Campaign System for Craftees

More on this later, but here is an idea (for comment, please) for a campaign system to be used with a simple wargame system (should work for any era). I proposed this originally for Craftees players.

The thing I was thinking of for a Craftees campaign would be something relatively simple (in terms of details) but still stylistically fun. Maybe a simple point-to-point movement map, with some nice army markers made out of craftee-parts. Whatever period it would be for, use small armies (maybe 6-12 units) and simple battlefield rules (the Thomas rules would be great here).

Mark three armies on the map for each side.

Each node on the map would have a basic terrain type, dictating the type of battlefield (i.e. - open, hilly, wooded, river crossing, etc)

Alternate moving. First player chooses an army marker to move, and rolls 1d6. On a 2+ he moves the marker one node. Then he picks another (or the same) marker, and rolls again - this time a 3+. Then a 4+, 5+ and 6+ (meaning a maximum of 5 moves in a row). If at any time, he fails a dice roll, then the order changes to the other player.

Whenever a player moves an army marker onto another army marker, there is a fight. Both sides get 4d6 to determine attacker/defender. If one side outnumbers the cavalry of the other side, they get +1d6 for each unit of light cavalry more than their opponent, and +1d6 for each 2 units of heavy cavalry. Both sides roll their dice, and high roller gets to decide (after seeing the battlefield) attacker or defender. The defender then picks side of table, and sets up army. The attacker moves units on first turn.

Limit the game to a certain number of turns (or play to the written victory conditions if using the Thomas rules).

Once an army loses, it must retreat a d3 nodes (must move away from enemy, cannot encounter new enemy, cannot double back on same nodes - if it cannot do this, it is eliminated). Once an army loses twice, it is removed from the map. The winner is the player with armies left once his opponent is all gone.

If the campaign has multiple players, then the players not involved in a battle may take turns challenging a player on the other side to a "raid". A raid is played with half the units of a normal game, and if successful scores "operational points". If one side or the other accumulates 3 operational points, they can be spent to remove a "loss" from an army marker (remember that two losses make an army marker disappear from the campaign map). Raid losses do not count towards making an army marker disappear (since they aren't based on army markers, but take place, somewhere nebulously defined as "the front"). Raid battles always end when the main campaign battle ends, if it is not a victory at that pooint, then neither side gets an "operational point".

To Do - (1) print a sample nodal Campaign Map, (2) publish some notional army lists based on the Thomas rules.