Most rules game either historical order or fictional chaos. I’m interested in what skirmishes will look like during the transition period from the former state to the latter. What does war look like when — while — every nation is falling apart?
[See my earlier post HERE.]
[See Also: cycles within patterns?]
Yyeeaarrs ago I played in a sci-fi skirmish game at a friend’s place. There were a half dozen of us, each given command of a small team, all with conflicting objectives and differing victory conditions. Good times.
But the funniest thing I’ve remembered from that game is that one of the units was Scientologist Commandos.
That’s how I think about ILLUMINATI WhAM. Elements from every group, club, gang, sport, religion and association in society you can think of, preferably for which there are both Illuminati cards and 28mm figs (for example, Girlie Magazines) assembled into hodgepodge, sometimes ad hoc, formations and having at it. Think, “Twilight: 2000, Illuminati and A Very British Civil War walk into a bar …” . Or Hedley Lamarr’s warband.
Warfare in the Age of Madness has a definite Road Warrior sensibility, timeline-wise; society as we know it is gone. But I like to wind the clock back just a bit and play it Mad Max-style; society remains but is crumbling. It still looks like last decade, but you can definitely see next decade rolling around the corner, hopped up on meth and coming at you with its pants down.
Like this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
Being more specific about that idea:
I like the above image because it has a Deadliest Warrior vibe that bookends The Long Weekend on the continent both temporally and spatially, with a separation of only 20 years and 1,000 miles. Middle class nationalists versus working class internationalists, fight!
Sort of like The Baader Meinhof Complex* meets Land and Freedom. Sort of.
And, to continue running with that filter, something along the lines of, say, …
versus
That’s another difference of only about 20 years in time, and less than 10 miles in distance, shootout-wise. And again, little-to-no common ground regarding ideals and beliefs. There’s already a Semiconscious Liberation Army group card in Illuminati too; so we’re part way there!
I want to be able to use as much of my figure collection as possible in this game. So my pirates can be former-LARPers with a penchant for black powder. My mid-war Fallschirmjager are now ex-reenactors with real Kar98s and reproduction FG 42s. My Mexican banditos are vaqueros with an appreciation for the classics and the good stuff.
To make all that possible in WAM I made the following changes to the Core Elements list:
Some Notes:
A Blade: The A stands for Adept. Assault 3+ makes sense. Use this for a group of survivors from a Silat school (see: The Raid) or a team from the Armoured Combat League (see: Tueller Drill):
Black Powder covers muzzle- (muzzle- muzzle-) and breech–loading long arms.
Rifle now means bolt- and lever-action long guns. Use this for squads of former-WW I re-enactors and groups of hunting buddies. [Edit: This could also include shotguns firing slugs.]
Auto Rifle is for elements armed with Garand, M14, SKS, FN C1A1, repro FG42 and similar semi-auto-only, mainly larger calibre, heavy self-loading rifles. A unit like this that includes any BARs, FAL or G3 rifles, actual StG44s, actual FG42s or C2A1s should probably be classed as Rifle-MG.
And I changed Carbine to Carbine because it’s a better word. These are modern, lighter, higher magazine capacity, mid-calibre, often selective fire rifles. This includes the majority of the StG44’s descendants but not the Stormbringer itself. I say this because, have you ever handled an 11 pound rifle!? Yeah.
These changes are almost entirely rate of fire-derived. Any of these rifles can reach targets in closed terrain, from factories to forests; that’s why they all still have 3 Range. Firepower and Assault numbers though are largely determined by operation, feed mechanism and handleability, all of which affect effective rounds-on-target rate of fire.
And finally, posted without comment, here is Dr. Ella Lonn’s map from her outstanding book Desertion During the Civil War:
[*: Christopher Hitchens’ review, “Once Upon a Time in Germany,” is worth reading.]