Sorry for such a stupidly sounding question, but due to a fact that I do not own Normandy, I would appreciate some informations about campaign creation. 7times7is49 has encouraged me with his plan to make Italy campaign. I think of revising my Ardennes scenarios and transforming them into a campaign. But for now I lack knowledge of campaign know how.

My questions are:

a) Is there a lower limit of campaign scenarios? At least 4 scenarios to use up all 3 types of medals.

b) Is a campaign designed to a progress of only one nation team (divison, army,...) or may it simmulate battles of two different nation teams (let us say an american one and a german one) in the same time? Though in a longer time period it is quite unsual for those 2 teams to meet on a battlefield.

c) Do promote (and if so then how) squads with specializations (resp. do promote all specializations also those from Normandy and DOTF)? In Normandythere are cca 66 campaign spec. tokens - but how many of what special.?

d) How does work distributing of forces? Suppose that our imagined divison has 40 squads, 5 trucks and 5 tracks. In the first scenario it uses 10 squads. Let us say 4 incomplete squads will survive. Are their casualties in following scenarions substituted with any remaining reserves (by the setup of following scenario)? What if you need 2 antitank squads and they both perished in previous scenario/s?

e) Are Reinforcements decks used in campaign scenarios? Will not they make things easier for a division "gaining experience" and they would reduce their casualties?

Thanks for any advices.

Short answers to your questions:

a) your campaign can have as many scenarios as you think it takes to tell the story or play out the series of events/engagements you want to portray.

b) the campaign rules do seem to focus on a specific set of units, in the case of Normandy this is the 29th. Which is represented by a single static division that goes from scenario to scenario. The advancement medals that come with Normandy is how it tracks experience with that division. So in the context of your question it doesn't lend itself too well to the "campaign division" switching sides.

c) There are medal tokens for the specializations as well as generic medal tokens. The specialization medals don't actually cover the new specializations from DotF, only the base set specializations and the new normandy one.

d) the "campaign division" is reconstituted between scenarios. There are rules for how the surviving squad bases gain experience (at least two figures must remain on the base for it to get the medal upgrade)

e) if they are the reinforcements are considered to come in for the non 'campaign division' You can not transfer units from the non campaign division into the campaign division. The way this is kept distinct is that the campaign division uses one shade of bases, the second division and any reinforcements use the other shade.

Artemis said:

I dont have Normandy either jet, so I'm also curious.

So does this mean that the 29th allways start any given senario with the same number of infanteri, regardless of how many where slaughtered in the last senario? The only nice thing about having your troops survive for the next senario is the experience upgrade of surviving troops? In other words any troop killed in one senario will be replaced by new fresh unit in the next?

Yes, that about sums it up

FYI

Start with a battle or unit you like.

Find who they fought.

It's better to find units that fought against each other repeatedly so both sides can enjoy promoting.

Only problem: There are 10 plain Bronze Medals, 10 plain Silver Medals, and 10 MoH. There are 2 bronze, silver, and MoH for Anti-Tank, Engineer, Flamethrower, Demo, and Medic.

As far as promoting, as long as you have a squad with 2 survivors at the end, they are promoted to the next medal. And according to other threads, the cover bonuses for medals are applied to the Attacker's Assault action--meaning you roll cover when the defending squad attacks. Still no official faq on that yet...

Anyhow, I'd love to see an Ardennes offensive! I'm having fun drafting a panzergrenadier regiment with the mg squads able to move and fire with a -2mv. In my preliminaries, it has worked well--the lack of one figure for increased offensive firepower is a good trade--it's like having a unit with 2 elites and 2 regs with only 3 figs!

Btw: I think a good way to balance the possible lack of enough medals for a two-sided campaign might be this:

Loser of a battle instead of auto-promoting has to roll a die. Results of 4,5,or6 the unit is promoted. I also like how in one of the scenarios of the normandy campaign, promotions depend on the battle results. Major victory, squads with 1 figure may be promoted. Minor victory as normal, loss=no promotion or the above aforementioned.

Any thoughts?

I like that concept as well though it does mean that every scenario has to have a major and minor victory condition which isn't always applicable.

