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HOME BREWDesigning Your Own Scenariosfor Mech War 77 and Panzer 44

by Matthew BuynowskiOne of the most difficult things to encourageis free experimentation with existing games-most of you take the printed situations alittle too Talmudically. And so, with this wepush you into heresy:The avid simove Fan has by now exhaustedall the Mech War and Panzer '44 scenarios.Worse, he has come to know intimately everyhex of both games maps. A pall sets in; thefrustrated gamer takes the plunge and orderssix blank hexsheets. Within a few hours 154square miles of terrain can be created, allnew and all to the garners liking. Fine, but bewarned, there are pitfalls on that route.

Scale. What is more natural, with six blankmap sections, than to make one giganticmap? Nothing, but don't do it. Tables thatbig are rare, and even if one is available, trymoving units, counting ranges, or readinghex numbers in the center of such a map. Putthe boards together in pairs, or triplets; twojoined on the long edge is about optimum.Should the mad urge for giant-sized simu-lations persist, make roads, etc., join at theedges. But plan the maps mainly for use asseparate sections. An interesting thing to dowith blank mapsheets is to draw your hometown. While the historical justification forMech-War scenarios in Manhattan or south-ern Arkansas may be weak, there's a certainfascination in fighting over places you'reintimately familiar with. You can get mapsfrom the US Coast and Geodetic Service ortromp around town with a pencil.

Whatever size map is used, the next bad im-pulse is to rush out and do divisional-sized'scenarios. Don't. Although the physicalgame-scale accomodates such actions (evenon, a single board), the number of countersrequired is unwieldy. For example, the"book" frontage for a U.S. World War in-fantry division is about 5.1 miles, which fitson a 4 by 6'h mile single map, but such a unitrequires over 125 counters to simulate! Ifthere was ever an "ironclad" si-move rule, itis to restrict each player to less than 2S com-bat units. Otherwise, so much plotting anddie rolling ensue that boredom develops. Theonly way around this stumbling block is to goback to sequential movement and combat,without plotting. Totally unrealistic, but un-avoidable. And fun. Try to rustle up somekind of opportunity fire.

Under "the rule," divisional simulations willrequire five to six per side. Even with a good-sized gaming group, that's nearly impossible.But six players total is not unreasonable, andthis fits well with regimental/combat-com-mand scenarios on a two-hexsheet map.

The order of battle may be bloated to ne.ar-division size by the expedient of using battle-

worn formations. Combat units are rarely atfull strength, and, in fact, this allows theweeding out of ,"useless" counters andmaximization of "interesting" ones. MechWar scenarios reflect this, unlike the earlierRed Star/White Star situations.

Terrain has predictable results on the finalscenarios and tactics employed. Very closedterrain will make infantry potent (especiallywith CA doubled at one hex). If the terrain isopened to the point that the usual engage-ment is 3 to, 10 hexes, armor comes to thefore. As the distance from one terrain featureto the next increases, the non-attenuated Gand H-class weapons become the mostpowerful.

On-board objectives give scenarios ·purposeand add spice. The best are bridges, roadjunctions, towns, and other tactical scaleitems; strategic objectves like vital resourcesor industry are best avoided. Read somemilitary history for inspiration. The RoerRiver Dams posed a sticky operational prob-lem; put a flood control dam on your map'sriver. And so on. Experiment with any crazyterrain feature you please. -Patton oncediverted troops to liberate an Austrianstable. Once selected, objectives should beput on the map with some maneuver spaceon all sides.

Try to prevent canalization by terrain, so thatall of the map is used; Don't put a river rightthrough the middle of the board and provideonly one or two bridges. All scenario actionwill be magnetically drawn over and overthose same spots. By the same token, don'tgive both sides tank-heavy forces and hidethe objectives in swamps or forests. Put theobjectives where everyone can get at them.

