From its inception, Line of Departure has supported board wargames with scenarios. Starting with the Winter 1997 issue, computer games benefit from the same, through free downloads of scenarios and other support files.
At the same time, file support here will be coupled with hard copy support in the pages of Line of Departure, through analysis, player's notes, reviews and other articles.
Note too that all scenarios are formulated and tested solely for DOS and Windows (Windows 95 through Windows 10, depending on when the scenarios were designed) machines, but not for the Macintosh.
FOR BOARD GAMES
With Issue 52, the magazine began offering downloadable enhancements for board games too. These are in the form of Adobe pdf files, so that anyone with a computer of any type should be able to download, print and use them.
LOD79_VITP_BONUSCOUNTERS.PDF-----Extra counters for anti-aircraft variants published in The General over the years.
LOD78_BONUSAIDS.ZIP (331 Kb)-----Line of Departure Support returns with alternative ship and torpedo log forms for the K2 edition of Iron Bottom Sound.
LOD62_BONUSCOUNTERS.ZIP (124 Kb)-----For this issue, Line of Departure carries historical background on the first coastal u-boats built for the resurgent German navy in the 1930's. To accompany the project, here is the complete order of battle for the Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, Type IIC and Type IID boats. Players who desire to use any of the early u-boats in a scenario should never have to use the words "...use [this boat counter] to represent [that other boat]" when playing Avalon Hill's classic game. All the counters that players need are here.
LOD57_BONUSCOUNTERS.ZIP (77 Kb)------Line of Departure returns to its roots and presents something not seen since its first two issues; new ships for Quarterdeck's classic naval game The Royal Navy. This time though OnLine of Departure Support permits full-color counters to go with them. These ships are the Lexington-class battlecruisers planned by the United States Navy for the post-Great War world, but aborted by the Washington Navy Treaty. Historically, the Lexington and Saratoga were completed as aircraft carriers. Many gamers might not realize that there were four other ships, all broken up on the ways, or that the final design had very different boilers and armament than the one first approved in 1916. OnLine of Departure Support gives gamers all six ships, following both design options, for a total of twelve new counters. Line of Departure Issue 57 contains the ship data and a short history of the battlecruisers.
LOD55_BONUSCOUNTERS.ZIP (63 Kb)------------The rules in the print edition and the color counters downloadable here constitute the first contribution to OnLine of Departure by an outside writer. The author is Paul Rohrbaugh, and his work is a series of variant rules for The Far Seas (3W/Strategy & Tactics Number 125-----February/March 1989).
LOD53_BONUSCOUNTERS.ZIP (177 Kb)------------Line of Departure Issue 53 concludes with an article on the Bristol M1.C, a monoplane very advanced for its time that the Royal Flying Corps refused to deploy in large numbers to the Western Front in World War I. The article adapts it to Richtofen's War (Avalon Hill), and OnLine of Departure Support provides the counters.
LOD52_BONUSCOUNTERS.ZIP (2.54 Mb)------------This module presents one hundred and twenty full-color counters for SPI's boardgame October War. These are an assortment of neutral markers that were either supplied in restricted numbers in the undersized countermix, or not included at all. The backs of the counters, or another sheet if the player decides to mount them separately, are generic number markers that can be used with any game that needs them, or needs more of them.
MASS_ASS_01.ZIP (2 Kb)------------LOD: Island Hopping extends the original Marines scenario to a new island and new challenges.
STARCRAFT_02.ZIP (50 Kb)------------Terran Ice-Broodwar is an Arctic scenario pitting the player-controlled humans against a growing Zerg colony. As the title indicates, the scenario requires the Broodwar expansion to play.
STEELP_WAW_02.ZIP (26 Kb)------Hara Heights 1939 looks at a battle in the Nomonhan incident in the summer of 1939, in which the Japanese and Soviets contested the border between Communist Outer Mongolia and Japan's client state of Manchukuo. In this battle, Japanese forces on the western side of the Halsa River, known to the Soviets and Mongolians as the Khalkhin Gol, resist a counterattack by Soviet armor.
STEELP_WAW_01.ZIP (38 Kb)------Yelnia 1941 is an historical scenario from Operation Barbarossa. In late July, the Soviets launch one of a series of counterassaults on a German salient on the upper Dnepr.
