hit with multiple 14.5mm rounds.

After that they made it to Krakow where they traded a bunch of loot for a very beat up Spahpanzer Kurtz. They picked up to more PCs, one a German and the other an American.

I think that campaign lasted about 6 months.

I believe if you ave 50% of the PCs as Americans its more viable since it is a US unit.

My other very succsessful campaig was run with only 4 PCs in Maine. The PCs crossed the Atlantic on a 2 masted schooner. There were 5 NPCs only 1 was military. The PCs were an ex USMC Force Recon team and when they got to Maine/Nova Scotia they pretty much ran a guerilla war against New America. It was a great combo of politics, combat, and survival with ship to ship combat, spec ops missions, espionage recce missions. That lasted about a year off and on. That one had the players scrounging for just about everything and they liked it. Lots of wheeling and dealing. I would have to say that was my fav game I ran and would love to run it again.

[Draq]

Thanx, that's pretty helpful, gents. I was thinking of starting out with just 2-5 characters in one vehicle(HMMWV, m113, Bradley or nato equivalents) a few days after the breakthrough. Low on most everything, lost, maybe have a few mild to moderate wounds and vehicles damage/problems, kinda set up a tutorial, for both me and my players as this will be our first time playing. Give everyone a chance to get used to the non-combat aspects and develop character personalities. Then run into red scouts/recon patrol or something difficult but still do-able. Then when they finally regroup with the main forces, grab up more men supplies and vehicles

[Draq]

Maybe end up with a pow and some captured gear. Maybe a btr, bmp, or scout car.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Draq

Thanx, that's pretty helpful, gents. I was thinking of starting out with just 2-5 characters in one vehicle(HMMWV, m113, Bradley or nato equivalents) a few days after the breakthrough. Low on most everything, lost, maybe have a few mild to moderate wounds and vehicles damage/problems, kinda set up a tutorial, for both me and my players as this will be our first time playing. Give everyone a chance to get used to the non-combat aspects and develop character personalities. Then run into red scouts/recon patrol or something difficult but still do-able. Then when they finally regroup with the main forces, grab up more men supplies and vehicles

I think this is the ideal way to start out when you have a group of players new to the rules - start out simple and work your way up to the more involved stuff when people are used to the basics.

My take on the Kalisz scenario was also of the low key approach - pretty much just the PCs (and maybe a helpful NPC if the players didn't have much military knowledge) and what they could carry and possibly a vehicle if they got lucky with the dice roll. But I might give them a small bonus as well.
For example, I had a group that included a defecting Czech junior officer so I added another defecting Czech junior officer as an NPC. The group decided that they wanted to pool their dice and get a BTR-80 so I allowed that and as their bonus, the NPC Czech officer knew of a small cache of 44 gallon drums full of diesel (and so I then decided to have the BTR still fitted to run on diesel). This gave them a total (on-road) travel range of about 1500 kilometres before they'd have to convert the engine to alcohol (however, they didn't start with any ammo for the 14.5mm KPVT and only had about 700 rounds for the co-ax PKT).