Friday, December 21, 2012

Thoughts and Questions on Scenario Books

I put aside my AWI project to resume work on my East Front CSIR project. As I was looking through what I have so far, I was just curious, what is it that people are looking for in a scenario book? What are you really interested in?

For the most part, I have been writing towards what I want to do. An overview of the history of the battles that took place. Followed by any rule addendum that need to be added for the scenarios. And lastly anywhere from 18 to 25 scenarios on that topic. In some cases, such as my Greek Campaign and the East Africa one, I have included information for a Bag the Hun campaign for the air war fought over those particular battle grounds.

But what is it that you are looking for in a scenario book? What would you be interested in seeing? Does it need pictures of miniatures and terrain? Do you want period historical maps?

Granted, I tend to look for more obscure campaigns than other scenario authors. But what would get you to buy scenarios about the Italians on the Eastern Front in 1941?

As it stands, I have about 23 pages of background on the campaign covering August to December 1941. There will probably be about 25 scenarios total for both the IABSM and Troop, Weapons & Tactics rules.

3 comments:

  1. What I really like to see besides overview, maps, and playable scenarios is something that give a uniqueness to the situation. So I think uniform and equipment guides, terrain and weather notes, and painting guides are nice. Not so much eye candy as suggestions on what the battlefield and the units should look like.

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  2. I look for is relatively accurate army lists, that may need to be tweaked to get a decent and fair game. Maps of the battlefield, they don't have to be real pics, drawn or computer generated is just fine. And what Mark said above really??

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  3. For not well known campaigns I'd like to have background information about the history, forces involved, uniforms, etc. For each scenario it would also be nice to have a small summary of the historical outcome. And finally, as many sources as possible to do my own research. About maps, I prefer simple but helpful maps that makes my life easy when constructing my gaming table. Overall, and as a reference of the tyype of scenario books I like, the Skirmish Campaigns series is one of my favourites...

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