STARCRAFT_01.ZIP (144 Kb)------Two scenarios for the science fiction real time strategy game Starcraft, in which humans contend with the loathesome Zerg in widely divergent environments. In Terra Arctica, the theater is a large, frozen wasteland. In Dancing in the Ruins (yes, it is named after the song by Blue Oyster Cult), the enemies fight over another wasteland, this one a desert rich in resources, and full of the wreckage of past occupations and battles.
Both scenarios are designed for one human player, taking the side of his own species, against the computerized Zerg, and both require the Broodwar expansion to the original game.
STEEL_P2_02.ZIP (47 Kb)------Two hypothetical battles between the US Army and Arab opponents in the 1980's. Airmobile Bekaa Valley 1982 is one of an airmobile assault by elements of the 101st Air Assault Division against Syrians in the heart of Lebanon, and West of Tobruk 1986 is an armored battle between invading Americans and the Libyans.
WARCRAFT_II_01.ZIP (25 Kb)-----Two custom maps/scenarios ("PUD's") for the Warcraft II real time strategy game, designed as solitaire games. One, LoD Bad Neighborhood, is a short, nasty duel between humans and Orcs who start off dangerously close to each other. LoD Arctic Islands is a longer scenario in which the humans and Orcs have more time to build economies and technologies before beating each other into extinction.
AOS02 .ZIP(2 Kb)-----Two hypothetical scenarios, one profiling the American ships of the line of the early nineteenth century, and the other a ship-to-ship duel between Naples and Turkey.
STEEL_P3_02 .ZIP (19 Kb)-----A hypothetical scenario from an historical campaign, the Fall of France in 1940. A German panzer division meets French armor on its way to contain the breakthrough to the Channel.
SPWW2_01.ZIP (22 Kb)-----A hypothetical scenario for the newest addition to the venerable Steel Panthers series of tactical games, it portrays one battle of a hypothetical Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1936.
HARP97_03.ZIP (16 Kb)-----A naval battle in North American waters; Soviet submarines and surface vessels try to interdict communications with the main theater of war in Europe, early in the Third World War in the early 1990's.
HARP97_02.ZIP (11 Kb)-----On the first day of war in 1990, spetsnaz troopers of the USSR siezed Iceland by a coup de main. Soon, air units moved to the captured NATO base at Keflavik to defend the island and threaten American troop and equipment convoys on their way to Germany. It was up to the United States Navy and Marine Corps to get it back, spearheaded by the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its battlegroup. But Soviet air, surface and submarine forces in the North Atlantic promised a tough fight. For the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap [GIUK] battleset.
STEEL_P2_01.ZIP (23 Kb)-----A hypothetical World War III scenario, set in 1961.
STEEL_P02.ZIP (17 Kb)-----The British army lands at Sword Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and pushes inland.
STEEL_P3_01.ZIP (15K)-----On 24 January 1941, Italian tankers attempt to turn the tables on their British pursuers in Libya. But after an initial crisis, Royal Tank Regiment cruisers arrive to counter the threat.
HARP97_P01.ZIP (10 Kb)-----Two battles, one in the North Atlantic and the other in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. In The Battle of the Azores (AZORES.* files) represents a battle near those islands in the early days of the Third World War, in the late eighties or early nineties. As Soviet surface units run from Cuba and Africa toward cooler and safer waters, they have to run the gauntlet of British and French carriers and escorting surface ships. For the North Atlantic Covoys [NACV] battleset.
Task Force Comedy (COMEDY.* files) is loosely based on an episode from Tom Clancy's novel Executive Orders. Iran is on the march, threatening America's allies in the Persian Gulf. The Saudis, the primary targets of Iranian aggression, are determined not to make any "provocative" moves in their own defense, but do agree to quietly welcome American air and ground forces. USAF squadrons quickly fly to the Gulf, and transport Army troops to the key base at Dhahran. However, the US Navy has to move their heavy equipment and weapons to Dhahran from Diego Garcia. But due to budget cuts and over-extended commitments, it must do so without the benefit of an aircraft carrier. For the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf [IOPG] battleset.
