Reply To: Universal Map Based Campaign System Where Manouvering Matters!

@greyhunter thanks for the tips and insights!

Yeah there’s a lot to manage it seems. I’ll address your points by point:

1. I have done this a few ways: The limited number of units in your ORBAT. There are some different options for players to tweak the rules but in general, if a squad is more than half destroyed they pay a small resource  points cost. (RPs)

   But when an entire formation (Platoon, company, battalion etc, depends what scale game you’re playing) You lose some actual Victory Points. You also lose your commander if the formation is wiped. I have built the XP system around commander abilities.
   The AOS rules sound cool! The system above is similar I guess?

2. There are too many different profile rules for me to try and give upgrades to units. I’ll just let players pick the native campaign rules for units if they like.
   Instead, as mentioned commander abilities level up – But it’s quite fast.
   They provide:
   -Reserve roll bonuses
   -Extra D6 for the Generals Roll Off (This is used to determine the battlefield, and mission to play. It’s important because the map is much more zoomed in compared to most systems, where you move your entire army as one.  Each formation can occupy a 1′ x 1′ Square foot (or approx) – This is designed so it’s easy to work out where units come on if you have adjacent reserve formations, just outside the battlefield area. It also allows you to maneuver on the map and know there will be a dense city in this tile, therefore more cover when the battle occurs.  (Obviously the other map tiles still need cover too usually)

   Example:
   
   -one leadership re-roll per battle for one unit (Optional rule)
   -And finally, the most important is the Order Tokens: Basic commanders generate 2 order tokens which are used to move and take actions like entrench, fire artillery etc.
   But the max orders generated will be 3. I added a ‘mythical hero’ profile that’s even slightly better, but you need 15 battles to obtain that profile. And it’s optional anyway.

3. Regards to fighting losing battles – Yep that makes sense to me. I have tried to resolve that in a few ways:
   – Auto retreat optional rule (Otherwise you can retreat and you’re caught on a 4+, and play a quick rearguard mission. (3 turns) If you still don’t want to fight you can auto-resolve.
   But yeah I can see why some people would get a bit down.
   I think looking at it more as a narrative rather than “It’s a tournament, I must win most of my battles”
   The (optional) supply chain system means that even smaller armies have a decent chance against bigger ones, if they can cut off their fuel and ammo.)  Actually writing this just gave me an idea – Perhaps there can be a slight movement penalty or cost if one player is massively outnumbering the other, to represent strained logistics.

   I did also make a guerilla tactics mechanic to help underdogs.

4. Yeah absolutely. I think this system lends itself better to shorter campaigns for this reason (That is, if you’re playing all the rules as I intended) Because of the map scale, it’s really the operational manoeuvres and set up to the battle. Then the same for the subsequent fights.
   I encourage players to try another way of gaming rather than capturing objective circles on the map – whoever has the most wins? I get that it’s a game, and players can of course play the traditional matched play tournament style rules that are so popular.
   But I wanted to really bring the tension between...”do I send in this unit to win this battle now? or should I save them for later?” And – ‘I’ve almost won but if I risk losing this last unit the formation is destroyed – I should probably cut my losses’ etc.
5. Wholeheartedly 100% agree. I think using the fixed roster ORBAT as above, made of what forces you would really have in the lore will really make elite units feel elite. They are a finite resource.

Nah your format is great, thanks for the input.
I have some other tasks that will take over this for the next couple weeks so I decided to launch the Alpha playtest rules PDF for free on my website.

I’ve called it Tabletop Ops: Wargaming Campaign Rules for now.
Get it here – https://brutalcities.com/pages/map-based-wargaming-campaign-rules

If you’re interested, I’d love to know what you think of them, particularly the Battle Phase section and the formation movement rules.
There’s 50 pages as I’ve put a lot of ideas down. Now It’s time to playtest more and refine them.
Thanks for your time and reply, again!