Another Module Suitability Review - The Free City of Krakow

Taken from the Twilight: 2000 Wikia Page, Original Cover Painting is IP of GDW/FFE

The Free City of Krakow was the first adventure module published by GDW for Twilight: 2000, and it was an unconventional one. It had a lot going for it. A mcguffin that could change the post-apocalyptic balance of power, a damsel in distress, a helicopter up for grabs, all set in a city barely holding it all together, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

The module was, in my opinion, Casablanca meets Mad Max. And it pulled it off well, starting the players off on a classic trilogy of adventures known to Twilight: 2000 players  as "The Vistula Trilogy". 

It even had it's own Cafe Americain, with Adam Rataj stepping in for Rick. As for Victor Lazlo? Methinks that Israeli spy, Tanya, does a very good job there. 

It was post-apocalyptic espionage noir, and it was brilliant.

But from a miniatures standpoint, at first glance, it may not seem to have much to offer?

Um, wrong.

Skirmish Game Possibilities

There are a ton of possibilities to be found here. Some of the ones that immediately come to mind are?

• Gaming out what happens when the handover of Reset inevitably goes wrong. Too many gunshots and the city ORMO comes down on everyone like a ton of bricks. It would lend itself well to a "cat-and-mouse" sort of game where an M-16 is a heavy weapon!
• American mercs get hired to rescue  Krutzba's mistress, trouble is..either the KGB has tipped off the ORMO, or they are coming themselves to grab her.
• The leadership struggle has come to a head, and one of the two titular leaders of Krakow has hired some American mercenaries to kill the other. (This then leads to the larger game idea below).
• A group of Americans gets it into their heads to steal the city's Mi-17 helicopter.

All of these are good ideas, and are really the tip of the iceberg with this module. There are others mentioned, and a quick look at the module is all you need. Many of these scenarios lend themselves well to the Osprey rules set Black Ops.

Possibilities for a Larger Game

At first blush, Free City of Krakow doesn't lend itself well towards larger battles, but there is one underlying idea that could be developed well.

The core of Krakow's economy is to put it mildly, slave labor known as robotniki, and they are treated poorly. It wouldn't take much for an enterprising marauder band to stir up a city wide uprising. At first glance, this would not seem like much of a game, unarmed slaves against a well-armed city militia, but one thing that can be found somewhat easily in Twilight:2000 is arms. And any smart marauder band contemplating this idea is going to find friends...like the KGB, who would love to bring down the Krakow regime and restore "proper socialist order".

Throw in some American stragglers stuck with the aforementioned mcguffin, and done right, you can have a memorable large game for a party or convention ready to go.

Terrain might be an issue, as seen here:

Taken from RPOL.net, Original IP is from GDW/FFE

Even so, however, just building the old walled city in the center should suffice and it would not be too difficult to pull off in 6mm. 15s and 20s might be a bit more challenging, but not impossible.

What really makes it all doable is the detailed ORBATs laid out in the module. It makes 1:1 games a snap, and conversion to 1:5 rules fairly easy as well. 

In short, this is a pretty good module to use for miniatures game fodder, and it is something that makes one realize just how rich the Twilight: 2000 milleu really is.

Next time, we cover Pirates of the Vistula!

The First Module Suitability Review - Escape from Kalisz

Escape from Kalisz is the introductory adventure for Twilight: 2000. and as such, it is meant as both an origin story, and a world building exercise. From a roleplaying standpoint, it is an excellently done introductory adventure, and it was a shame to be honest, that it was not updated and reprinted in the 2nd Edition.

It's associated handout, Death of a Division really sets the stage well, and both do a fine job of putting any characters in a "YOU ARE THERE" situation.

But what about from a miniatures standpoint? What can we do with this supplement to mine it for miniatures scenarios?

There are a couple of ideas that immediately come to mind.

Larger Scale Scenarios

Death of a Division is a literal gold mine of ideas. And considering none of the forces are at full strength, many of the potential scenarios make for some small, but tight games that can be probably played in an afternoon.

