North African campaign character rules
North African campaign character rules, draft 1
Every character will have 3 “stats”:
Leadership: this is the characters ability to lead, inspire, motivate and train the troops he is commanding. It will affect battlefield morale rolls, troop improvement etc,
Strategy: this is the characters grasp of maneuver, terrain, tactics and situation. This will be represented in the “off-map” set up and maneuver phase of the game. It will modify things like surprise chances, deployment options, timely arrival etc.
Influence: this is the ability to request reinforcements, replacements, air or artillery support, etc. It can represent anything from the “old buddy” network to family connections, blackmail.
Each of these stats will have a level of terrible/poor/average/good/excellent (or from 1-5 if you prefer to think of it numerically).
Special abilities:
Each character may also have one or more special abilities or drawbacks – these are specific abilities which will modify certain rolls or circumstances, they represent natural ability, special training etc.
Some brief examples:
Forward observer - training in accurately spotting and calling for air support/artillery strikes 2pts
Desert experience – the character has some previous experience in the desert, either from the Great War or being stationed in a desert in the inter-war period. 3pts
Scrounge – a knack for acquiring hard to find supplies, special items, rare equipment 1pt
Mechanic – familiar with the technical side of vehicles, either from civilian life or armor/motor vehicle training 2pts
Upper class/ “Blue blood” – limited to British officers only – character is from an especially well connected family/attended all the right academies 1pt
Etc – you get the idea and I am sure there are many more out there. Drawbacks will be considered on a case-by-case basis, as none are leaping to my mind at the moment.
Character creation will be done by point allocation.
Each character will have 20 points to spend as follows, Stats:
Terrible – 1
Poor – 3
Average – 5
Good – 7
Excellent - 10
Special abilities will be from 1-3pts each, depending on their utility. Drawbacks will be 1-2pts maximum.
In addition, each character will need to pick a national origin for both themselves and if they are British, the unit they command . Options at this point are British, Canadian, Australian/NZ, South African, Polish and Indian.
An officer from any of the non-British nationalities may only command troops of their nationality and is unlikely to be chosen/promoted for higher command. They may also suffer penalties to influence/interact with British officers/commanders.
Players may also select their branch/arm of service (and they will command a unit of that type) or they may leave it up to GM fiat.
For those purposes the following unit types are available:
Artillery
Anti-Tank
Anti-Aircraft
Infantry
Infantry support (MG companies, support platoons etc)
Recon
Cruiser Tank
Infantry Tank
Logistics (can’t imagine anyone wanting to command the supply train, but heh why not?)
Depending on the number of players in the game, unit sizes will range from a section up to a reinforced company. Nationality and troop/equipment quality will also affect unit size. I will not promise to honor individual equipment type requests, but they amuse me so feel free to make them.
Re: North African campaign character rules
There will most definately be wounding/death rules - but I will not elaborate on them
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
I like it sounds like its going to be a fun game
through out of action for the rest of the battle 
, to light wound can t do anything untill he gets to another unit 
...
one thing comes to mind
is there going to be a chance the Character gets killed or wounded and the 2ed in command with differant stats takes over..and maybe a replacement pool for KIAs (please I dislike superman characters)
maybe if the vehical or the stand of Inf. hes in gets killed, have a chart to see what happons to the leader...form dead
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
i think i might go for excellent strategy, average leadership, terrible influence. foreign language french, desert training, and one other one point bonus (recon training? blooded?) being a french/canadian from the foreign legion he has a bad reputation. he is put in charge of recon only because of his skills.
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
sounds good im intrested in what blooded might do for characters.
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
I planned on allowing multiple special skills if people desired..as well as improvement in stats/skills as the game progressed. (But I haven't given much thought to the exp system yet). I was planning on limiting folks to one drawback.
Playing a non-british officer isn't going to be considered a drawback for points purposes - as it is rather a special circumstance. There will be compensations in troop quality, equipment etc for the colonials/free forces.
As for languages, I was assuming everyone spoke sufficient english to get by, but I suppose allowing foreign language picks as a 1pt special is a good idea.
I'm not sure if "Green" should be a drawback - it is the assumed state of all of you after all. However, the converse - "Blooded" might make a good special.
As for your specific character murph, it sounds good - looking something like this atm:
Leadership: Average(5)
Strategy:Excellent(10) *or Good (7) and 3 more pts of specials
Influence:Poor (3)
Desert Experience(3)
Bad reputation(-1)
Depending on total number of players of course, a starting force of say 3 rolls royce/vickers ACs, a command car or two, a couple of trucks/mg trucks( roughly 2 infantry sections) and half a dozen or so motorcyclists seems reasonable.
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
heres a good one for you eric. i belive id like to try the french/canadian former foregin legonaire with previous desrt experience. i have to command recon of course. and would like to have a few nifty jeeps and motorcycles attachethed to the armoured scout cars. possible mechanicaland recon trainng might be good as well. he will be unliked by high command and probbably have a ratting of 4 or 5 in stratigic stuff 2 in influence and 3 in tatical skill. are you allowing characters to improve skills with time? whats the improvement chart like? let me know if multiply bonuses or negatives can be taken. it might be a benifit to speak another language and it could be apossible negative to have an accent or to be able to speak only broken english.
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
another possible benifit might be training in your specific unit/branch of service.
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)Re: North African campaign character rules
ok i like what i see. if you are an officer from a non british nation is that considerd a drawback? are yu allowed more then one drawback or special abillity?
some drawbacks might be: criminal record, negitive abillity with support service of your choice(negatives with artillery, air, or logistics support) green( your abillities are all at negatives till you recive sme battle experience.) you could include things for being hated by troops or bad reputations with the enemy.
just a few ideas not sure if that is what you are looking for.
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