Normandy 1944 Campaign - The South Gloucestershire Fusiliers

After my recent post, I was inpsired by Norm Smith's comment to look at getting a narrative campaign in using my favourite BKCII rules, as gaming had somewhat dried up alongside my painting mojo. this was the sort of kick up the butt that I needed to be honest! But what to play? I fancied something set in Normandy, and after having looked around my book collection for ideas, I stumbled across a copy of the 'Battlegroup' rulebook that had a point-to-point campaign in it, as well as 4 scenarios based upon some actions that the Canadians fought early on. These I could see easily translate into scenarios for my 4' x 4' table, so that was one issue resolved.

Then it was a case of coming up with forces for the campaign. Now normally I would use historical OOB, but this time I fancied having a go using the D-Day Dodgers West Suffolks idea as brought to the table by David in Suffolk. So looking at my County Regiments book, I saw that the Gloucestershire Regiment had two Battalions, the second being the South Gloucestershire's, which was perfect as that is where I live, thus becoming the South Glos Fusiliers. 

With the infantry sorted out, for the tank johnnies I thought the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars in Shermans or a tank regiment in Churchills. I haven't made my mind up and will probably go with both, depending upon how the campaign unfolds and as I firm up the background fluff as it were.

For the Germans, I couldn't resist something based around the 21st Panzer Division, given their wonderful mix of kit, some of which I have buy unpainted. Again taking the lead from David, a Kampfgruppe would give a nice historical feel, but with plenty of leeway too. I'm still toying with what to call it, with the rather unimaginative Steiner (as in the Cross of Iron hero) in the lead, but Rosenkrantz coming in from left field too. I need to get my thinking hat on a bit for this one I feel.

As for the campaign, aside from being very narrative driven, this time around I will be using the campaign system and random points modifiers from the original BKC rulebook. It's been a long time since I used this, but in the past they did give some nice and interesting games. The advantage of playing solo of course is that I can come up with quite one-sided scenarios early on to help set the scene and drive the story, which wouldn't be fun to play face-to-face.

In fact I have already played the first game, but haven't had the time to write it up yet, as I don't want to rush it. I also want to give a better flavour of the campaign mechanics in the post, to help understand how things are working in the background so-to-speak. But in advance of this, here's a sneak peak from the game:

Alongside this, I've been working on some terrain bases for my BUAs, which I've been meaning to do for years. These have been fun and I need to do some for the bomb damaged buildings I bought from Pendraken at Partizan earlier in the year. This campaign is a nice spur to get those little items finished off that have lain in the 'to do' pile for far too long. More updates on these in due course.

I'm away for the next few days, so the first campaign AAR will have to wait, but hopefully it will appear sometime next week. I fear the follow on action will be delayed by family visiting, but you never know...

Thanks for reading and comments are always greatly appreciated!

TTFN.