Category: Books, Mags, Websites

Press Release: Wally Simon’s Secrets Of Wargame Design

Russ Lockwood has just published a booklet entitled: Wally Simon’s SECRETS OF WARGAME DESIGN: A Tabletop Toolkit of Ideas, Analysis, and Rule Mechanics (Volume 1). As you may know, Wally Simon was one of the founders of Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (in the USA), hosting the first meeting in his basement. A statistician by trade, he used his mathematical skills to analyse probabilities within wargame mechanics. “Wally’s Basement” at the HMGS Historicon conventions is named after him. With 25 years of work to draw on, this is the first in a series a ‘best of’ booklets that explore the nuts and bolts of wargame design as seen through his eyes.

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John Curry’s “History Of Wargaming” Upate

On the 04 May 2012 John Curry sent the following update out concerning his “History of Wargaming” project for those who may not have seen it:

This is a short occasional update on the publishing progress of the History of Wargaming Project. The project has gone digital and about 20 of the books/rules are now available as e-books from the iBook Store, The Nook, or from www.lulu.com. The rest of the back catalogue will be converted in due course. Peter Perla’s Art of Wargaming, a book about the professional use of wargaming (as well as much interesting material about the history of wargaming), is now out in paperback. Donald Featherstone has seen his novel Redcoats for the Raj, back into print and he has completed a new novel, The Badgered Men. Donald Featherstone’s classic book Air War Games has now been updated and is now [again] in print.

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Warhammer Waterloo Playtest at F’ de Onoro

I recently purchased a copy of Waterloo from Warhammer Historicals – partly because it was on 50% discount, but also partly because initial feedback was quite positive about it’s production quality and content. I’ve had it for a few days but to date have only managed to skim read through it so as yet haven’t looked into the actual game mechanics in detail – but I can say production quality is superb – and on a par with Kampfgruppe Normandy (although Waterloo is not such a ‘heavy’ book).

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Maurice: 18th Century Rules from Sam Mustafa

Sam Mustafa has made an initial announcement of his much awaited new rules scheduled for release early in 2012. These are focussed on the linear warfare of the 18th Century (specifically 1690 to 1790)  and named after the famous French Marshal Maurice de Saxe. The rules look to include some new innovative thoughts utilising action cards and feature a “Succession Wars” campaign. And they have been built with Imagi-Nations in mind as well, featuring flexibility of unit ratings and even troop scale! Finally a reason to dust off my boxes of Wargames Factory plastic figure boxes and get on with building my War of the Spanish Succession (WSS) armies – Marlborough here I come! You can download a copy of Sam’s flyer in PDF, about Maurice: War in the Age of Gentlemen and ‘Philosophes’ 1690-1790 here from Wargaming.info. Or you can read more from Sam at the Honour Games website and/or download the flyer from the Honour Games Download Page. Continue reading “Maurice: 18th Century Rules from Sam Mustafa”

The 10 Commandments for A Wargames Club

Well the latest Classic Wargamer’s Journal is out – and in it is an article from Dan Grove of the HATSOFF (Heart of America Tactical and Strategic Order of the Followers of Featherstone) Wargaming Club. Dan points out that in addition to rules for playing wargames a club also needs rules for the club itself. The HATSOFF Club have their 10 ‘commandments’ which have been in play for 35 years and Dan assures readers their club has run to the spirit of their intent the entire time. In the unlikely event something crops up outside the particular rules of a specific game they also have a ‘Quadribium’, which consists of the 4 senior club members, or the 4 members hosting the game(s), who are called on to make a unanimous adjudication – the Quadribium has been convened once in 35 years!

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In Search of Points: Lasalle!

Below is a first attempt at an unofficial points system for the Napoleonic game – Lasalle.

Lasalle contains a number of set army lists for the main armies. They provide a great introduction. But they only reflect a fraction of possible lists. Playing the same few army lists repeatedly against each other could get dull fairly quickly.

This points system below tries to address this.

Using this points system and the excellent (and now free) Nafziger army lists, players can construct any number of armies that are consistent in size with the army lists in the Lasalle book.

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Lost in the Wilderness: Napoleonics?

FOGN (Field Of Glory: Napoleonics) is a regimental game where 1 unit is a regiment. It has small units (1200-2000 men for infantry) and large units (2000-3000 men). This means it is an in-between scale game (sort of like Principles of War), where you can change formation into things that look like column, line, square and skirmish but aren’t really (and in practice you stay in one formation for most of the game in FOGN).

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The FOG versus DBMM Debate

One of the big challenges facing the club today is the debate in Ancients Gaming between DBMM and FOG. As in many other clubs and wargaming groups around the world at present there is a split between gamers who prefer FOG and those who prefer DBMM – luckily the AWC at least has no odd Ostriches still sticking to DBM (of course there is nothing really wrong with that if its your thing, but its a position causing a 3 way rules-set split of gamers in some areas so doesn’t help unify the scene)!

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Wargaming Scales

Figure scales are expressed two ways, either as a simple measurement, e.g. 25mm, defining how high a figure of a normal man or woman stands or as a ratio, e.g. 1/48th, defining how big a model vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or construction is in relation to the real thing. The emphasis here is on the former classification with the latter provided where possible as an approximate comparison.

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Brief History Of Wargaming

The following is a brief history of modern wargaming told in quotes from various wargaming books & authors:

“It was in Europe that the early forms of wargaming gradually took on a more sophisticated appearance. During the Seventeenth Century several variations on the basic game of chess were introduced. During the Eighteenth Century a number of games were introduced into France which departed from the idea of pieces and which used series of cards designed to impart basic military knowledge to the players. Also, at about this time, silver model soldiers were being used at the French Court to instruct the future king, Louis XIV, in the art of war” – David Nash (Wargames – 1974).

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Wargaming Periods

Periods are the “Eras” or “Level of Technology” present for wargaming. Having a Greek Army of 300 BC facing a Russian Army of 1944 AD is obviously quite a mismatch and both armies need quite different sets of rules to control how they perform. Hence we have “Periods” in which armies all operated in similar ways, or with similar weapons, and can be ‘played’ using a common set of rules.

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A Brief Outline of Japanese Tank Divisions in World War II

1st Armoured Division, WDA.
Formed July 1942.

  • 1st Mobile Infantry Regiment.
  • 1st Anti Tank Battalion.
  • 1st Tank Regiment.
  • 5th Tank Regiment.
  • 1st Armoured Recon Unit
  • 1st Mobile Artillery Regiment.
  • 1st Armoured Divisional Antiaircraft Defence Unit.
  • 1st Armoured Divisional Engineer Unit.
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