The SASA Guide to Campaign Management by Jeff Williams So You want to run a campaign? The Idea You have just read about some campaign or battle which has fired your imagination. Let us say that its the German invasion of Crete in WW2 and you get all excited and want to run a campaign that recreates this scenario. In your mind you see the parachutes drifting to earth and the Maoris in the New Zealand forces charging German machine guns. It feels like it could be an exciting campaign. It could be! However, unless you plan very carefully and take into consideration the following factors you stand a good chance of falling on your face and wasting the time of many club members who signed up to play your campaign. In the short history of the club there have been two campaigns that have failed for one reason or another. Without planning you could face the prospect of resolving 20 battalion level battles before the campaign can be resolved. At the rate of one every two weeks this could be over in a year or so! I predict your patience would snap long before the campaign ended. This guide is designed to help you consider those factors that are important in the successful running of a campaign. It is based on the experience of the author in running and participating in a variety of campaigns over a ten year period. What Size? This refers to the number of commands. Having run three campaigns with over 14 players I don't recommend it. It is very hard to keep all of the players briefed and involved in what is going on. If some get bored they loose interest and become unreliable. Having two umpires helps overcome this problem but increases your workload because you both need to brief each other constantly. Large scale campaigns with many players will work if each player is an independent entity who therefore determines their own level of activity. This of course also increases the umpires workload. For campaigns involving two sides I recommend teams of no more than 4 each side. Duration? The variables you need to consider when choosing the length of the campaign are your staying power as an umpire, your ability to keep the players interested and committed and the minimum number of battles you will need to umpire on the tabletop. My own experience suggests about a month to 6 weeks maximum length to keep yourself sane and most of your players interested. You can never expect to keep all of the players interested as some loose interest as soon as they start loosing battles. Given this you clearly need to limit the number of battles to around 4 to 6 if you are umpiring all of them yourself. This can be achieved by limiting both the forces available and the geographical possibilities. An alternative may be to run low intensity campaigns that run for many months but with only occassional battles and briefings. Keeping players interested may be a problem with this approach. The Costs and benefits Running a campaign costs money, time, energy both physical and emotional. You need money to pay for maps ($10 to $15 typically from a map shop), photocopies of the various orders and briefings for players and pens and markers for map work. Maps, stationary and photocopies for the Tasmanian WW2 campaign cost over $100.00. Time for research can vary from several days to several weeks spread over two or three months. To prepare for the Timor campaign I hunted for maps and books in the Adelaide University library, the State library and the local library spending probably around 6 afternoons chasing the information. Emotional energy is spent when things don't turn out as you plan. Key players don't turn up, half the players moan about the results from an encounter and start blaming your umpiring for their poor results that usually result from their own poor planning and lack of foresight. You need a certain toughness to bear all of this. However all is not gloom and doom. There are great benefits in running a campaign both personally and for the club. Personally it can be great fun watching the confusion, jumping to wrong conclusions and general 'fog of war' that accompanies the decisions of each side in a campaign. It certainly gives you an insight into the difficulties people have in communicating with each other. For much of the time running a campaign is FUN. A well run campaign is of great benefit to the club as it give players what they can't get elsewhere. That is the chance to match wits with a wide variety of players and beat them but at the same time get involved in a cooperative activity with allies (However temporary the alliance). On being reliable Don't bother starting a campaign if you can't finish it. If this does happen the club looses credibility, you loose credibility and what other people see as OK behaviour from you they adopt for themselves and eventually no one can be bothered finishing a campaign or turning up for arranged battles or turning up at a slack club. Unreliability is the death of clubs like ours. If you value what you get from SASA always do what you promise to do. If you can't honour commitments don't make them, you will be doing yourself and others a favour. Research Where to get information I have hunted down information in the State library which has a great specialised Naval Warfare section, The University of Adelaide library and my community library. All have sections on history and geography. A great source of information is often other club members who between them have a huge range of books. When researching the Tasmanian campaign I got the Tasmanian order of battle through a military historian. I contacted him by phoning the military librarian at Anglesea Barracks in Hobart while on a short visit to Tasmania. There are probably similar people in Adelaide contactable through Keswick Barracks [Editor's note: The present official 4 Military District is an ex-Wargamer by the name of Major Jeff Ayles. His office is at Hampstead Barracks]. Most of WW2 is recorded in great detail in a series of official histories that run to about 30 volumes. They are held in the University of Adelaide Library. You can use the library even if you are not a student although you can't borrow the books. However I usually find the information I want and photocopy it. Maps Maps can be bought through the Map Shop situated in Peel St. in the City. The manager was in charge of Army mapping in Canberra and so has a good feel for military maps. Anther good source is the map room of the State Library. They also have a colour copying facility now and can copy A3 size maps. Rare maps can be obtained from the National Library through inter-library loan. You can't borrow them personally but can get them copied at the State Library. A favourite tactic of some campaigners is to use detailed maps of a local area as they are easy to come by. I once ran a Vietnam campaign using a map of Queensland with all the names blanked out and Vietnamese names substituted. I don't recommend it, too much work, especially as I discovered later the State Library has good maps of Vietnam. Preparation Which rules? The most important principle to consider is that the rules you choose must allow you to resolve your largest likely battles in a reasonable time. If you can't resolve a battle in two to three days you will have trouble maintaining interest in the participants. The ideal is to be able to resolve them in two to four hours. I have seen campaigns go down the spout when individual battles have dragged on for weeks. It is also important to have rules that allow some of the complexity of combat to be reflected in the battle. Rules that simplify too much end up with either totally predictable results