Hypothetical themes in PG

[ParaMarine]

I like them all. I am more likely to get another alt-history than another west front game, but East Front takes priority

[rerathbun]

Hopefully when Shad gets to updating the Search function, historical/hypothetical/both will be one of the search options.  

[zaarin7]

Since the begining (Eastern Front) and the end (Road to Berlin) are gone and most of the rest was never done outside of comb bound books (gone now) and a few actuall books (most gone now) yes a huge part of the story is left.

[Matt W]

The two Kursk games fill some of the void and Broken Axis will touch another missing item. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that if the East Front was ever covered to the extent of the actual fighting we would have something like 7-8 times the number of East Front scenarios as any other European theater. Not that I see that as a problem but the 45th boxed East Front game is likely to have less commercial appeal than something novel like Greece or Crete.

There are at least three games on the boards for the East Front. One for each year 1941, 1942 and 1943 (the second "half" of the Romanian campaign). I expect that the 1941 game will have some familiar scenarios from Eastern Front, some new ones and some significantly different "packaging" of the scenarios into meaningful operational chunks (e.g. Brody, Solt'sy, etc.)

For those keeping track, at this point there are roughly twice as many East Front as West Front scenarios, three times as many East Front as West Front scenarios and four times as many East Front as Pacific scenarios. This includes all of the hypotheticals and everything that was ever published (including all the reissues in the multiple versions of Arctic Front, Iron Curtain/Hammer and Sickle, Edelweiss (I-IV) and Airborne).

[larry marak]

You probably meant 3 x as many North African front scenerios (unless you group them with Cassino 44 as Mediterranean theatre of operations).

We need a boxed Bagration game.

[Matt W]

Correct 3 times the Med including North Africa, Italy and the Balkans

[zaarin7]

Given that the east front was the largest and longest campaign in history and the eropean Axis ground force was defeated on that front it should have more scenario's than all others combined.

[ParaMarine]

PzG is best for the armor and open terrain battles. Bagration would fit right in. I wonder about the mountain operations. I played Europa and I hope to have a monster wargame dedicated wall or table. That's when you get the weird stuff like Extreme Height Mountain Infantry and other stuff. That would be a pretty good job to have in WW2. The Pakistanis of today are still good at it, believe it or not.

I always thought it weird and stupid how the Soviet Army got rid of its special units after the war. They had Spetznaz, but no mountain divisions. How much sense was there in that?


On the topic of hypotheticals, I look at it this way: The interesting thing about a scenario conclusion is how it could have turned out otherwise. Hypothetical scenarios are the logical extension of this for me. It's why Operation Sea Lion gets undue amounts of attention all across the wargame community. I look at hypothetical battles the same way I do my moves in strategic level wargames. If I were a field marshal, then this is what I'd do to win. It is fun to fight out those what-ifs at the tactical level. For me, there's no limit to how far you can take it. The far-outness of the Second Great War is what makes it appeal to me. Also the chance at playing Czarist Russia or the CSN.