The Commander Series Forum

So, since I'm alluding to it elsewhere, I thought I'd toss in my word on the FWC campaign setting I'm working on. I've long considered games to be of a kindred spirit to the kind of comics I draw, and thought it might be interesting to make the two work in tandem, if it could be done.

The time is just beyond the near future; call it the Fusion Age. Humankind isn't earthbound, but is still mainly earth-centric. Getting to other planets in the Solar System is difficult, but not impossible, to the extent that colonies exist as far out as the satellites of Neptune. Some long-term exploration of nearby stars has been launched, at sublight but very high speeds; the total extrasolar population is about 10,000, mostly on a planet called Eos, orbiting Sigma Draconis. Getting between stars takes several decades via "sleepers" and only the first wave has taken hold.

On Earth, the main source of excitement is the breakup of the European Union into four component states following a major financial crisis. This was precipitated by a major power shift in the United States that led to a new constitution, and the formation of the Associated States of America. This pushed the balance of global power towards Europe before structures were in place to cope with it, and various regions of the continent decided to go their own way.

The bulk of what would be recognizable to us as the EU is now the United States of Western Europe, (États-Unis D'Europe Occidentale), primarily France, Benelux, Switzerland and Catalonia. The Southern European Union (Unione Europea Meridionale) is dominated by Italy, Spain and Greece, and is mainly a Mediterranean power. The Central European Democratic Republic, more commonly called Mitteleuropa or the MDR (Mitteleuropäisches Demokratisches Republik), is Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, parts of Germanic Switzerland, and Sweden. The Eastern European Coalition (Koalicja Europejska Wschodnia) is a loose alliance of the Balkans, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and the Baltic States. To the east is the Russian Confederation (Rossiskaya Konfederatsiya, sometimes called Bolshiya Rossia, Novaya Rossiya, or just 'Russia,' in the West), a federalized, nationalist republic analogous to the Russian Federation and with its roots in the same.

Britain is a leading member of ENSPUN, the English-Speaking Union, led by the Commonwealth Nations and the fifty-four Associated States of America, with several Latin American countries having cooperation and trade pacts with ENSPUN as a whole. It functions like free trade area combined with a more limited version of NATO-style collective security. The members of ENSPUN try to remain aloof from the doings in Europe, but many have strong ties to the USWE and the Eastern European Coalition. It is heavily decentralized.

The opening stages of the war occur in Croatia and Serbia, where the EEC, SEU and Mitteleuropa collide. All parties try to stake a claim to spheres of influence in the region, and the posturing that ensues rapidly slips out of control.

I'm writing a few scenarios that I'll post here as I go - suggestions, scenario recommendations, and so forth would be most welcome, as would units, designs, and force lists. This is just a side project for me so I don't really know where it's going, if anywhere, but still, it ought to be good for a larf, for whatever it's worth.

Sounds good to me

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

So looking forward to this.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys!

Here are a few notes - I'm finishing up this week's page in my comic, but this will keep coming to my mind until I get it down somewhere.

The basics of the campaign are as follows:

1) The campaign is designed with large-scale forces (battalions and regiments) in mind. THe preferred scale is 1-to-1 representation at 3mm scale, but any reasonable setup will do.

2) HQs are at the Company level, and Command Structures (vide CWC) are enforced depending on the relative "flexibility" of a given force structure. So a typical HQ will have 12 to 15 tanks or infantry squads attached to it.

3) Autonomous Armored Vehicles, also known as "Rumblers" and "Cybertanks," are ubiquitous in all modern forces. They are the state of the art in "modern" warfighting; the first second-generation AAVs are reaching the field as the First Upheaval begins.

4) There are not any "good" or "bad" forces; all sides are following what they see as their national self-interests.

5) All the main powers have access to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, but consider their use a last resort, and would be very reluctant to start an escalation.

6) Most "modern" nations are phasing out national militaries, since they are far too expensive to maintain, given the increasing costs of running a modern government, and the decreasing value of national currencies in the ongoing financial crisis that is one of the proximate causes of the war. The leaders in outsourced warfighting are Mitteleuropa, ENSPUN and the USWE. The Russian Confederation, SEU, EEC and other nations are somewhat mixed, but more likely to have national militaries with "mercenary" units as auxiliaries. The idea: leave the field wide open for players to design and insert their own forces into the plot without feeling like they're "wrecking it" by adding in something "non-canon."