or totally random results. There must be some room for individual tactics to prove effective. In 20th century warfare different rules work well for different scale encounters. I have not found any that work well for all scales.. There are many that cover skirmish scale encounters up to platoon size. I have not found any that satisfactorily deal with large scale battles using Battalion size forces. Other umpires may like to comment on this. Figures and scenery You usually don't have to have all of the necessary figures and scenery for a particular scenario. The way I see it is that the figures and scenery that I personally own is a resource to be used by the whole club. If someone wants to run a campaign and they need my scenery I am happy that it is used. By the same thinking if I run a campaign and need something I havn't got I find that others are equally happy to lend me their figures or scenery. However this mutually beneficial arrangement depends on players contributing something at some stage or another. In other words people running campaigns need to have some of their own figures and scenery available both for their own campaigns and others. If players think that they can't afford much it dosn't matter as I find that you can make scenery such as trees and buildings very cheaply, it only takes time. Player briefing notes and maps Players get a better sense of involvement if they all have an individual folder with briefing notes about the general strategic situation and their individual command. This may only amount to a half page introduction to the general scene that everybody gets and a sheet listing the individual player's forces, mission and location. It is also a good idea to provide a photocopied map to each player. This need only be a large scale general map on a B3 size sheet. Recruiting players The usual method seems to be a player registration sheet placed on the campaign notice board. With this method it is first come, first served. I have found it a better idea to individually recruit players by contacting individuals and offering them a place. This ensures that you get the necessary players. I usually have most of my players before I put the registration sheet on the board. I also do this because of an ulterior motive, I like to make sure I get reliable players. The need for this was brought home to me during my first campaign when I had just set up a crucial battle and the commander on one side said he didn't feel like doing it but wanted to go to the pub for a drink for the afternoon instead. I had his character shot while cleaning his pistol and a backup commander took over his forces. That reminds me of the other important rule, always have a number of backup commanders who may only have small roles initially but who can take over if you loose a commander through some unforseen circumstance. Selecting senior commanders The most important criteria in allocating an overall commnder if your campaign calls for one is to choose someone who is reliable both in turning up and in communicating with the other players. If you have chosen well for this task it makes running the campaign much simpler and gives the other players more satisfaction. Senior Commanders don't necessarily have to be strong players. If they can communicate with their team then the others will help work out their strategy. Allocating commands To produce a campaign that is fair and fun for all sides you must attempt to produce balanced sides. That is you must allocate strong and inexperienced players to both sides. It is also fun to reproduce the complexities of warfare by deliberately placing antagonistic players on the same side. Player X can't stand player Y and vice versa, good, put them both in a situation where they must cooperate or lose. As long as both sides have this problem it is perfectly fair. Campaign Launch Player briefings A good initial player briefing gets a campaign of to a good start. Each side should be briefed separately so that you can discuss each sides particular situation. At a briefing you can give an overall strategic view to players, tell them of your own campaign rules and expectations, hand out individual commands and briefing notes and if you have an overall commander get him to further brief his troops. It is also a time for general questions to be asked and maybe answered. You must lay clearly as well the objectives that you want them to achieve so they are well aware of what is expected of them. As an aside on that point, I find that players are constantly trying to pump you for information that they should not have. You have to walk the tightrope of giving enough information but not information that the side wouldn't have through normal means. Day one battles It is a good idea to have an initial battle planned. This is to engage the players interest from the very first day. The battle can be one that derives from the strategic situation or from you having a good guess at a likely clash. In campaigns involving air and or naval forces this can often be an air or air naval clash which dosn't involve setting up a table at short notice. Air or naval battles are particularly good as you can involve a large number of players. Keeping it going Coordination of Players To keep up interest it is important that you regularly brief each player on what is happening. This should happen at least weekly in a short campaign. In the past I have relied on a player designated as a overall commander for each side to keep players informed. However this seems to be a new idea for players and it just dosn't happen. It is also necessary to phone players a few days before an arranged battle and remind them to turn up. If this seems strange remember that your players may have a lot of other things on their minds beside your campaign. Winding up the Campaign Winners and losers Determining who won is easy if you have planned well and determined a number of objectives that must be met for victory. If you have a hierarchy of objectives that are increasingly difficult to meet then you may have draws, minor victories/defeats and major victories/defeats. If you have run out of time and must wind up the campaign it is better to determine winners and losers by projecting results to date than to leave the campaign up in the air without a result. Campaigns that end without result are discouraging to all concerned. Running over time The main problem with running over time is that your campaign may interfere with a following campaign. If you have to run overtime make sure that any battles you have to run don't clash with battles run by the umpire of another campaign. If your campaign is running overtime it is only courtesy that you give way to the following campaign (i.e. don't get in their way). The Final briefing Don't let your campaign peter-out. The best way to keep every one informed is a final briefing. This also gives you a chance to get feedback on how your campaign could be improved. You can announce winners and loosers and also the campaign individual victory points. Remember that you are the only one who has the full picture of what went on during the campaign, telling the full story to the players is usually a lot of fun for all as they find out the wierd things people do with their forces. Keeping the Campaign Coordinator informed The Campaign Coordinator is usually trying to juggle several campaigns at once so that there is something going at the club every weekend. If a campaign finishes early or late let the coordinator know so that he can bring forward or delay others if necessary. Also give the coordinator the results of the individual victory points.