• 1st and 256th Brigades attack on Lodz on July 14th. This attack has two prongs, and you can do either one, but the attack by 1st Brigade would probably make a larger game.
• 1st Brigade's defense of the Kalisz - Turek road. The numbers are mentioned in detail on the US side, and one can surmise the Soviet numbers rather easily. 
• 2nd Brigade's final attack South on the 17th of July, or the defense of Kalisz by 1-40th Armored and 4-12th Cavalry. 

All of these would make some interesting games, and because of their sizes, would make good introductory scenarios to the milleu. 

Smaller Scale Scenarios

There are literally a number of scenarios where skirmish games could be written up in an interesting fashion, as in many towns, the locals are not happy to see the Soviets, and in some cases, have wound up victims to their excesses (Wielun is a good example). 

Any number of raid-type scenarios could be cooked up for any decent rules set and with some suitable post apocalyptic terrain for a village, a good game could be had, 

Other ideas aren't far either as Escape from Kalisz borrows a lot, thematically from any number of German Ruckkampfer experiences of small German units attempting to escape yet another Soviet encirclement late in the war. Find one you like, adapt it for Twilight: 2000, and it will fit well in Kalisz.

Other skirmish ideas include:

• Urban fighting in Kalisz on the 17th. Small bands of Americans desperately trying to escape town while the Poles and Soviets are rounding up fugitives. Could turn into a very close MOUT game.
• Small unit of American stragglers ambushes a Polish or Soviet supply convoy for supplies.

In short, the verdict is this scenario pack is a veritable gold mine of miniature gaming ideas. We'll be covering Free City of Krakow next! See you next time!

A Short Entry

Hello all from the windy world of Twilight: 2000!

Been giving a lot of thought to many of the things I have said and written about. I intend to get to some more practical modeling articles, as well as some more writeups.

But I wanted input from you the reader!

So here is what I need? In the comments section, please let me know, am I?

a) On the right track?
b) We need more eye candy?
c) Some other ideas?

One of the other ideas I had was doing a module a week review with an eye towards dissecting it for the opportunities for miniatures play. We'd start at Kalisz and work our way forward all the way towards the end of the 1st Ed modules (they did a couple of modules for 2nd Ed, but those in my mind, didn't have a lot of minis opportunities, unless of course, you play Merc: 2000)?

I wanted to get your input because as my nuptials come up and my workload increases during the spring, posting time is going to become a bit limited, and I want to make sure, you the reader is happy with what's going up. I enjoy writing this blog, for sure, but I want my readers to stick around.

So here is your chance to speak your mind on what has come before, and what is to come ahead!

Don't be shy everyone!

BTW, I just noticed, it's our 15th post. Man the milestones just keep coming, don't they?

Back from Cold Wars - Notes for the blog!

Well, another day, another blog entry it seems. I attended Cold Wars 2017 for the day on Saturday, and had a damn good time. Usually, I am resigned to just doing some shopping and chatting, but this weekend seemed blessed.

First, I hit the dealers area and ran into the folks from Covert Intervention Games whom are taking over the Force 20 line, I will be updating this article to reflect this. In the more exciting news, they will also be exclusively manufacturing Ehliem Miniatures entire product line in the US. This is an exciting thing! Matt, as much as I love you, shipping from England can be brutal, even with the lower exchange rate of pound to the dollar. I see this being a very lucrative partnership. I arranged a meeting with the proprietor, J. Reid "Streak" Denton. He is friendly, knowledgeable and local to me (in Woodbridge, as I am in Fairfax), in the future to speak on things T2K and other sundries will be coming in the near future. I even got some sample figures and a bag of colored smoke for signal grenades!

A sadder duty that I performed was to get some face time with Frank Chadwick primarily to offer my condolences concerning Loren Wiseman. Frank was busy running a Desert War Command Decision game next to the game I managed to get into. I waited till he was done, and went over and wished him my deepest condolences for Loren Wiseman. Mr. Chadwick, was, as always, the gracious and humble fellow we know him to be, and after a short 30 second conversation, we parted ways. He described Loren as "a great guy". I didn't have a chance to meet Loren personally, but all accounts agree with that. Again, thank you Mr. Wiseman, we have a really fun game universe to play in, thanks to you.

