| Campaigns and Commanders
Vol. 2: The King’s Officers
Campaign Two: The Desert War, 1941–42
Preparation: Leader Character Creation
By Doug McNair
August 2009
 With 1940: The Fall of France on the assembly line, I get to take a break and do some actual gaming. That plus the fact that I finally found my camera (which I managed to stick up on the top shelf of the coat closet months ago and then conceal under a pile of hats and gloves) means I can now give the full replay-with-pictures treatment to our newest series of book supplements: Campaigns and Commanders (or C&C for short).
The first major rules expansion for our Panzer Grenadier series, C&C lets players create individualized leaders known as Leader Characters who can gain battlefield experience, learn special skills, earn medals and rise through the ranks. C&C also provides players with campaign games consisting of several Panzer Grenadier scenarios that link together in a timeline representing all the major actions a specific theater of the war. They play the scenarios out in order, keeping track of the campaign victory points they earn in each scenario plus the experience, skills and promotions earned by their Leader Characters. When the last scenario of the campaign is concluded, players determine who won the campaign based on total campaign victory points earned plus a bonus for each side’s highest-ranking surviving Leader Character.
Two books have come out in the Campaigns and Commanders series thus far: War in the East and The King’s Officers. Also, our Kokoda Trail book contains a campaign game using the C&C system. C&C fans Randy Dreger and Andrew Heath have already begun campaign replays from War in the East and Kokoda Trail on www.boardgamegeek.com, so I will let them run with those and start my own replay for The King’s Officers. TKO comes with three campaigns, covering the early and later portions of the war in North Africa and finally Operation Epsom in Normandy. I’ve decided to go with Campaign Two: The Desert War, 1941-42.
Campaign Preparation
The first step in running a C&C campaign is the creation of the Leader Characters who will take part in the campaign scenarios. Leader Characters have the standard attributes common to all Panzer Grenadier Leaders: Morale, Combat Modifier and Morale Modifier. But they also begin their careers with specialized skills they can use on the battlefield, and during campaign scenarios they can earn Leadership Points which they can use to purchase additional skills and also increase their base attributes. When creating new Leader Characters at the start of a campaign, players determine the attributes and skills each new Leader Character begins with as outlined below.
Players may name their Leader Characters however they wish, so since I just got done reading John Ferling’s excellent Almost a Miracle I’ll throw in a bit of irony: The Leader Characters fighting each other in this campaign are all descendants of officers who fought on the same side in the American Revolutionary War.
 British Leader Characters
Creating Lt. Burgoyne
Players create the starting attributes of Leader Characters by rolling dice and consulting tables. When creating the British Leader Character Lt. Burgoyne, I rolled the dice and got the following results:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 1 7
Combat Modifier 5 1
Morale Modifier 2 0
So, Johnny arrives at the front a tad unsure about this business of fighting to protect the Bedouins when Jerry is sitting on a rooftop in Calais with his little spyglass trained on Tunbridge Wells. But J.B. is determined to put all his advanced tactical training to good use so he can make his mark, impress someone and become a general's aide or get posted back home to more comfortable surroundings.
Lt. Burgoyne’s attributes make him a poor choice to lead an assault but a good choice to coordinate fire groups, so I roll on the Combat Skills table and Miscellaneous Skills table for him. The results are:
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Combat Skills 1 Rifle Combat Specialist
Miscellaneous Skills 2 Increased Endurance
That means he can get to the scene of action quickly and will be good on offense as long as he stays out of assault hexes. But it also means that if he gets demoralized he’ll flee farther faster.
Development plan for Lt. Burgoyne: Spend Leadership Points to increase his Morale. He’s smart and fit, but has a poor attitude and needs discipline.
Creating Lt. Carleton
The next lieutenant off the boat is this chap:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 2 8
Combat Modifier 6 1
Morale Modifier 3 0
Guy is a good sort who’s up for a bit of adventure in the desert. A racecar driver before the war, he’s good at predicting enemy movements and has been given artillery training so that he can help disrupt same:
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Combat Skills 4 Mortarman/Artillerist
Miscellaneous Skills 1 Advanced Driver
Development plan for Lt. Carleton: Spend Leadership Points to increase his Morale Modifier so he can hold the artillery together when attacked.
Creating Lt. Gage
The third lieutenant arriving at the front brings this to the war:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 6 9
Combat Modifier 1 0
Morale Modifier 5 1
Tom is quiet but well-liked, and has an air of confidence about him that is contagious. A natural leader, he has quickly won the respect of the men and receives training that builds on that:
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Assault Skills 4 Rural Assault Specialist
Miscellaneous Skills 3 Survival
Development plan for Lt. Gage: Spend Leadership Points to either give him the Rifle Combat Specialist skill or increase his Combat Modifier so he is equally useful inside and outside assault hexes.
 German Leader Characters
As for the officer replacements arriving at Afrika Korps HQ ...
Creating Lt. von Knyphausen
The first new lieutenant to step off the halftrack has the following attributes:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 5 8
Combat Modifier 2 0
Morale Modifier 1 0
A younger son of an old military family, Wilhelm is a sound lad but hasn’t distinguished himself in any way thus far. He hopes to change that at the front, so he asked for and received all the combat training he could get.
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Assault Skills 5 Rural Assault Specialist
Combat Skills 2 Rifle Combat Specialist
Development plan for Lt. Von Knyphausen: Just about anything; nowhere to go but up.
Creating Lt. Rall
The next lieutenant steps off the halftrack, surveys the desert before him and declares it his own:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 5 8
Combat Modifier 6 1
Morale Modifier 6 1
Johann is everything Willi is not: a commanding presence and a natural-born soldier. Given his innate abilities his superiors opted to give him more specialized training:
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Combat Skills 5 Anti-Tank Specialist
Miscellaneous Skills 3 Survival
Development plan for Lt. Rall: Spend leadership points on more specialized combat skills.
Creating Lt. von Breymann
After a bit of a pause, the last lieutenant steps off the halftrack:
Attribute Die-roll Result Starting Attribute
Morale 6 9
Combat Modifier 1 0
Morale Modifier 1 0
Heinrich is a dreamer; unflappable but aloof. Forced by the war to leave the university, he is still a philosopher and performs his duties well but with no enthusiasm. As in all things, he is a man out of place; his training is in urban and forest warfare:
Table Die-roll Result Starting Skill
Assault Skills 1 Urban Assault Specialist
Miscellaneous Skills 5 Pathfinder
Development plan for Lt. von Breymann: Spend Leadership Points to get skills that are relevant to desert warfare.
That rounds out the cast of characters who’ll begin the war for the desert in 1941. Tune in next time for my replay of the first campaign scenario: Operation Crusader.
Read and play along with Doug! Order The King's Officers now!
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