The Lion’s Den wargamers recently decided to create a wargame campaign set during WWII. We wanted something of limited scope so that the complete campaign could be carried through to a satisfying conclusion. It was decided to compile most of the available troops that would be available for this campaign and then decided on the When and Where for the situations. I have a box of ESCI British painted up and mounted for D6 game mechanics and also a box of Revell Germans. These would be our Infantry forces. At the convention in Fort Leavenworth I bought at auction a set of 8 British vehicles including Churchill tanks and scout cars with one Priest model. Jon Haworth brought to the game a force of German armor units that include Panzer IV and V and assorted Half-tracks. Our club has Japanese and US forces but the British and German equipment looked to be the most numerous and complete in order to hash out a table of organization and campaign elements. So, British vs. German would set the table. The Campaign Series Osprey book: Normandy 1944 was to be the sole source of information to fill in the campaign ideas. I like reading military history and I value research as a tool for wargaming but this time around I wanted the creative freedom to just get on with the game aspect of a campaign and not rely solely on the recreation of every historical unit in it’s historical role. Thumbing quickly through the book I hit on the reference I needed to put on the campaign. Page 66 and 67 of this book shows a double map spread of the area around Caen. All of the unit positions and names are detailed of where they where and where they went during the months of June, July and August 1944. With only the briefest reading of the actual text I set about drawing the map we would use for our game. Caen The map from the book Normandy was used to select the terrain our troops would maneuver over. I wanted a campaign map that covered an area of nine wargames tables. I set on the idea of the 3 x 3 grid for our campaign. Maneuver elements of infantry and tanks would use this grid to move from one table area to the other and fight the wargames battles when troops of the opposing side contested a square of the campaign map. This really condenses things and in the short time most of us have to actually game I did not want wasted map moving time spent in elaborate moves and counter moves. Both forces in this area came for a fight and that’s what they were going to get. By choosing a limited area and defining outcome objectives there is the element of campaigning without the wasted time. Map and Maneuver Elements I studied the map set for a while and then I drew a 3 x 3 grid on some quadrille manila paper and got out my set of colored pencils. The text told me that the British forces had a tough time in the area north of Caen because of the dense countryside. The going became progressively more open as they moved south and yet it became more hilly. This all translated into a rough sketch of Caen occupying the northwest corner of the four wargames tables with rough country in the top three tables and hilly country to the south in the bottom three tables. (See Maps) I then drew a very a-historical sketch of the major road systems and concentrated not on the source map but on how I wanted the campaign map to be used in the game. Glancing only briefly at the source map, I added a few towns on each gaming table and then went to the source to pull a name from the general area of the map. This to me is a very satisfying part of the gaming hobby. The area around Caen was becoming my own little corner of the war and I could already sense the movement of troops and generals vying over this real estate. Now it was time to make the final copy of the theater map for this campaign. I love the feel and look of manila paper and colored pencils for the product of a large campaign map. The only consideration during this stage is setting up terrain on a wargame’s table map, must coincide with the terrain I have available for the game. Each map could only have so many buildings, trees and river running through it or else we would come to the point of battle and not have sufficient lichen for our bocage. I scaled up each table on a sheet of manila quadrille with one inch on the map is one foot on the gaming table. This created a 6 x 6 inch map for a portion of our 6 x 8 table. Each wargame map represented one 6 x 6 foot table with the one foot margin on the sides of the table used for troop placement before during and after the game. This keeps all of the necessary troops right at hand for the game regardless of which ones were needed for any particular battle. Any good campaign must have a manipulative that represents the troops in the overall campaign. Also some sort of fog of war is desirable so a good manipulative does not give away too much information. Little wooden blocks fill this requirement perfectly. I had on hand a box of wooden cubes that I found at a Dollar store. I colored the tops of about a dozen blocks red and another dozen blue. These were immediately placed on the campaign map for the sheer pleasure of the anticipated action. These blocks would represent the forces of the opposing sides and the unit description and type could be written on one side, concealing this information from the opposing player. This is like a Stratego piece and that comment was immediately recognized on the first evening of the game. You could look across the map and see the colored blocks of wood but you would not know what force it represented. This eliminated the need for written campaign moves which again is fun sometimes, but only uses up time from a miniatures battle. Source Material Taking my set of colored unit markers I went back to the source material again. I had already received much satisfaction from my own creative license in the map making stage to worry overmuch on the unit type. I knew how many infantry and armor units I wanted for each side and the text had given me some of the commanders concerns and obstacles that where faced during these months of WWII. So I picked the names in a similar fashion as I named the towns on the map. “Let’s see I need four infantry designations for the British so its…you, you, you and yes this one two.” Wrote the names and numbers down on a scratch paper and picked the German forces in the same way. Later I did go back and read the text about the units names I picked and found some interesting reading. With the blocks of wood I took a fine pen and labeled each block with the unit number and the military symbol for infantry, armor etc. In our campaign there would be four British Infantry and three Armor groups, up against six German infantry and three Armor groups. Each side would have varying degrees of skill and troop quality. Some of the German infantry were Static battalions and should not be considered too great in our setting. There would also be available to each side aircraft and theater artillery in varying degrees. Miniatures We use 1/72 scale miniatures in this campaign. Terrain was scratch built trees from box twine. Hills were scratch built from blue insulation board. Houses would represent sections of a town and they were plaster models from Hobby Lobby. These last items painted up very well and have a casual resemblance to European architecture. Roads were made from pieces of brown carpet cut to fit the table. Normandy 1944 Game: Tables of Organization and Equipment Back to Table of Contents Penny Whistle #54 Back to Penny Whistle List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Lion's Den Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com