rogercv
Topic Author
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun 28 Nov 2021, 10:34

Travel Map: Units Strategy Rules?

Sun 28 Nov 2021, 10:49

Hello Twilighters. I've read the books several times and I still cannot understand how the position of each unit in the travel map (US, NATO, Soviet, Polish, etc) affects in any way the game beyond giving ideas to the Referee. I haven't seen how the presence (and size) of any enemy or ally unit in, let's say, Kalisz, affects the playing group (triggering enemy encounters, for example, and if so, how dangerous are they).
Is there any table that I missed about encounters that is affected by the presence of one of these units? Is there any rule you apply (or that will appear in future modules) that explain how to manage general strategy with these units by the referee?
I would love to start the campaign with my group of players with the map containing no more unit tokens that the Kalisz one, which is soviet. The others would be hidden and would be discovered via rumors or getting near the hex, and I would like to turn the discovery of an unit into something mechanicaly solid.
Many thanks!
 
baldrick0712
Posts: 672
Joined: Fri 28 May 2021, 12:29

Re: Travel Map: Units Strategy Rules?

Sun 28 Nov 2021, 13:46

You are correct, the positions of Soviet units are just to provide rough ideas to the referee. The Battle of Kalisz has just happened in the default campaign start, US 5th Division having been smashed. The nearest Soviet units are all part of the Soviet Reserve Group, headquartered at Łódź (the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz and 35th Guards VDV brigades, west and north of Kalisz respectively, and the 6th Independent Guards Motor Rifle brigade east of Kalisz, close to Łódź). The three brigades are led by Major General Mukan Dyusekeev, who is attached to 35th Guards VDV brigade. The map shows this unit as being in Kalisz, however the description of the Soviet Reserve Group faction says they are in Łódź with no known objectives and that it's unclear if Dyusekeev is even answering to Soviet High Command anymore.

The way I'd play this is to assume that units of Dyusekeev's Soviet Reserve Group are scattered all around Kalisz at the start of the game and troops from these three units are who the player characters are most likely to run into in the first few days, but once a week or so of campaign time has passed the Soviet units on the map could have shifted location radically. If the players want to go south towards Kraków, you can see from the map that a lot of Soviet armoured units are just east of the route to Kraków, so they might run into tanks of the 20th Tank division going that way. Maybe more will be said about them in a future supplement.

In summary, I'd use the map for the first few days of a campaign only and then assume those positions are pretty much meaningless other than providing some unit names for the referee to use.
 
rogercv
Topic Author
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun 28 Nov 2021, 10:34

Re: Travel Map: Units Strategy Rules?

Sun 28 Nov 2021, 17:27

Thanks for the reply. Yes, that is a good idea in order to color the encounters and relate them to specific units or hq. But I would love to have a more meaningful interpretation of the situation, wouldn’t you? For example:
- RECON during traveling to spot friendly or enemy units nearby.
- the proximity of units or hq increases the number of soldiers during encounters (or triggers special military encounters). In that way, the group would try to avoid certain hexes at any cost)

It would be nice to have a way to deal with the movement and evolution of units in a more mechanical way, too:
- which units move and where?
- when battles happen and how they affect the units.
- how all this affects the group.

I don’t know. Maybe adding an extra layer of complexity is unnecessary, and this can be planned by the referee. Nevertheless, if well executed, this layer would make the world building more interesting and organic, in my opinion.
 
baldrick0712
Posts: 672
Joined: Fri 28 May 2021, 12:29

Re: Travel Map: Units Strategy Rules?

Sun 28 Nov 2021, 20:02

One way of doing this would be to look at the relative concentrations of units in particular areas and use logic to predict what would follow from those starting positions.

Example...
  • 3 Gd X (Soviet) is well isolated, with the Polish Silesian XXX to its front. It is most likely going to move southeast away from the Silesian corps and try to cut off retreating elements of US 5th Division.
  • 11 Tank XX (Soviet) is up against the 29th and 34th Infantry XX so they might be strong enough to stick around and have skirmishes with those infantry units.
  • 3 ACR III (US) is currently in Kielce cut off from the west by the Soviet 9th and 20th tank XX. I would see them wanting to punch through those units to link up with remnants of US 5th Division somewhere near Częstochowa.

The thing to bear in mind though is that OPERATION RESET was probably the last major action of the war and now it's effectively post-war apocalyptic survival time so how much each unit would actually care about the war is debatable. I could see all sorts of crazy stuff going on, like Russian and US elements joining forces, units disbanding and merging with the population, etc.

The Factions section of the Referees Manual breaks down big units into much smaller ones and I can see that being useful. For example, maybe whilst heading southeast towards Częstochowa the players run into 4/6 INF BN, 2nd BDE, 5th Infantry Division, listed as having 1x M2 Bradley IFV and 33 personnel. What are they doing? How are the ones that can't fit in the Bradley getting around? Is the commander a good guy or has he gone nuts and started abusing the Polish villagers nearby? Will he want the group to join his force if they attempt to leave and head for Częstochowa?
 
rogercv
Topic Author
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun 28 Nov 2021, 10:34

Re: Travel Map: Units Strategy Rules?

Mon 29 Nov 2021, 10:40

Right.
And I just saw that some encounter cards or results (from the stationary encounters table) say things like "X members of the nearest forces shows up...". It is a natural way of using the units, since depending on where the players are, units surrounding them become relevant (hostile or friendly). This makes more sense, since it will affect the way the players decide to move through the map.

I'll still be customising this a bit, though, adding a modificator to the stationary table in order to bias it towards the end, where larger forces appear. The modificator will be bigger if more hostile forces are nearby. Little tweaks only. This is a great game.

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