Mid-War Monsters

Mid War Monsters This summer we get to take a breather from late-war as a block of time between the end of the Bagration series of books and the start of Market Garden gives us a perfect opportunity to go back to the period that we started in. This gives us some exciting new options for gaming, a chance to revisit our armies and finishing painting a few models and have some fun at a time when men were men and tanks were on the smaller side.  The great thing about the period is that mid-war was a time of learning and experimentation for all the countries as they were struggling to get their heads around what assets they needed to bring the war to a swift and victorious conclusion. It was this premise and some of the wonderful things created that started us looking at all those odd vehicles that were being developed for the period but were never put into mass production as the tactics and realties of the war began to take shape.

The first of the mid-war books over the summer is Mid-War Monsters. A 48 page book with a difference! It is not a book of armies but a book of platoons of experimental vehicles that saw limited action in the period.   Some like the Boarhound were ordered in their thousands and then withdrawn after the first 30 were delivered as the idea of a 30-ton armored car in Italy was not a great fit.

Others were prototypes that saw service for the briefest of moments as either, technology moved on or the higher commands of each country made definitive choices to not make heavy tanks but produce more medium ones faster. The book gives you a choice of 18 such vehicles ranging from heavily armored machine gun carriers like the Panzer IF to land battleships like the British TOG 2* more in keeping with the ideas of WWI.

Each vehicle has its own double page spread covering its history, the reasons behind its conception and failure to become mainstream and then it unit characteristics in mid-war and how they are fielded. Each vehicle has its own platoon and effectively becomes either a support choice or swaps out for an existing choice in the armies that you would expect. The idea is not to have a table full of experimental vehicles but be lucky enough that your command was issued that one unit on this particular day to see how it fared combined with the usual forces of the day.

The book also has a great little scenario “Breakdown Rescue Mission” where you are tasked to recover the valuable unit as the latest technology falling into enemy hands is something you simply cannot let happen.

Obviously the other big driving force behind any book is the chance to make some great models and Evan has absolutely outdone himself with producing a range of tricky to make models. As you can see they are wonderful examples of the thinking at the time and represent the nations responding to their enemies new fighting weapons.

Given this book does not fall into the category of anything we have previously done we chose to make the look of the cover and box packaging stand apart from anything else. We also chose to present the range only in box sets which each contain the full platoon available. To have each model available in blisters was going to give our retailers a real headache with stocking the full range in the right numbers needed.

In looking through the forum I noticed a few questions kept appearing so I have tried to answer them as concisely as possible. How did you choose these vehicles? In a way this was the same research we went through for every book in the past and that the more you dig the more you come up with.

It is not the first time we have found some wonderful vehicle or troop type that saw limited use but added great colour to a historical list. The Diana, Elephant, StuIG 33b or KV85 are all examples of vehicles that were relatively rare but were still included in lists. If I wound the clock back I definitely would have added some of these to older lists if we had known about them and others are very definitely prototypes that tick the “experimental” part of the book. Combining them all together seemed to make sense and although the end result is different have rare units fighting in your FOW army is not a new thing at all.

How are these models fielded? Each unit is either a support choice or a direct swap for something else in the list. None of the models form the core of a force as their rarity is reflected in how they can be used. The principle is that these form additional platoons to add to the company lists in Ostfront and Afrika.

Can I use them in tournaments? No, we knew from day one these were never going to make the usual tournament scene. Phil has included some suggestions for how to vary how these can used at clubs on a local level but the intention is that these stand alone from the core lists and cannot be mixed for competitive gaming. Of course a tournament organiser might want to run a Mid War Monsters themed event which embraces the unique nature of these vehicles.

Where do you go from here? Obviously this was one of those idea’s that we liked enough to see it through but our longer terms plans will depend entirely on the feedback you give us when you have seen and played with the models. I did read with interest a post that said that we were obviously planning Early-War Experimentals and Late-War Leviathans to complement this book and although that is an option that is worth exploring nothing will get decided until we see how this “surprise” project is received. Why did you do this instead of something else? The final comment on the forum was about our choice to commit resources to this instead of Early-War or the Pacific. The truth is that you are comparing a few months of time from Phil and Evan with projects that would take a whole year for the entire sixteen man team. This was a nice little project that we managed to squeeze in by getting a little ahead. We will continue to deliver the same number of books and campaigns we have said we would and support the website with the added value material and extra lists we always have done. To see us through the summer period Mid-War is also getting a make-over and the new updated version of “North Africa” will come out. This is exactly the same facelift we gave FE and the new version will have the current orginisational design and we have fleshed out a few lists that never had the space they deserved. As an added bonus and to avoid any possible binding issues this 220 page tome will be hardback but will be sold at the current price.

The final part of the summer releases involve our new “Table-top Ready” terrain but we will cover that in more detail next week. For now I will leave with a few images of some pre-painted scenic items that you will see out over the summer.