STEEL_P01.ZIP (13 Kb)-----On 1 July 1944, as part of the great Operation Bagration offensive, elements of the 3rd Guards Tank Army drove on Minsk. Standing in their way at Pleshchinitsy were elements of the German 31st Panzer Regiment, and Tiger tanks of schweres Panzer Abteilung 505.
AOS1.ZIP (4 Kb)-----Six scenarios for Age of Sail, all profiling the early days of the US Navy, after independence. Two represent the USS Constellation's duels with the French frigates Insurgent and Vengeance during the quasi war with France, and four simulate battles with the Royal Navy in the War of 1812.
DESERT1.ZIP (11 Kb)-----Two desert battles. Crusade is a clash of German and British armor on 21 November 1941, the confused and savage "Multi-Layer Battle" of Operation Crusader. Except for a pair of British towed 2-pounder anti-tank guns, it is a pure tank-against-tank battle, pitting the Pzkw IIIh against larger numbers of British Crusaders. This is best played as the British against a German computer player.
In BarLev73, an Israeli tank battalion charges toward the beleagured Bar Lev Line garrisons on the Suez Canal, at the start of the Yom Kippur War, only to meet superior numbers of Egyptian T-62's and BMP-carried infantry, themselves exploiting across the bridgeheads. The Israelis have their Centurion MBT's, but the Egyptians possess trumps themselves in Sagger ATGM's and RPG-7 anti-tank rockets.
MAPS1.ZIP (2 Kb)-----Three maps for Tanks!; LIBYA1.MAP and SINAI1.MAP are the playing areas of the Crusade and BarLev73 scenarios respectively, and GERMANY1.MAP is a temperate map that players can use and modify for their own designs.
IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL ONLINE OF DEPARTURE SCENARIOS REQUIRE A DECOMPRESSION PROGRAM, SUCH AS THE UTILITY PACKAGED WITH WINDOWS XP, OR WINZIP
Scenario files for Age of Sail are simply downloaded into the game's main directory (usually C:\AOS), and decompressed. Then the scenarios are accessed normally.
The files can be downloaded into any directory, though the root directory is the most preferable (i.e., C:\WINHARP or C:\IMAGIC\HARPOON97). Then the player starts the game and chooses the battleset appropriate to the scenario. Harpoon Classic 97 allows user scenarios such as these to be opened directly from the scenario menu, but earlier versions of Harpoon Classic require that the player open a battleset scenario, any one will do, then open the user scenario from the FILE pulldown menu.
Unzip the *.scn file into the scenarios folder, (i.e. C:\MASSIVE ASSAULT\SCENARIOS) and start the game.
Files for Starcraft must be unzipped into the MAPS folder, (i.e. C:\STARCRAFT\MAPS). They are played as one would play any of the custom scenarios published with the game, from the Single Player menu, choosing Custom Scenario, and then the downloaded scenario.
The files are downloaded and unzipped into the game's scenario directory (usually C:\STEEL\SCEN for Steel Panthers for example). If there is another scenario already in the place where an OnLine of Departure one would go, there will be files there with the same name. For example, the Pleshchinitsy 1944 scenario uses the files SCEN120.DAT, SCEN120.CMT, and SCEN120.TXT. In such a case, rename the new files, changing the number at the end to put the scenario in a different, unoccupied part of the roster. By the same example, changing them to SCEN124.* will move them four places down.
In addition, Steel Panthers: World War II players need to download the game itself, for free fortunately, for SP Camo Workshop. To play it, they further need the CD-ROM from either Steel Panthers II or Steel Panthers III. IMPORTANT NOTE: Steel Panthers: World War II scenarios for versions up to 2.2b and not useable with Version 3.0 and vice versa.
Steel Panthers: World at War players need no extra game disk. This version too is free, and can be downloaded from Matrix Games. Be aware though, it is a very large download, and so high speed DSL or cable Internet access is highly recommended.
Files for Warcraft II must be unzipped into the MAPS folder, i.e. (C:\WARCRAFT II\MAPS). They are played as one would play any of the custom scenarios published with the game, from the Single Player menu, choosing Custom Scenario, and then the downloaded scenario.
Files for Tanks! must be unzipped into the correct directories. Scenario files should be placed into the scenario directory (normally C:\TANKS\SCENARIO), and maps go into the one for work (C:\TANKS\WORK).