The convention itself was a bit on the sparse side in terms of attendance I thought. Especially at peak hours. I cannot say why that was, and the flea market didn't have a whole lot that grabbed me, except for some rubbled buildings (including a church, which will look great on any table), and some more trees from a young lady who has a really promising career in terrain building and baking ahead of her (I always buy trees from her). I also picked up in the dealer's area about 30ft of the Hot Wheels Road Tape I have been hearing so much about. It looks great for modern roads, and a little weathering and distressing would go a long way with this stuff, at $8 a roll, it was a bargain. 

Much of the rest of the convention was focused on my WW-II likes, as well as my Full Thrust fleets, so I will discuss, at least the WW-II side on our sister blog, FestungPlatz. 

I did my share to wear my threatened "Twilight 2000" T-Shirt with the First Edition Cover painting on it, and pimp the blog. That got a lot of attention. Hope to see some folks come looking from Cold Wars. 

In short, a fun time to be had.

More to be said later on FestungPlatz.

Villages, Part 2

I want to thank Phil Hatfield for pointing out some things I had neglected when I had written the original article about villages. His points were excellent and as such, inspired this sequel.

A Glimpse of A Town

As stated in my previous article, villages are like road stops on the post-apocalyptic road trip that Twilight: 2000 often is. And every village has a certain look, in fact, a village can have many kinds of looks depending on who's running the place, as well as the materials and skill base available, this is especially true when it comes to the defenses of the village, which is the thing that interests most miniature wargamers the most.

As stated in my article on buildings, the look of Twilight: 2000 buildings are a mix of pre-war buildings held together with contemporary materials (and most of them not having been cleaned recently), or post-apocalyptic shanty towns and tent cities to accommodate the hordes of refugees that have shown up to seek any sort of "lifeboat in a storm."

The village defenses will range from amateurish to deadly professional and will be as much a mix of materials as one can find. Everything from scavenged explosives, punji pits, cheaveu-de-frix, abatis, to simple walls made up of earth, rubble or both can and will be seen as part of a village's defenses. Entering a town is an experience in Twilight: 2000, as many towns have become wary of well-armed strangers. Most of the time, any strangers will be asked to disarm before they are allowed entry and the doors into a village wall are usually some of the best guarded and fortified in town.

All roads into town will be blocked by whatever is handy, from 18-wheelers, to (if you want to borrow a neat idea from the movie Stake Land), functioning railroad locomotives. The interior of town will be shabby and crowded, with trash pickup a memory, though how shabby will depend on how serious the town is to avoiding disease and vermin infestation.

Any and all gas stations or stores that sold propane are long since empty, probably with boarded-up windows, their snack bars long since looted. The town might be using the place for the municipal still(s) now, but there are other places they might be using as well.

Other than the outer walls, the town hall and the police stations are both heavily guarded, if your nation had permissive gun laws before the war, the sporting goods and gun stores have either been likewise looted, or the guns and ammunition seized to help form the local militia.

Any grocery stores likewise either stand empty, or are now the town municipal larder, and are as well guarded as the town hall or the police station, though this will depend upon the construction of the store in question.

Most villages in Twilight : 2000 do not have any sort of real electrical power. The ones that are often generated either by water, wind, or a surviving nuclear power plant. In any of these cases, the village will take great pains to disguise the fact that it does, in fact, have electricity. Nothing will attract marauders to a town like unshielded light in the distance.

Every square inch of land, including former parks, play fields, and playgrounds will be cultivated to grow food, and most farm animals will be breeding stock. Meat will be somewhat rare in the average villager's diet unless they go hunt for it.

Any roads in town will be in poor repair, and nobody should be using any road bonuses on a table.