Also as was mentioned earlier about wanting both sides to be able to promote; that line of thinking is what drove me to the conclusion that I'd have to do a more fictional set of encounters and shrink the scale of the engagements. Perhaps somewhat of a gimick but I was thinking for mine that I would use a series of 2x2 map board engagements using small fixed divisions of 5, maybe 6 bases total. then have a supporting division depending on the scenario

Thanks for your feedback.

But still I have some unclarity:

As 7times7is49 wrote, the bonuses granted via medals may be used only during an assault (of a "medalled" squad). May they not be used, while that squad is fired upon? If not, then they are not of much use.

Probably I would take a little different conception in Ardennes campaign:

i) because there were lot of engaged divisions (american and german ones), it would be quite problematic to design at least 4 scenarios where would figure one and the same division. As I think of it, now I could use 4 scenarios: 2 would contain batlles of 2nd and 99th IDs contra german paratroopers and Scorzeny commandos (Operation Greif and Stosser) . Other 2 scenarios would contain batlles at Schnee Eiffel and St. Vith - there would figure 106th ID.

ii) Because there already exist scenarios relating to other famous events in Ardennes offensive like Stavelot express (TOI base game scenario), Siege of Bastogne (fan scenario by S. Meehan, I guess), I think there is no reason to create them anew. So it leaves me an area for 1 or 2 additional scenarios, which could describe events of "erasing the bulge" i.e. Allied counterattack and capturing back the former positions.

But again other divisions (than those mentioned above) were engaged in it, so it would mean that:

1) "Campaign" would mean in this my campaign a thematic (time period) meaning. It would cover some battles, which were fought between Germans and Americans. It would not track a progress of one particular division/regiment (whether American or German one) but rather would track down victories (major and minor) or loses scored by both those nations armies.

2) Because of this alternating in commanding divisions, granting medals would not give much sense (although if their benefits may be availed only during an assault, it should not matter so much), there would be possibilities to:

a) put an equal sign between victory points and campaign points and after each scenario campaign points could be spent on either rewards (as stated below) or (in some limited number (max. 3-4) ) as starting command points for the next scenario.

b) in some way reward lesser casualties or to reengage units (from the same divison) in the other scenario. In that reengaging could be used a Normandy campaign rule, that states a squad may promote if at least 2 figures in the squad survive a scenario. But what about a reward? Because such promotions would occur usually only once (rarely twice), such a squad could choose to gain (either permanent +1 cover vs suppr. attack or permanent +1 cover vs. normal attacks or permanent +1 fire attack vs. inf, or permanent +1 movement point). If a squad would promote twice, it would have to choose a different reward next time. Probably there would be a table stating relation between campaign points and costs of these rewards, which might be granted only to promoted squads.

Such rewards can be used "permanenty", but maybe they would require using some practical way of marking (for example transport tokens, but they could collide if you wanted to use them in a proper way).

What do you think?

One idea I'm using for different levels of promotion is toying with promoting surviving Regular Infantry to Elite Infantry.

As for the medals--their "cover" bonus is for ANY attack when dice are rolled--at least this is how i'm interpreting it.

i. I lucked out with the research covering the two divisions for the med campaign i'm working on. This doesn't mean that the same platoons/letter companies I use were at the same spot at the same time. One thing I'm using is the 504th PIR/82nd and the 4th Italian Livorno Division in supporting roles. Perhaps you could branch out from one division to others that were attached and incorporate them into a campaign which focuses on a month of battles in the Ardennes..?

ii. I agree--there already are some great historical scenarios. Stavelot is great fun. I'll have to try Meehan's Bastogne. The Witman's breakout is fun as well.

1. Yes

2a. I toyed with this idea. I like it and would love to see something like it.

2b. Your idea of a more free-flowing campaign with less structure would be good for this. It could open a variety of elements, such as your re-engaging a division. My campaign is a bit more rigid, but I like how you encourage rewards. I'll have to mull it over--It's monday.

7times7is49 said:

I have thought about that as well... something like rolling for surviving regulars... "level up" on a 5 or 6 after a victory and on a 6 after a defeat (you still learn something, even if your outfit did not win). This probable creates the need for additional elite figures, no problem for me because I uses painted metal minis (well, almost no problem as I would have to paint more elite guys).

But I also like the campaign specializations, they make squads more unique, as they can no longer interchange figures with other squads.

I'm allowing mixed elites using the brit figures. oh well. it works.