Well, it was long before the days of computers !
Each club put the resources of all it's members to work building armies in 1/72nd (20mm) scale, because Airfix kits were cheap and widely available. I built so many Chieftain tanks !
There was a small team of umpires, and each country/club sent in turn-based orders in a play-by-mail fashion. As well as a set of rules that governed economic production, there was considerable leeway for narrative play; if a player wanted to try something not in the rules, the umpires would make a decision on it based on common sense and "rule of cool".
This did lead to one very interesting twist. We had a player who was ex-forces who would periodically disappear for a few weeks and come back with a sun tan and plenty of cash. In the game, he organised the invasion of the Nautilous Islands. The narrative was that a visiting rugby team would fly in, pull weapons from their kit bags and hold the airport until reinforcements landed on a nearby beach. It was a stunning success and the Islands were captured. About six month later, in the real world, Colonel Mike Hoare flew into the Seychelles with a visiting cricket team who pulled weapons and took the airport.... but the reinforcements were stopped on the beaches. We didn't see the player again.....
I only ever got to one battle in the game, but it was awesome. A school gym had been hired and covered with hessian cloth and terrain. With two complete wargames clubs, there were 300+ main battle tanks on each side, plus APC's, infantry, artillery - probably the most impressive game I've ever seen. My brigade was flattened by a 1/72nd scale B52.
Eventually the game collapsed under it's own weight, sadly, as the umpires were unable to handle the workload involved. But I copied the map and used it to run a few smaller scale games with friends.
😮😮😮😮 That true story is hectic!
And that game sounds amazing! I want to do the same but for 40k!
And a campaign.... sounds rad!
Campaign games are great, especially open-ended ones, or ones where the victory conditions are designed so you can carry on the narrative as a sequel if everyone wants to.
As for the Seychelles affair, no-one knows to this day whether it was a complete coincidence, or they got the idea from the game, or even if they used the game without the other players' knowledge as a way to play it out and see if it was feasible. I've known a few remarkably interesting people over the years - glad my life isn't quite that exciting !
Hehe, indeed.
i have been chatting to some people in the Warhammer community who also wish that Warhammer 40,000 was not so competitive in South Africa, so they can just enjoy a game in a narrative sense. I know there exists communities like that in UK/USA/Europe. I think I should make it happen here...
Go for it ! Setting up a narrative campaign (for any system) can be a huge amount of fun ! I've learned the hard way that it's best to automate as much as possible in one way or another, and to spread the workload (making sure the info generated is shared or held on a central repository) so that if one or two people drop out it doesn't crash the whole campaign.
Indeed... that is good advice... I am sure that you could probably write a good guide for that on Tabletop/DnD on that topic!