Introducing our New Contributor: Ultravanillasmurf

Jason has kindly invited me to contribute to this blog.

I am of an age where the Nuclear Apocalypse was part of my fictional background. From Andre Norton to Philip K Dick.  I read stories of living in the post nuclear age, but without the existential angst of those who had lived through the very public spat that was the Cuban Missile Crisis. We had been under threat of nuclear annihilation for longer than I had been alive and had made it through so far. Little did I know of the near misses in my lifetime such as Able Archer ’83.

Even television provided images of the post-apocalyptic world. Survivors showed me a world where authority collapses and survivors behave no better than the children in Lord of the Flies (a book we studied at school – more nuclear apocalypse).

It was at University that I encountered Twilight 2000 (via Games Designer Workshop’s Traveller). We ran RPG and miniature games set in the world, and later in the more conventional Team Yankee timeline. This was ably assisted by GDW producing a number of associated board games and supplements. It was not just GDW products, there were a number off suitable Osprey books, plus others.

I used the forces from the Team Yankee board game for weekend miniature campaigns using the Challenger rules from Table Top Games.

I had armies in 6mm from Heroics and Ros, GHQ and Scotia (great for the FAV and LAV-75) and 20mm in metal from Skytrex and MMS, plus the ubiquitous plastic kits in scales from 1/87 to 1/72.

After a number of years away from the “period”, I have started building up vehicles and figures, this time in 28mm. It usefully matches new "Ultramodern" and other post apocalyptic settings such as The Walking Dead.

Bundeswehr infantry defend a supermarket

Soviet forces secure a communications post

I hope you will find the 28mm figures, vehicles and buildings of interest.

Like Colonial period adventures and Inter War murder mysteries, Twilight 2000 has its own prejudices and attitudes that to a modern reader maybe problematical. That does not mean that I do not enjoy returning to them as escapist fiction.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Thousand 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Yankee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War:_The_Untold_Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)

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.

Our 10th Post!

This won't be just a celebratory post, I promise. I actually will discuss what cantonments look like in Twilight: 2000 and why they're important for a) the combatants, and b) a great idea to focus a game around.

First, the response to the blog has been simply, well, phenomenal. I want to thank everyone who has commented here, on Facebook and elsewhere. It's really inspired me, not just to write more about something that has been my gaming obsession since 1985, but to get painting again (now if I can find the time, with my upcoming nuptials in October). This alone was a great thing with this blog.

In short, thank you everyone.

Cantonments and the Logistics of Broken Backed War

Now onto our subject at hand, Cantonments.

Cantonments are the revival of an older concept. To quote the definition from wikipedia:

A cantonment (/kænˈtɒnmənt/, /kænˈtoʊnmənt/, or UK /kænˈtuːnmənt/) is a military or police quarters.^[1]

The word cantonment derives from the French word canton meaning corner or district.^[2] and describes a place during a military campaign, such as winter quarters, where units of an army may be encamped for longer periods than they are during advances and retreats. The term shares an etymological origin with the Swiss Cantons though the meaning has widely diverged.

Cantonments in Twilight: 2000 fit the French definition to a "T". They are the encampments (mostly temporary, but just as often, permanent) of the remains of the various divisions and brigades (in name only in many cases), that are still in action.

"Action" in a large, conventional sense in Twilight: 2000 is a bit of a misnomer. Considering most military units have their hands full with their own logistical concerns (often growing their own food, and locating a source of potable water)..the fact remains, many forces in Twilight: 2000 have a very short window in which to campaign, before they must get their crops planted, or harvested. It's all very reminiscent of warfare before the 19th Century.

Consider something? In the adventure Ruins of Warsaw, the community of Silece could only put 300 men into the field. And they were pretty well armed by contemporary standards, and that was only for a short time, because the crops needed to be brought in. And they were still outnumbered...and outgunned by the Baron Czarny, who had 1000 under arms..but not enough food to feed all the mouths in his confederation of cutthroats. He had to take the city before the first snows. And he had to resort to some pretty desperate means to do so (including getting chemical weapons, or trying to).

In short, the big push in this adventure? The onset of winter. Winter in Twilight: 2000 isn't sitting by the fire and enjoying the holidays..It's praying you don't either freeze or starve to death.

So how does this matter for the tabletop?

Because for most armies, cantonments are their homes, their encampments, and their winter quarters, and other groups of all kinds, if they are desperate, or well armed enough, are going to want them for themselves. Smaller scenarios also lend themselves well to this, foraging and scrounging parties might be ambushed by marauders. Deals between cantonments (even in the same army) might go bad, the possibilities are endless.

But what does the average Cantonment look like?

Glimpse of a Cantonment (taken from Krypton Radio site and IP is GDW/FFE)

In short, imagine a cross between a Vietnam-era firebase, and a shanty town. The shanty town is populated by a mix of camp followers and what we would call independent local contractors who serve the various needs of the unit in the cantonment (brass re-loaders, machinists, etc.) These people are there to serve the unit, and often follow it on campaign, in return, the unit protects them.

Defenses are a mix of improvised (dug in tanks that no longer run, punji stakes, abatis, homemade land mines, fougass barrels, etc.) and piles and piles of sandbags,  trenches and sheet metal. There is often a ring wall around the camp, where there is all the buildings such as barracks, garages, warehouses and all the other sundries a unit of a given size needs to run.

Sentries on the walls are often given what little night vision equipment that the unit still possesses, the sentries are often the only warning a unit is given that there is something wrong before there is an attack on the cantonment.

Farms should surround the cantonment, and should be walled off with either rubble or barbed wire fence walls. Again, these are mostly tended by the civilians, but the unit will place a high priority on the protection of these farms, though they won't defend them to the death, it would be a foolhardy extension of the perimeter.

To show one on the tabletop, you could start with the myriad of Vietnam-era firebase terrain out there in 15 and 20mm. Most of the buildings in the interior would be of the post-apocalyptic "franken-build" variety, or issue tents that have somehow survived that long. The motor pool, still farm, and grain storage areas, not to mention the armory will all be as heavily guarded as possible, but the main emphasis will be to make sure no attacker gets past the wall in the first place.

The shanty town will be close to the wall, but there will be a cleared area between it and the wall, as the unit commander will want good fields of fire, and as such, has probably burned down/tore down with an AFV a few shanties to make his point to the unit followers.

In short, think Roman Castrum, but with automatic weapons and the deviousness of 5000 years of warfare behind it to develop all sorts of nastier surprises.

Scenario Ideas for the Tabletop

• A full out attack on the cantonment, it's either a raid in force by a smaller marauder band meant to snatch and grab what they can, or a larger band meant to take the cantonment for themselves.

• A small foraging/scrounging party is in an abandoned village when it is hit either by a marauder band, or by the former inhabitants.

• A coup is launched by a dissatisfied officer for control of the unit. Various elements of the unit must now decide whether or not they back the coup, or remain loyal. This scenario can have elements of roleplaying, and should also reflect what happens to the camp followers.