Battleplan (magazine)

Issue 4

Battleplan was a magazine devoted to providing variants, scenarios, and articles on game strategy for wargaming products by a variety of publishers. The first issue appeared in March/April 1987, with the last issue, Number 9, appearing in 1989. The first six issues had been published by Diverse Talents, Inc. (DTI also published Fire & Movement and Space Gamer at that time) until DTI was bought out by World Wide Wargamers (3W), who continued to publish the magazine for three more issues.

The magazine had low production values, being printed on low grade newsprint rather than high quality paper like its sister magazines of the day.

Major features of the nine issues (list is representative, not exhaustive) are as follows, giving an idea of the range of publishers and games covered by this ambitious but low quality periodical:

Issue 1 - March/April 1987

• Two Squad Leader Scenarios
• Solitaire Scenario for Up Front
• Variant for Avalon Hill's Fortress Europa (including counters)
• Scenario for SSG's Carriers at War
• Rules variants for GDW's A House Divided (first of three part article)
• Political variants for Avalon Hill's Russian Campaign
• Scenario for Task Force's Armor at Kursk
• Variant situation cards and weather effects for Jedko game Field Marshal (including cards)
• Escalation variant for Yaquinto WWII card game Combat Cards II
• Tournament scenario contest for Panther game Warlords of the World
• Assorted small variants for World In Flames, Third Reich, Operation Konrad

Issue 2 - May/June 1987

• Two Squad Leader Scenarios
• Supremacy Variants
• Scenario for SSG's Battlefront
• Rules variants for GDW A House Divided (part 2)
• Scenario for Cobra
• Variants for Cobra
• Variants for Avalon Hill's Luftwaffe
• Japanese Jet variant for Avalon Hill's Dauntless
• Strategy article on Stratego
• Fallschirmjäger variant for Ambush!
• Decline and Fall: 1944-45 Campaign Game (new scenario) for World in Flames
• 4th edition corrections and optional rules for World in Flames
• Variants for Avalon Hill's "Bismarck"
• Variants for Avalon Hill's Wooden Ships and Iron Men
• Assorted small variants for War at Sea, Napoleon's Last Battles, Hue, Op Badr, and Dunkirk 1940
• New aircraft for Avalon Hill's Richthofen's War

Issue 3 - July/August 1987

• scenario for Third Reich
• review of Mission Grenada
• variants and optional rules for Mission Grenada
• two scenarios for Squad Leader
• Squad Leader abbreviations Defined
• rules variants for GDW's A House Divided (part 3)
• alternative Risk rules
• Axis & Allies variants (including cards)
• Empires in Arms variant
• SPI's War in Europe variant
• scenario for Remember the Maine (Strategy & Tactics game)
• extras for GDW's Trenchfoot
• variant for War at Sea

Issue 4 Sep/Oct 1987

• Shogun editorial
• Squad Leader scenarios - based on Guy Sajer's book The Forgotten Soldier
• Panzers at Kursk
• Blue Max variants
• Ambush! scenario
• Battlewagon
• Fortress America
• Battle for Moscow
• Avalon Hill's Midway

Issue 5

• two Squad Leader scenarios
• Russian Campaign II changes and strategies for expansion kit
• new scenarios for Assault on Singapore
• additional campaigns for Top Gun
• two new scenarios for Omega Game's Victory in Europe
• optional rules for A World in Flames
• scenario for Victory Games' 2nd Fleet
• variant for Guns of August
• interview with Rodger MacGowan
• short variants for Duel in the Desert and North African Campaign
• strategies and errata for Last Panzer Victory
• variants for the Battle of Debrecan
• Shanghai Trader Tournament Rules

Issue 6 - June/July 1988

• Midway Random Events
• 1066 review and addendum
• 1066 variants, strategies and tactics
• A House Divided variant with counters
• Central America scenario
• Axis & Allies variant
• strategies in Russian Campaign
• Sniper! (board game): Special Forces scenarios and variants
• World in Flames variant
• scenario for Armor at Kursk
• Air War realism variant
• Empires in Arms strategies

Issue 7 - Aug/Sept 1988

• complete minigame Zulu War
• West End Games' Tank Leader scenarios
• variants for Shogun
• Ancients scenarios
• Battle for Moscow mini-campaign
• GDW's Great Patriotic War errata and new variants
• Fireteam scenarios
• 4th Edition World in Flames preview
• strategies in World in Flames
• scenario for Game Design Workshop's 1940
• scenario for Rommel in the Desert
• Milton Bradley's Fortress America variant
• Extra firefights for Platoon
• variants for B-17, Queen of the Skies
• variant for Okinawa (game included in The Wargamer issue 55)
• extra teams for Team Yankee
• Last Victory
• Raid on St.Nazaire variant
• Red Star/White Star scenarios
• variant for The Last Victory
• variant for Winter Storm

Issue 8 - Jan/Feb 1989

• variant for Eastern Front Solitaire
• variant for Zulu War (last issue's minigame)
• Bismarck House Rules
• scenario for West End Games' Druid
• Drive on Frankfurt variants
• Axis & Allies scenario
• rules for combining Nuclear War and Risk
• Empires in Arms strategies
• aircraft for TSR's Air War
• variants for Fortress America
• US aircraft for GDW's Blue Max
• variant for Yaquinto's Carrier
• scenario for Up Front
• variant for FireTeam
• variants for S&T game Kanev
• Third Reich variant with map and rules
• scenarios for Third Reich

Issue 9 - undated 1989

• Duel in the Desert errata
• 1988 ASL Tournament report
• Russian Front scenario
• Remember the Maine scenario
• Tigers Are Burning scenario
• Airpower in the Middle East - Eagles of the Gulf an Air Superiority module (part one of two, the second unpublished)
• World in Flames variant
• Axis & Allies variants
• campaign game for Rolling Thunder