A campaign background can do much to add to
the interest value of individual miniatures games. The
additional factors involved make the problems involved more
complex than merely destroying more points of the
opposing forces than are lost by one's own. To some
degree this can be compensated for by setting up
scenarios with some background and more complex victory
conditions, but this is not the same thing In addition, it is
difficult to provide a sense of continuity with scenarios as
opposed to that provided In a campaign.
Miniatures campaigns are most frequently discusse'd in terms of the Ancient or Napoleonic periods. It is rare to see mention of a World War II (or other Twentieth Century) land campaign. There are two probable causes for this. The first is that, in general, the forces and areas involved in World War II, or any given theater, are overwhelming in scale. A second reason, probably less important, is the fact that WW II games tend to be set up as scenarios rather than as straight games between equal strength forces (at least in my experience), thus making the contrast between a campaign and unconnected individual games less sharp.
Once a basis has been found that is suitable for a campaign, it should be no more difficult to set up one for WW II than for any other period. In particular, due to the increased logistics requirements of WW I I equipment and technology, a campaign background is necessary to reflect many of the real factors involved in the warfare of the period which are difficult to reflect in a specific battlefield situation.
There are basically three options available for setting up a WW II type campaign. The first of these is to decide that it is unnecessary to deal with the actual scale of forces involved in WW I I theaters, and to set up a fictitious situation with some of the same problems involved, but with a reduced scale of forces and area. The normal form is to set up two or more small countries to fight each other, each of which use the organization and equipment used by one of the combatants during WW II.
This approach has the advantage that it is possible to build in many strategic choices and options, and it is not too difficult to add rules to allow the players some choice in which types of equipment to produce, etc. The only real drawback to this type of campaign is that it lacks the interest associated with ''recreating" a historic campaign. It could be used with almost any scale of rules but would be best with rules that allow fighting at least a historical battalion size force on each side, or else the fictitious countries must be well down in the postage stamp class.
One set of rules that includes strategic rules and a map for this type of campaign is 1944 by Arnold Hendrick, and published by Gamescience (Ed. Note: 7604 Newton Dr., Biloxi, MS 39532). The strategic rules are separate from the tactical and could be used with another set of tactical rules with only a little adaption necessary.
A second option is to attempt to find a historical background that is within the reasonable limits in scale for the rules to be used. While it requires some searching, it is not impossible to find such cases. One possibility is one of the number of isolated minor theaters of WWII. Their main drawback is that the climate and/or terrain do not lend themselves to armored warfare, so that a campaign set there would basically revolve around infantry actions.
They all have the advantage that the forces involved on each side are only a few divisions, with any individual engagement probably being resolvable significantly below divisional strength. Possible theaters for this campaign type are Norway in 1940, the far northern front in Russia, or the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1941.
A third option is to select a portion of a major campaign from a major theater, but which is typified by relative isolation of individual actions. One candidate for this would be some of the smaller offensives in North Africa, such as Operation Brevity. The level of forces involved is relatively low, and any particular engagement will be well below the divisional level. Another choice would be the Ardennes in 1944.
While the total forces involved here were large, due to the broken terrain and the discontinuous nature of the fighting, it would be reasonable to choose the frontage of a German Corps and the American units facing it and then have the campaign be the attempt of the German Corps to reach their objectives (e.g. crossing the Meuse) while the Americans attempt to prevent it. The nature of the terrain and the restricted road net meant that it was impossible to bring forces into action in a given fight, above regimental strength.
Work
The work required to set a WW II campaign with a historical basis is significantly less than that necessary for other periods. Due to the large number of board games on the market, it is generally possible to find at least one game that will provide a map and order of battle, and frequently rules as well, that can be used for the strategic/operational aspects of the campaign.
The trick is to look for a game that uses battalion to regiment level counters. This is about the right scale to be used for those miniatures rules that permit the fighting of somewhat larger scale actions at the battalion or regiment level (e.g. the WRG Army-In
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