7) Terrain layouts are hex-based, mainly because I'm building GHQ modular terrain hexes to play the game on. So scenario layouts will be on some multiple of the GHQ Skirmish Board hex field. It should be easy to translate that to any given playing area, though.

8) So far, I have three Brigade-sized forces that will be the main go-to units for the campaign: the St. Vincent Brigade (SEU), the Earthlight Division (MDR), and the Third Union Rifles (ENSPUN). Others will be forthcoming, I'm sure - people would be welcome to suggest them. Again, this is an effort to leave the field open to people making up and running their own units for the conflict.

Not to dump a stream of consciousness, there, but I would like to get some idea of what people think of the direction there. I intend the campaign to have game aids of some kind, probably unit cards with preset company-level forces, detachments, assets, etc. to build a force quickly. Also would like to think up some kind of scenario matrix to put up random campaigns, possibly also a set of rules governing international intervention and war intensity, which would determine the kind of things people could do in combat (airdrops, orbital strikes, nukes, etc.)

Still cracking, here.

Feel free to slot my stuff in there as a force if you like! I'd be happy to run games, take pictures, do creative writing and what not.

I have lots of mecha units in my painted forces, but those can easily be removed. And I'm just waiting for Plasmablast to come out with that new 6mm line to do up a bunch of rumblers.

Oh, heck yes. The Marhaf legion is looking fantastic - I'm obsessively checking the PB website practically on a daily basis. They're going to feature heavily at the Battle of Matochkin Shar, which is the largest cybertank engagement of the war (and in history, until the Second Upheaval).

I need about 9 of those Marhafi, myself, although I think I´m going to replace the main guns with something a bit less... Freudian.

Oh, dear Lord, the Freudian Gun! Sometimes a giant armored death machine is just a giant armored death machine.

The Marhafi are probably going to be the USWE's "Régiment de Fer" or "Iron Regiment." They win the Battle of Matochkin Shar by only the narrowest of margins, saving the ENSPUN beachhead in Novaya Zemlya from a Russian Confederation counterattack.

I'm considering linking up one of the MBTs with one of the MLRSs to make a more Ogre-esque vehicle. The super heavies will do very nicely on their own though. I've already used the Progenitors for a 6mm force, but maybe walkers would suit the Russian Confederation. Like the Kreen from Microworld, perhaps.

Circumcized giant armored death machines, in this case.

The drones and Siafu could definitely work as 3mm mecha, as could the scuttler. And they all look appropriately clunky and Russian.

I think I'm going to use the Marhafi heavies as lower mark cybertanks and the superheavies as higher mark cybertanks. Once you start swapping turrets and such between them, you'll get a lot of variation.

I still want a couple of those Iron Wind Monitors as mobile planetary defence bases, however!

That's what the Charybdis is for, as well. Major objective in Nova Gorica - surface-to-orbit defense weapon. Has to be captured or destroyed to let the MDR fleet get into low orbit. Or saved, for that matter, to keep the Union safe from orbital hombardment.

Yeah, the Charybdis looks like it would be a GREAT planetary defence installation, too.

Okay, so that spoke to me. Here's my setup for the opening act in the First Upheaval.

PHASE I: Operation Weather (Unternehmen "Wetter")

Belligerents:
Mitteleuropäisches Demokratisches Republik (Attacker)
Unione Europea Meridionale (Defender)

Units:
MDR: Earthlight Division, Donnerschlag-S.U.
SEU: St. Vincent Brigade, St. Michael Brigade, Veneto Regional Militia

Profile:
A series of five near-simultaneous attacks ("preemptive strikes," from the MDR's perspective) on SEU surface-to-orbit weapons platforms deployed in Croatia and Northern Italy.

Mission Background:
The MDR's deployment of its THOR missile satellites, ostensibly for national defense in the wake of the EU's breakup, was highly controversial, especially with the Southern European Union. The SEU's increasingly close relationship with the Russian Confederation fueled the controversy. Both the SEU and Russia shared a policy to oppose any orbital weapons which could nullify their ground-based deterrent, or threaten space assets, a vital link to the near colonies and Russian and SEU commercial interests there. As a response to the launch of the THOR network, the SEU went forward with a plan to deploy Russian-made Charybdis Free-Electron Lasers on mobile land platforms along the MDR frontier. Fearing that this would nullify THEIR deterrent, the MDR decided to attempt a rapid strike into Croatia to destroy the platforms before they could be brought online.

Specific scenario information will follow soon.