A Distant Plain: Designers’ Interview on Grogheads
August 29, 2012 5 Comments
Brant Guillory, mover and shaker behind the gaming forum Grogheads, recently did an e-mail interview with me and Volko Ruhnke about A Distant Plain:
http://grogheads.com/int-adp1.html
http://grogheads.com/int-adp2.html
And, should you be moved to ask a question, Volko and I will be answering them in a discussion thread here:
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=2672
So far, 396 pre-orders for the game as of today!
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Hi Brian, I have just ordered your Poland 1939 game through my source in the US (Michael Dean, Fine Games) and I was wondering when you will do a France 1940 game. Your artwork person who helped you with Poland should have a really good time with a map of France – forests, mountains, rivers, canals, cities, towns, fortress towns, big and little Maginot, marshes, fortified zones, etc. and the colours of 5 nations armies (or 6 with Italy or 7 or 8, if you include Polish and Czech divisions)! I hope you will do it at division-level. More for interest than anything else please remember the two Polish divisions and the one Czech division. I believe the Czech infantry division was broken down into anti-tank battalions at the time but it could still have been used as division.
The Avalon Hill version has an infuriating combat results table, that has no link to realisim at all – “compulsory counter-attacks” !!! What nonsense.
Greg Coombs correction – sorry, actually the Czech division was not broken down into anti-tank battalions – it comprised two regiments, that fought tough rear-guard actions, including one against a Panzer division. It was one of the Polish divisions that was assigned anti-tank support to various French divisions.
Hi Greg, and thank you very much for buying Summer Lightning! I hope you enjoy the game.
I had not thought of doing a France 1940 game, for reasons of size if nothing else – if you look to the GDW game Fall of France, that game is done at about the same scale as Summer Lightning and Balkan Gambit – 16 miles per hex and division level (SL and BG are 20 miles per hex and also mostly divisions). But that game needed two full map sheets, each 21 x 27″ and over 2,000 counters. I could do better than that but not that much better.
Marc von Martial did the artwork for SL and it looks great. He is a fine artist and one not afraid to experiment.
I am not sure what I will do with the Autumn Mist-Balkan Gambit-Summer Lightning system next, possibly a campagin study within a larger front. I got the original idea for the system whern I was thinking of doing a Manchuria 1945 game but never went back to it. Anyway, I am a bit preoccupied with Afghanistan and COIN matters right now…
Hi Brian, I do hope to see you and someone like Marc von Martial apply your skills to a France 1940 game, and you would just have to do it on a large map or several sheets, no matter the implications for the end-price for the consumer! It would not be any fun without the whole of the Maginot Line and at least a substantial portion of Holland!
cheers
Greg
Well, it sounds as if I would have one buyer for this, if I ever did it!