2019 CSR #Wargame Challenge – World in Flames (Australia Design Group, 1985+) – Part 2: Baby Monster

I CONTINUE my 2019 CSR Challenge Wargame play of World in Flames (Australia Design Group, 1985+). In Part 2, I worked on setting up the game.

Going into this part, I was very worried about the area that I would need to setup. Each of the four maps in WiF is ~22″ wide and ~33″ tall. Fortunately, for the introductory scenario 23.2.1 only the north half of the East Europe map is used. Thus, I was able to set up on a small low table (3’x3′) with extra charts and tables handy nearby. (Whew!)

I was also worried about the number of counters because, after all, there are over 3600 counters in the game! Remember that I am using the basic WiF rules and not all the expansions for this replay. This gives the Soviets 29 Land Units, 9 Aircraft Units, and 5 Naval Units at the start defending against a German invasion of 46 Land Units, 16 Aircraft Units, and one Naval Unit. That’s around 100 counters on a map area of 30×26 hexes. Note also the stacking limit is 2 land units per hex (2.3.1 Limits / Land unit limits). In other words, it’s manageable. (Double Whew!)

Sorting the counters did take a bit of time. When rereading the rules I noted 23.1.5 Sorting out the counters. Although the rules recommend sorting national forces by force pools, I instead just had a single large bag by nation. If I was ever to get seriously back into playing WiF I would absolutely need to do a major reorganization of all the counters!

[This is the point my wife usually reminds me that organizing yourself is the key to success.  Yes, dear!]

The rules for the scenario setup are actually quite short. Amazingly, the Players’ notes take up over two-pages of space! This is absolute required reading for a first play…and digesting it takes time. It certainly helps to understand what you are getting yourself into!

So…set up and ready to go. Now for the plan of action….