Ok, first, the blog/personal news. Even with the weather, the convention season marches on. And so do I. I have managed to finagle a day trip on Saturday to
Cold Wars. I try to make the various HMGS cons as often as I can (have a long, and happy history with them), but yeah, with the upcoming nuptials? That probably will be my only con this year, though who knows?
But I am excited to potentially see fans and other curious readers (I suspect the latter outnumbers the former), I'll be the fella in the black shirt with the first ed Twilight: 2000 cover on the front!
Yeah, I will stand out..but that's the point, no?
Anyhow, enough about me and my travels!
A Few Notes About Villages
Villages are the usual touchstones of every Twilight: 2000 adventure. They're the road stops on the post-apocalyptic road picture Twilight:2000 can become. And the problems are many, some of the more memorable include the little village of Ostrow, who was occupied (very) unwillingly by the Soviets in Escape from Kalisz, to Dobrizieden, who had an American unit in residence (with a somewhat unstable and certainly haunted commander), in Black Madonna.
Not all problems are gameable on the tabletop, but many can be, given an imaginative and resourceful referee.
Take Dobriziden. At first glance, this would seem like a hard thing to base a miniatures game around, right? Wrong. Dobriziden has some fairly interesting neighbors. To the north, there is the remains of the 129th Motor Rifle Division, which according to Black Madonna, is holding together under Colonel Kasnov's middle of the road leadership till he can march the division home in the spring (the adventure taking place in the Fall of 2000). The division is teetering on the edge of joining the 9th and 38th Tank Divisions in flying apart and becoming bandits scattered all across Eastern Poland.
To the south? There is the Markgraf of Silesia. The Markgraf is by no means your stereotypical fascist maniac, but he is someone who can at best, be charitably described as a warlord. Now, that said, like many of the more "benevolent" war lords to be found in the world of Twilight: 2000, he usually asks "please" before he annexes you, and would rather you join willingly, pay his taxes and in return, he brings law, order, and peace. He is also very involved in the running of his kingdom, and is not above replacing a bad subordinate or two, probably violently. In short, he is about as good as you can expect under the circumstances.
This does put Dobriziden in a bit of a fix. The people are very attached to B Troop for the things they have done to protect the town. In the adventure White Eagle, we have a throw away bit where Dobriziden joins the Margraveate, and Molly's position as mayor is pretty much confirmed, but I never thought much of that resolution.
A better resolution? Or perhaps a more challenging one? Captain Warren gets word that Operation Omega is happening and the USAEUR is going home. She cannot in good conscience leave the town of Dobriziden undefended, and yet, she knows some of her troopers are going to want to go home, probably enough of them to matter. As much as Dobriziden has become a second home, it's not Idaho, where most of the 116th ACR hails from, so, Warren hatches an almost insane plan. She decides to try and march the people of Dobriziden to the Warta, where an enterprising tugboat captain has promised to sail the lot of them to Bremerhaven, and home.
The tabletop opportunities there are rife, think Battlestar Galactica, minus the space elements, instead of a "rag-tag fleet searching for Earth", it's a "rag-tag column headed for the Warta." Marauder ambushes, set piece raids on Soviet positions, or perhaps a Margavate roadblock trying to convince the column to turn around and go home, there's plenty of possibilities.
And that's just one village folks...and there's a lot of villages in Twilight: 2000.