Scenario Ideas

• A typical Marauder attack on a fortified town, numbers and defenses should be carefully balanced to make for a challenging game, but keep in mind that both sides are fighting for their lives. The villagers cannot afford to give up the amount of food the marauders want, and the marauders need the village's larder to get through the winter to come. A neat twist is to have a small band of infiltrators loyal to the marauders available to sabotage the town's defenses.

• A riot breaks out in a town occupied by government forces when the government brings in refugees and forcibly resettles them in the confines of the town. The militia, of course, sides with the village. The refugees should be a large number, but unarmed for the most part, while there should only be a small, but well-armed force of government troops.

• A small force of villagers have hired some American mercenaries to help them retake their town (or what's left of it) from a band of marauders. The marauders have left little standing and few survivors, but the villagers won't know that till they get into town. After that, they might not bother with a thing called prisoners...

Blog News...and a bit about villages...

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.

Marauders - Vultures of Twilight: 2000

Marauders - An Introduction

Marauders are one of the most prolific problems for Player Characters in the Twilight: 2000 RPG. Name an adventure from the game that didn't deal with them, even as a minor nuisance. Often, they were a major problem, being the focus of a major part (or the entire) adventure.

Marauders are in many ways, a problem that is a result of the collapse of civilization, rather than something that caused it. As one captured marauder said in Red Star, Lone Star. "A guy has to eat." And this is the driving force behind a lot of marauder bands: They gotta eat.

Many of these bands have little to no skills other than to kill people and break things, and many of them are, either because of the war, or pre-war experiences and predilections, too anti-social to be willing to hire themselves out as mercenaries to anybody. It's easier to rob the merchants and peasants..and that's if said merchants and peasants are lucky (I won't go into potential details, it's not germane, and I am not a lurid fellow for the sake of being lurid).

What does matter is how to reflect these marauder bands on the table top. I am going to use the TV show, The Walking Dead to illustrate further the loose "taxonomy" one can find with marauder bands in Twilight:2000, but by no means, is this taxonomy perfect at all.

We will also discuss how this works on a miniatures table.

Marauders - A Taxonomy

Marauders can be divided up into three rough groups, the first is what I call Brigands. These are your typical marauders, they're not nice folks, but they are clearly in it for what they can get. They're cowards at heart, because they aren't going to hit anyone they can't clearly handle, and will flee if they hit any sort of real resistance. Their roots are a mix of escaped prisoners (except clearly the most sociopathic, as they are "bad for business"), deserters, and embittered refugees and villagers forced into this life because they have nothing else and their pre-war world has been turned upside down (a large portion of former urbanites should fall into this category, see the adventure Allegheny Uprising for an excellent example of this).

Examples of this are most marauder groups found in the game's encounter table. They are usually small groups, though they can be larger (Baron Czarny's "army" from Ruins of Warsaw) and even grow into "kingdoms" (the Megapunks in Boston in Last Submarine come to mind), but are usually riven with infighting (enlightened self interest is not a feature of these bands). Another good example are pre-war biker gangs. All of these bands have one thing in common, they are callous and cruel to be sure, but not because they can be, but when it suits their "business model". 

A good example in the Walking Dead is the Claimers. Joe is a cruel, hard, and merciless man with a twisted code of honor. But he is not above acts of shocking violence to get what he wants, or to exact what he considers "justice".  Joe in Twilight: 2000 would be a very common marauder leader, and thus would be a very dangerous fellow to deal with.

The next type is the Viking model. These guys are the closest thing to "Robin Hood" you are going to find in Twilight: 2000, but they hardly limit their theft to the rich. Everybody pays tribute. If you don't, you get raided. They are in many ways, entrepreneurs in the new "scavenger and barter" economy. They are capable of relations with unincorporated communities, but those communities are often stronger then they are. They are shrewd statesmen, and aren't stupid at all. Often, these bands become full-fledged warlord kingdoms, there are laws, and everyone is expected to live by them..or else. Justice is often swift, and violent, but it is a form of law and order. The makeup of these bands are similar to brigands, but with less sociopaths, and more specialists and civilians (these Vikings often attract followers, as they tend to be a more acceptable lot to fall in with).

