VANGUARD

20 Dec, 2025

A month or so ago,¹ I played in a little low-key Cataphracts-like wargame called Over/Under. I got a lot out of that game, including a load of new internet friends and at least two Discord servers. But the aftermath and come-down also rekindled something else - my interest in my own Cataphracts-derived wargame, VANGUARD.

As of yesterday, the 1.0 rules have been locked, and the first scenario I created (The Tinh Hai Emergency) has an official start date. I've gathered 80 players over 7 factions, and a team of 12 GMs. I'm excited, nervous, and curious all over. If you're interested in watching it unfold, tune your radios to this channel and listen closely.

Why VANGUARD?

The name CATAPHRACT² evokes the core of the wargame:

• It's the name of a military unit, one of the most hard-hitting, heavily armed and armored of its era. It's about war.
• It's a military unit that existed from late antiquity to the High Medieval period, fighting in the sort of warfare the rules reflect.
• It's the name of a unit that could only be fielded by the great empires, like the Sassanians and Byzantines, focusing the setting on wars between larger factions, not just small, personal disputes between single lords and their unlanded retainers.³

I felt like VANGUARD (as in revolutionary vanguard) also communicated the key points of my game:

• It's an armed group (and a military term), but also a revolutionary group, focused not just on winning an armed conflict but building a new state and society on its victory.
• It's a modern concept that (to my understanding) only came into existence in the early 20th century; my game focuses on modern and postmodern conflicts.
• It is a group that operates in an asymmetric context, often fighting against far larger powers and leveraging the weaknesses of hegemons to achieve victory.

Okay, but why make VANGUARD?

I never met a ruleset I didn't want to change. I am a perpetual tinkerer; I am incapable of looking at anything and saying "Yes, that is exactly how I want to do it." I don't know what's wrong with my mind, but whenever I meet something inspirational, it veers into a tangential direction.

So when I saw CATAPHRACT, read the design diaries, talked to people who played, I was enraptured, but I also thought, "What if it had tanks and planes?"

I'm also fascinated by industrial warfare. War has a lot of continuity over human history, but the material conditions of an industrialized world drastically change how, when, and why wars are fought. I wanted to explore ideas like mobile warfare, the impact of artillery and air power, and the balance between expensive capabilities and their asymmetric counters.

Why the Tinh Hai Emergency?

First, the initial decolonization wars just after World War II are fascinating. The Allies, including the British and French empires, had "won" the war, but the old order was irrevocably overturned. The world was now dancing to the tune of sole superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Both of them had been prominent before the war, but after they were thrust to center stage. No one knew what the next half-century would bring. Maybe the newly formed United Nations would defuse war forever, and mankind would peacefully unite. Maybe the devious communists would infiltrate the West, and bring democracy tumbling down. Maybe the capitalists and their armed lackeys would encircle the bastions of socialism, and grind them to dust. Maybe there was just going to be another Big War, and this time every city would share the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In this environment, it's easy to see why many revolutionary groups and political parties thought they finally had their shot at power. It's also easy to see why dying empires might cling on to whatever colonies they had left. Ideological rivals battled each other and the colonial powers, while appealing to the international community for aid. They competed not just on the battlefield, but in a war of ideas, trying to build legitimacy for their political projects. It was messy, chaotic, and unstable well into the late cold war, and often until today. This setup, where there are some broad alignments but lots of individual variation, fits a wargame where RPG-like play can occur.

Second, the decolonization wars were often an asymmetric fight between complex industrial militaries, and simpler but highly motivated forces. I like asymmetric scenarios in general, but in this case, it means I can test concepts like armor and air warfare while they have a limited presence. Most of the forces can operate similarly to standard Cataphracts games. Maybe in the future I'll run a scenario between peer forces, but I want to test the new things in isolation first.

Bonus Section

Things I Would Add in VANGUARD 2.0

• Engineer detachments. This was a little bit of an oversight. Engineering units have been a part of modern warfare since the 18th century. This can be handled in the fiction, but especially with fortification procedures, distinct engineer detachments could be reasonably standardized.
• Large and small artillery. Undifferentiated artillery is alright, but having different sizes of artillery opens up options for army composition and battlefield tactics. If I were to do this, the light artillery would get the anti-air capability, and the heavy artillery would keep the bombardment ability, and require proper artillery shells.
• Artillery shells. Major wars in the 20th century had shell crises, and anyone looking to use heavy artillery should be prepared to bear their logistical load. Right now, the abstraction works fine, and the weight of supplies expended is based on a measure of 155mm shells, so it's reasonably reflective of the fiction. It's just more handwavy than it could be.
• Robust treatment of POWs. This felt a little too fiddly for the first draft, but I'd like more mechanics around capture, exchanges, maybe even prison breaks.
• Move back to 6-mile hexes. Yes, it will make any decently-sized conflict map huge, but I think it would simplify and allow for some cool granularity.
• Medical units, hospitals, and wounded. This is another thing that can be handled narratively and abstractly, but I think the ability to get wounded off the battlefield and recover casualties would be an interesting tool in a commander's toolkit.
• Proper naval ships. A modern combat ship is a complicated beast. Each one would be a detachment unto itself. They have unique logistical challenges, capabilities, and limitations. Each type of ship would likely need a fairly robust writeup to communicate what it can and can't do. However, this has been one of the most asked-about elements of the conflict. Telling folks that it would be handled narratively was just a touch disappointing.

Ideas for Other CATAPHRACT Games/Scenarios

I just think these would be neat.

• Seven Days to the River Rhine. 168 straight hours of non-stop operational action, with an additional 48 hour "overtime" period if neither side completes their objectives. Then the big bombs fall. Primary unit of time is the 4-hour watch instead of the day. Four factions (NATO, USA, Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact) face off in two teams. The Soviets lead an all-out assault on West Germany and the Low Countries in response to nuclear strikes in Poland. Map would cover eastern France and the Low Countries to Poland west of Warsaw. It would mostly likely require a super low player to GM ratio. But hey, player exhaustion would be diegetic!
• The Seven Years' War in North America (Real or fictionalized.) Between native nations, different colonial governments, and the duelling imperial forces, there's a lot of great faction interplay. Eastern North America is also beautiful country, and as far as I know, fairly unexplored as inspiration for Cataphracts? Plus, it's a war where commanders are still frequently in mortal danger. Will you die like Wolfe, or like Braddock?
• The American Civil War. Get like 300 players, and play across literally the entire stretch of North America, from San Francisco to Washington, from Texas to New York. This would probably be beyond insane to run and take a long time (sorry for anyone who gets stuck garrisoning D.C.⁴), but I think it's a cool idea
• The Battle of Britain. VANGUARD but it's all air ops. The key here would be that you're not trying to command the fighter squadrons for tactical victories, because that's out of the operational scope phracts thrives in. It's about whether you can build the engine of attrition that brings your opponent to their knees. Can you build the Dowding system before Parliament throws in the towel? Can the Luftwaffe knock out enough aircraft and airfields to hit their morale targets without being attrited to death?
• Rogue Traders in Warhammer 40,000. Each RT is a commander, subcommanders are either vassal fleets or heirs. Most of the movement is fleet action. You could not have it take place fully in real-time, I think. It would just take too long. That or I make the warp travel and system travel times shorter. I would just need to adjust a few things and oh no I've started writing it and it's called WARRANTSHIP.

#rpg #vanguard