Older wars - 1945 and back

[Blind Spotter]

Hello!

I've been playing, no GMing, Recon for some time with a great Vietnamn campaign with many memorable episodes and characters but seeing the simplicity of the system it go me thinking on how it can also be used. Thus I would ask more knowledgable minds on this forum if you think that Recon could reasonably be used with older wars? Mostly thinking about a campaign with US Paratroopers in World War 2, inspired by Band of Brothers, but also other wars like the Russian Civil War or even older conflicts like the Great War or Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and so on.

And therefor I thought that I would check if there's someone with experience with old conflicts like this or that could be used for these kind of war settings.

[slade the sniper]

There is no reason that the game could not be modified to fit those earlier time periods. A lot of the weapons from WWII are included in the base game or can be easily created using the myriad weapons already available in Recon.

The only things that would need to change are the skills for the different MOS'es based on country and time period.

-STS

[Jefffar]

And of course an appropriate equipment list (of which a lot is already in the original Recon book because the South Vietnamese started the war with American WWII surplus).

[Blind Spotter]

Thanks guys! As you've probably noticed I don't own the Recon book just yet as I wanted to hear a comment or two about it before I spent my cash. But from the sound of it should make for a good buy.

In regards to wars however I've made the decision to not go with WW2, at least not for now, but instead set my first campaign during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Reasons are simply passion as I find this war more interesting than the, by every media ever so covered WW2, and it should also be fairly different from the normal Recon games.

So in my list of what to do I've got...

- Research the course of the war
- Research the Imperial Russian and Japanese armies of 1904-1905
- Research and stat the appropriete weapons of the war
- Figure out how to calculate the chance of getting hit by during a massed bajonet charge (right now I'm thinking of making it possibly to be hit "only" in the first four ranks with a 50/25/15/10% of the hits going into each rank)

And for those interested I can add this link, which I don't think will break any forum rules...

http://www.russojapanesewar.com/

[Jefffar]

Interesting choice, though I'm not so sure about it as a source of good small unit actions. Perhaps the warlord era in China might be more effective for that.

As an interesting alternative, the WW2 resistance of the Vietnamese against the Japanese. Your players could be French or American special operations teams helping Ho Chi Minh's forces for a twist.

I think that is something often overlooked in the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese were on their third war with a major power in 20 years by the time the Americans started actively participating. The Japanese lost. The French lost. Its not all that surprising they could beat the Americans after all that practice.

[Blind Spotter]

True about the small unite situation although I think that I've found a way to solve that. Due to the frequency of photographs I've decided to potentially force my players into playing Russians, unless they raise objections, and this opens things up a bit for me, although this could change as I make more research into both the war and the two opposing armies.

One ideas I have at present is to basically let the players play two different unites, one unite which is line infantry and one group which is Cossack cavalry.

The infanty characters will fight the battles in the trenches in a Great War-esque hell with machines guns, bajonet charges and earth-shattering artillery hammering at them and hopefully with lots of brutal hand-to-hand fighting. I will probably make stats for the use of sabres and katanas (I think it is but it could be a different sword used) for the fun. I expect this part to be grim, bloody and brutal and have a high body count but potentially less sessions than the second group. But its true that this won't be so much about small unite action as surviving the maelstorm and working together for that reason, but I've got a few ideas for things where the players will get to fight on their own without massed ranks of allies with them, or being forced to cooperate without a higher officer in sight in order to solve the situation or just survive.

The second group will be Cossack cavalry, which to my reading so far, was used for both scouting and raiding the enemy positions. I know at one time a band of 500 men or so were a month behind the Japanese lines and raising seven kinds of hell before returning to friendly territory. For these Cossacks I imagine that they will do various, what we today would consider special ops, stuff like taking prisoners for interrogation, infiltraiting enemy lines in order to blow railroads, cut telephone wires, disrupt enemy supply lines wagons etc., and do so when in small numbers as well.

Through this division I hope to get the players into seeing more of the conflict as well as give them a more varied game than just sitting in, or charging, a trench or "just" riding around with the Cossacks and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And of course if they feel that either of these play styles are redundant we can skip it and focus on the one they find more interesting.

The ideas of playing in Vietnamn against the Japanese is of course also pretty cool. A French group of, basically, commandos fighting the Imperial Japanese Army could make for some pretty cool scenarios. I will take this idea and keep it in reserve, or as the next game, depending on how my original plan goes. Thanks.

[Blind Spotter]

But looking at the challenges which has arisen before me I'm doing the cowardly thing to change back to Vietnamn War for my game. Shame, but maybe I'll give the Russo-Japanese war a try in the future when I want my group want something different.

Thansk for all the replies.

[Jefffar]

Yeah, I was thinking a war in which small unit actions had 500 a side would be a tad complex.

You could just as easily make it one of the insurgencies in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Only thing you'd really have to change is give the 'good guys' FALs instead of M-16s.

[Blind Spotter]

Yeah, I was thinking a war in which small unit actions had 500 a side would be a tad complex.

You could just as easily make it one of the insurgencies in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Only thing you'd really have to change is give the 'good guys' FALs instead of M-16s.

True, true. Although I haven't given up on the idea though and I hope to find a way to run small-unite tactics within larger battles. But that's something that I'll have to chew on and see if I can find some form of way to make it when I'm more experienced with GMing the system.

Will take a look at Africa as well.

[Peacebringer]

Yes, I have; but I have not used RR rules; the rules I used were OWoD.

Um, anywhere from a Great War game in which the players were Irish conscripts used as cannon-fodder by their English officers to a 1930's war between the USA and Great Britain from an out of control arms-race (that game took place in an island similar to the Philippines in which the UK were invading; the outcome was decided that they Americans had fight-planes and although both countries were equal in technology with ships and bombers, the fact the Americans could shoot down the bombers and sink the ships decided the war in that region. Also, it was a very savage war in the jungle). To a game taking place in the Eastern Front in '41. Humanity was awesome in that game.

I did run a game called the Island of the Mind-Lords based off of CP2020 rules in which a pre-WW2 island-nation was being invaded by the British. There were priests who were psychic and could anticipate their planes; eventually, the Mind-Lords sided with the Japanese and were able to successfully repeal an USMC invasion. CP2020 Friday Night Fire Fight rules are as about as brutal as Recon's.

Running a pre-modern era game requires getting to know what the period was like. You'll need to know what the people back home were like. Were the fanatics or were they reasonable? Were they all poor peasants or were they city-folk? For the Mind-Lords game, I had to read a book about daily life in occupied SE Asia so I could get a feel for how the Japanese treated their conquered (a lot of native-civilians died, but if they worked and obeyed the Japanese, their chances of living grew, a bit at a subsistence-level.

Deluxe Revised Recon does have a mass-combat system rules. But it is very subjective to the MD. In theory, one squad could ambush a battalion and cause 50% casualties, with about 250 dead and 250 critically wounded with the rest of the battalion all lightly injured.