Next PG Modern Game Subject?

[larry marak]

Another other..The borderfighting between the Soviets and the Maoist government in the late 60's early 70's. A war didn't occur, but could have, and the soviet armored trains of this era were awesome. :-)

Dr. B has indicated he needs a small, inexpensive starter game for this neglected series. The next two boxed I.A.'s are ready to go, but MPG is all by itself at the moment. Probably the most sellable topic for an intro game would be a Nato/Warsaw Pact release, in that it would have name recognition among us old guys.

[JayTownsend]

A NATO/Warsaw Pact Cold War Game would be great but it's not based on anything historical and would have to be all hypothetical. Besides Larry you said you couldn't buy any games after you retire? I think you better rethink that, as the future looks bright for new games!

[ParaMarine]

There had to be a base game with mass appeal. Eastern Front, Afrika Korps, and Bulge did that early with PG. We got all the zany stuff later. All modern wars are niche, one way or another.

Maybe a halfway approach: NATO vs WP...in the Arctic. How long can Norway hold off the Soviets?

[willdeworde]

My Other vote is for the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

[larry marak]

Jay, it looks like I may have 4 boxed games paid for after I retire :-(

http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/gen...ry+retires

Of course, that's not too long to wait..I ordered Imperial Grenadier back when the first opportunity came, in 2006, but that's nothing. Bill Gibbs over at Omega is still trying to get second edition Carrier War out this year...ordered in 1998!!

[JayTownsend]

That timer is pretty funny Larry! Now to figure out how to make it go backwards.

[otto]

I think a scenario book on the 1973 AIW that expands the 1967 boxed game would really be top notch and a real must.
It would provide the narrative, scenarios, one countersheet and one or two maps (for the Suez crossings).
I would not really go for a new boxed game because most of the units and of terrain (e.g. Goloan heights are already there in term of maps!) is already provided by SOI.
Small (or big) problem: Israeli counters were withe, blue and again white. So there would be a need for two different countersheets.

Ottavio

[Coniglius]

I agree with the '73 war but I'm not sure you can do it justice by building it as an expansion set. I would think it would need the full box treatment. I think in terms of an introductory type game, the Falklands War would be best suited due to its compact size (in terms of land mass and forces involved) and duration (very short, few engagements). I think it would serve well as a baggie type game with a couple of maps and a large counter sheet or two.

All that said, I voted for Vietnam. There are so many things we could do such as randomly generated VC platoons popping up, random size units, a plethora of troop types and nationalities ( US, ARVN, Australian, S. Korean, Thai, New Zealand, Montagnards, etc.). I can see not only a large boxed set to kick it off, but various expansions and add-ons to really flesh it out.

[otto]

Well the point is that 90% of the required counters and 85% of the needed maps are already provided by SOI.
Would I be willing to pay 130$ (I have to include shipping costs)?
Not sure.
Would I be willing to pay 50$ for the scenario book? By all means yes, considering that scenario books features also very interesting articles.
But this is just my personal view.

Ottavio

[Matt W]

One of the true issues behind an introductory game is that it has to be truly introductory AND be commercially viable.  In order to be commercially viable it must be on a well known battle/campaign and presumably include Americans (largest immediate market). For PG Normandy was an obvious choice.  

For Modern the choice is tougher.  It would be great to be able to use the Desert Storm campaign but I'm afraid that it suffers from one sidedness and the system probably no longer works due to technological advances (PG: Current anyone?).  Asymmetrical warfare is similarly very tough at this level.  Thus, while Vietnam fits the bill chronologically and from a nationality perspective it would be tough due to the need to permit a technologically overwhelmed force to persevere in the face of irresistible force, as well as the need to permit hidden or random forces (the sizable solo player community hates hidden units) and the terrain would pose a special rules issue (trust me, bocage was bad enough!).

The problem with the Falklands as an intro is that there isn't that much meat there and the lack of any significant armored forces (the Argentines had 12 Panhard armored cars) takes a big chunk out of the rule set.  It is probably scaled to fit a Golden Journal with 5-6 scenarios.

Thinking about the series in general, it has a very different profile than PG.  In PG we will almost never run out of historical actions to portray.  That's kind of what happens when millions of men fight each other for 5 or more years over three continents.  As a result, there is always something that actually happened that can be portrayed in the system.

For Modern, we have a dearth of actual significant actions, despite tons of weapon systems and doctrines that are well known that never quite got used the way they were designed to (Thank God!).  I have noticed a great deal of interest on many of the boards in Cold War topics and many of the older Cold War games carry a pretty hefty price (see GDWs TWW series or SPIs linkable magazine games like Fifth Corps/Donau Front/BAOR).  As such, I think the market for such a game would be acceptable.

I would suggest that Modern probably would benefit from an introductory game (and game arc) set in a Cold War gone hot.  We eliminate a lot of the problems of actual actions by putting the battles in easily modeled terrain and we remove the whole asymmetrical aspect of many modern combat situations, which would require a heavy weight of rules.  As a line of games I expect that Modern would be an inverse of PG in that the main line will be conjectural battles from which real actions will be hung, as opposed to PG's actual campaigns from which an occasional alt history product (Iron Wolves, Hopeless but Not Serious, etc.) are posed.

Nevertheless what I WANT to see is the Indo-Pakistani wars, primarily as a result of playing Indian Unity...