Tag Archives: Empire Reborn

Bits And Pieces

Boardgames, Sessions, World War II,

Continuing to fiddle with the Balkan/Central Europe 1938 scenario.

Latest bit of information is a Wikipedia article on the Yugoslavian army, particularly the interwar section.  I know…thin stuff, but there isn’t a whole lot of pre-April War information out there.

Yugoslavia had sixteen (16) infantry divisions, one (1) alpine division, as well as two (2) cavalry divisions in 1935. Mobilization would create another eight (8) infantry, one (1) alpine and one (1) cavalry division within 30 days.

Well, it’s something to work with.

The  mobilization parameters need to be refined, especially for the less-than-reliable Croat units.  My instinct is to stay with random die roles for the Croats, and, since Europa uses two-week turns, having those mobilizing units attaining cadre status at the end of Turn 1, and divisional status at the end of Turn 2 if they do not move or are involved in combat.

Why not?

Choppy…But Worth It

Aircraft & Vehicles, Review, World War II,

This popped up on Boardgamegeek’s Daily Kindle Deal list.  Had to grab it given my current 1938 Central Europe/Balkans effort.  The beauty of subscribing to this thread is the ability to pick up titles like this for pennies on the paper version dollar.

The book’s content presents an overview of the modernization of the Yugoslov Air Force prior to WW2; a choppy day-to-day account of the “April War”; and a discussion of the various aircraft employed.

I use “choppy” because of the author’s use of the Serbo-Croation abbreviations for personnel ranks and unit designations.  Hard for my parochial mind to absorb.

The highlights of the book are detailed descriptions and excellent photographs of  individual aircraft.  The Yugoslav air force was polyglot outfit, with a wide mix of (relatively) imported and domestically produced modern types, obsolescent/obsolete aircraft, and one-offs.  I can only imagine the resulting maintenance nightmare.

An interesting aspect of the narrative are the numerous references to sabotage of aircraft and outright disobedience and circumvention of orders by personnel  sympathetic to the Axis.

Definitely  worth the $2.99.

Slow Going

Boardgames, Sessions, World War II,

Taking my time with the  1938 Balkans/Central Europe scenario.  I’m using both regional names as they overlap – just ask Google.

Decided to start things off  with a Bulgarian invasion of Romania, with Hungary and Yugoslavia content to wait and watch.

While Bulgaria can commit almost all their assets to the invasion, Romania has to keep several units on their borders with Hungary.  In this battle of “Ants” (where 4-4s and 3-4s are few and far between), a handful of units can make a big difference.

The Bulgarians have already seized both of their territorial objectives, but are bogged down in front of Bucharest.  On the other hand, the Romanians are hard-pressed to defend their capital, much less launch any kind of offensive to retake their occupied cities. Here’s a quick snap.  Bucharest lies below the blue Romanian air units.

Despite the low counter density, it’s just not an infantry and artillery fight.

Both countries do have limited air assets.  The Bulgarians have a mixed bombing unit (one tactical and two strategic bombing factors), while the Romanians have a fighter unit and two bombing (one tactical and one strategic bombing factor) units.  The Romanian fighters returned the first sorties by the Bulgarian bombers and destroyed it in a subsequent attack. The bomber units have supplemented Bucharest’s defense.

Each country has only one engineer unit, but each is active. The Bulgarian engineers constructed an airfield within range of Bucharest, while the Romanians have built a fort to buttress the capital’s defenses.

Armored battalions have also been involved in the combats around Bucharest.

This is a pretty vanilla scenario so far.  I need to spend some time working on the mechanics for triggering Yugoslavian and Hungarian involvement.

Set-Up!…..Play?

Boardgames, Sessions, World War II,

Here’s a pic of the set-up for Empire Reborn.

The blank counters are divisions that may or may not remain loyal to the government.  My thoughts are whatever units do not remain loyal will have another die roll to determine if their opposition is active or passive.