If considerable woods, towns, or slopes are tobe drawn, $2 rubber stamps can be wellworth it. An added advantage of this is thatsome colored stamp-pad inks are notwater-soluble like colored marking pens.And while we're spending money, pick upsome plexiglas map covers at a hardwarestore. You can draw on them and erase, andit's cheaper in the long run than buying lotsof blank maps.He who attacks without superiority ends upwith a bloody nose. Thus, experiencedgarners will avoid action in too-even scena-rios. To avoid this, some inbalance in theopposing forces, be it quantitative or quali-tative, must be included. Overall scenariobalance is then achieved by the relative diffi-culty of the victory conditions. When forcesare identical, you do have a problem. But thisdoesn't apply in tactical games, unless yougive both players units of one nationality.Each unit has strengths and weaknesses; you

can have an even fight without identicalforces. For example, the superior Soviet in-fantry and infantry AT missiles are coun-tered by superior American artillery andhelicopters in Mech War.

The weak-side build-up scenario, whereinone side receives more and more reinforce-ments, is the best. There is continuousaction, and every player "takes the offensive"at some time. This is a legitimate operationalplan for mobile defenses (as distinguishedfrom the area defense). Overall balance/localimbalance scenarios, in which total forces areeven but distributed unevenly on the map,work for multi-commander set-ups. Unfor-tunately, not every player has offensive op-portunities. The scenario in which one side istotally defensive and (usually) crushed, re-quires victory condition balancing .. Someplayers find this challenging; others hate it.

Pervading all the above has been the idea ofmultiple-commander teams. This immedi-ately brings up the question of how to simu-late tactical co-ordination. Possible methodsof dealing with this are limited communica-tions and unit boundaries. The former can bedone in any of several ways:A. Written notes. A percentage of these maybe lost," "intercepted," or "garbled." Butradio makes written messages obsolete.B. Conferences. Always one at the start.Thereafter, one every "x" turns. The enemy'sjamming the radio, and you can only get aword in occasionally. Conferences shouldhave time limits.

C. None whatever. This is riotous. Hey, nowthat I think of it, how about a radio jammingtable? Fix it so either side's communicationscan break down at any time. This especiallyapplies to Mech War, as jamming technologyis a lot more advanced these days.

D. No restrictions at all. Differences ofopinion cause tactical faux-pas, only if nooverall commander is assigned. Especially ifthe teammates have different objectives,rather than being involved in a race. For ex-ample, if one player is to take a town and ateammate benefits from enemy casualties,the latter may be incensed over the former'srefusal to finish off a disrupted unit.

Boundary lines reflect the actual control de-vices used in combat to avoid friendlyclashes, assign advance roads, etc. A possibleoptional rule:1 Each commander's units must stay withinhis zone and may not voluntarily move out.2. Units may fire into adjacent zones. Artil-lery may not indirectly fire across a boundaryin the case of the attacking team, even if bothteammates agree. This simulates the inability

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of artillery to switch fire, which is covered bythe Meeh War US multiple artillery rules.3. A unit panicked into other zones may re-main so long as not plotted "mv". Firstvoluntary movement must return it to properzone.4. Boundaries must be assigned unambigu-ouslyby team commander, and only changedby him.

Other monkey wrenches, like not allowingunits to spot for neighboring zones, can beadded. Bear in mind that all this is specula-tive, and almost anything can be "justified."Just how many wrenches to throw in is againa matter of personal taste.

Scenarios are more "real" if couched in an"historical" sequence. This can be realhistory (Pz '44), entirely imagined, or con-structed from other games. The only con-straint is that map terrain should match rea-sonably to that required by the history.

Create scenarios from the next-higher levelgames such as Ardennes Offensive, ModemBattles Quad, Sinai, or East is Red; when acritical attack comes up, recreate the forcesengaged on the tactical maps. Be careful toadjust for the proper scale factors (units,time, distance) in the transfer. And don't gooverboard. I once tried to do that with NATOand Red Star/White Star. I don't recom-mend it; stick to comparatively easy con-versions like Wurzburg and Hurtgen Forest.Similarly, every completed fantasy scenariocan set the stage for the next scenario;play-as-you-go history. At this point, theroad is wide open-let your imagination runfree, tethered by restrictions of playability.

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