Examples of this are large (The "Duke" of New York from Armies of the Night) and small. But they have one thing in common, a charismatic leader who has a Machiavellian gift for governing.

A good example from The Walking Dead is Negan. He is Machiavellian, but unpredictably brutal. His society has rules, though they are enforced capriciously, and often without regard for anyone on the wrong end of them. He does see value in people as assets and often spares their lives, and his prohibition against rape is something of an interesting twist for such a character. But the unpredictable level of violence is something that will eventually inspire a coup or a revolt. His tribute system, does however, keep the level of violence at a simmer, but the capricious nature of Negan would make this an unstable arrangement.

A third type is what I call the Reaver type. These are folks who basically have decided to throw their hand against all other men. Either they murder everyone in the aftermath of a raid, or they practice cannibalism, they are often a dangerous threat to all concerned. The makeup of these bands is rarely stable, and once the leader dies, the band often falls to infighting.

Makeup of these bands are to be honest, the worst of the worst, escaped pre-war prison and mental ward sociopaths, or those triggered by 18 months of war culminating in a limited nuclear exchange. These folks can and do justify any manner of behavior, and are some of the most dangerous folks to run into in Twilight: 2000. They are often fanatics, and will stop at nothing for their next meal or toy for their creative tortures. A well-written example of these types is the band described from the Challenge magazine adventure Rifle River.

A good example from The Walking Dead is the community of Terminus. Their justification of becoming "hunters" and using guile and deceit to lure new victims into their community to be eaten is a very good example of what a Reaver band run amok can accomplish. They are large by Reaver standards, as most Reaver bands, due to their nature tend to reach a "critical mass".

A fourth and final example is just as deadly as the Reavers, and that is the Cultists. Cultists are formed around a religious or spiritual belief that has been corrupted beyond all recognition by the stresses of the apocalypse. They are often led by someone who has both a force of charisma, and an amoral sense of self. Their societies are formed from the weak, the desperate, and the lost, and every single one of those in the society are willing to kill and to die for them, fearing that the dangerous "outside" will one day come in.

Victims of these bands will often be given a choice, join or die. The choice, as it turns out, isn't much of one, as those on the bottom of the social structure live in slavery, and are not trusted with even their own lives. Families are broken up, and the entire society is set against each other to forestall a coup.

The real trouble begins when the leader invariably dies and either the entire society suicides, or the society breaks up into a religious war between various factions of the cult. (Satellite Down is an excellent example of a cult, and the trouble brewing).

In The Walking Dead, The Governor has something of a cult of personality going, he is amoral, and possibly quite insane and uses the "outside" as a moral cudgel against his own community. He stresses that his rule is as good as it gets. But when things turn bad for him in his war against Rick Grimes and his allies, he thinks nothing of shooting his own in the back. He lies, cheats, and, steals to get what he wants, and callously weaponized the undead, regardless of the risks.

So, What Does All This Mean on the Tabletop?

On the tabletop, a lot of the nuance can be reflected in the morale rules you use for a given scenario when using marauders. Reavers and Cultists will tend towards the more fanatical bent, but on the other hand, the given targets of their attentions will not be inclined to surrender, knowing their fate is worse than death, Brigands and Vikings are more likely to see a surrender, but their terms had best be generous, lest the defenders become ones that would do the ghosts of Stalingrad proud.

Another idea can be in the victory conditions. Reavers and Cultists want prisoners, but the Reavers should also get points for wanton destruction. Brigands are more classic raiders, and will most likely want anything that isn't nailed down, whereas Vikings will want as much intact as they can manage.

Some scenario ideas include:

• A Reaver band is about to overrun a lightly defended town, and the men have decided to stay behind and buy time for their women and children to flee to a neighboring town, can they, and a small band of American soldiers make a difference?

• A Viking band is facing an uprising, but what they don't know is a neighboring community fed up with said band's raids is backing the village that is in revolt.

• A coalition of communities is truly fed up with the antics of a bunch of Brigands, and catches them in camp. The brigands get points for each figure that escapes, and the coalition isn't in a prisoner taking mood.