I also need to work through the readiness/mobilization process.  The current set-up has the Yugoslavians and Bulgarians already mobilized as divisions (except for aforementioned “blank” counters), the Romanians as cadres and Hungarians without divisional units, just brigades etc.    My instinct for my first play thru (and path of least resistance) is to allow everyone to mobilize as well as form divisional units.   Just focus on the operational aspects.

I’ll have time to ponder these weighty questions.  Another road trip looms…….

Structure…..However Flimsy

Boardgames, Sessions,

The hypothetical 1938 Balkan conflict (Empire Reborn) now has some parameters.  Maybe not the best, but at least some structure.

My latest efforts focused on victory conditions that, in turn, involved identifying the regions and ethnicities involved.

Balkan Front addresses the latter consideration with a  map outlining the area’s regions.

Unfortunately, I cannot find Map 14A (as well as all my War In The Desert counters – a collateral discovery while searching for maps).  But, I did find a scan of 14A which helped me work with my old Marita-Merker maps.

Decided to simplify matters by using control of a city or cities (shown below in parentheses) as objectives for each country.

Bulgaria’s  territorial objectives are  Northern Macedonia (Skopje) and Southern Dobruja (Varna and Pleven).  The Hungarian objectives are Transylvania (Cluj and Timpsora) and the Backa region (Novi Sad). Both Romania and Yugoslavia must  maintain their current borders.

Late in this process I recognized the maps reflect 1941 national boundaries.  In 1940’s  Treaty of Craiova, Romania’s ceded Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria.  The initial placement of each nation’s forces has to be adjusted accordingly.

The initial placement of units, like the order of battle (OB), is speculative and uses multiple less-than-reliable sources.  The composition and size of each country’s military changed significantly from 1938 to the opening of Barbarossa campaign in 1941 -where reliable OB information can be found.  “Educated Guess Work” is giving the OB process the benefit of the doubt.

Since the whole project is hypothetical and speculative, I decided to flesh out each country’s forces with some specialized units.  The inclusion of limited air, anti-aircraft, armor and engineer assets provides an opportunity to work with a wider variety of the Barbarossa  Unleashed rules. These rules will also be used in the Operation Groza game with Tim.

Additional scenario considerations now include guerilla warfare by disaffected minorities, the use of Balkan Front’s Yugoslavian mobilization guidelines in which certain regions – and the units based there – openly oppose Yugoslavia, and a variable game length  based on the Macedonia War (which helped inspire this entire twisted process) scenario published in Europa Magazine.

Need to get this moving so I can start pushing cardboard.

Hypothetical Trend Continues – Empire Reborn

Boardgames, Sessions,

I’ve dredged up another hypothetical scenario, this time using the Europa system and New  Europa components.

I first started thrashing with this Central European/Balkan scenario several years ago.  Here’s a link to the post explaining this recurring bout of madness.

As emphasized in my earlier post, Europa purists should disregard anything with the “Empire Reborn” tag.

Over the past week I’ve revisited old resources, found (after a hunk and peck household search) the appropriate Europa maps,  and downloaded additional information including limited orders of battle.

Given what I have, it’s safe to say this is not going to be a simulation.

Regardless, it will be fun to push counters for countries that are either victims and/or after-thought cannon fodder allies of the major WW2 powers.

“Red” is the working name for a Bulgaria-Hungary alliance, aided and abetted by Germany, Italy, Albania and the Croat minority in Yugoslavia.

The “Blue” alliance will be Yugoslavia and Romania, with assistance (in some form) from France, Greece, Turkey, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Where the Soviet Union fits into all of this is a damn good question.

The time frame is early 1938, with the assumption(s) that Germany, France, and Poland focused on Czechoslovakia , with German and Italian resources tied up in Spain.  The Austrian Anschluss has occurred, but the incorporation of Austrian forces into the Wehrmacht is still in progress.

One (and there are many) aspect that needs immediate attention is the victory conditions.  Each alliance had specific territorial ambitions.  The problem is to translate these regions/areas from sources and identify them on Europa maps.  Like the rest of this project, “vague” is an operating principle.