Omaha Beach & Meine Truppen

One of my wargame fantasies is to game out the invasion of Omaha Beach. I have done so much research on this assault that I feel I know it backwards and forwards. Sometimes, though, I find books or sites that give me even more information. Such is this site, which goes into the number of troops and even their names at each of the Widerstandsnestern.  Great resource.  Here is another site that gives specific info about each of the German resistance points.  With this kind of detail, constructing a map of the region should be easy to do.  A real labor of love.

Certainly Omaha Beach would use the Meine Truppen rules currently under development.  With the low number of tanks, the use of armored strong points, suppressive fire and close-in tactics, this would be an obvious choice for an infantry-centered game.  Note that MT will be 1 inch = 25yds, which will allow for a great deal of detail, but not be a skirmish game.  We expect the maneuver unit to be the platoon, with each stand a section or team.

Currently I have a campaign in development for MT, which I will not divulge until we release the game itself.

Meine Truppen

The third project your humble narrator is working on is the infantry-centric version of Mein Panzer, to be called Meine Truppen. MP itself is actually an excellent infantry game, so much so that my group has had many very enjoyable infantry only battles. Take a look here for some of the AAR's that the Miracle Mile Gamers (MMG) have posted. But the detail we use really makes for a different game at a different scale. Soon I will do a general call for playtesters of this new game, since the folks who currently have the game seem to be sitting on it. Got to make some progress somehow.

Anyone who is interested, leave a note here and let me know a little bit about yourself.

beta test of a different sort

Time to get up and finish the beta test kit for our next General Quarters offering. We hope for a Christmas release on this one, but I am pretty much convinced that will not happen. It is a big game, and will require quite an outlay of playtesting time to finish properly. Then there is the publishing side of it. With the demise of Quality Print-on-Demand, many game publishers are scrambling to find new printers.  So we are faced with several challenges.  First and foremost is getting the game in the hands of the playtesters.  And that is my job.

Drum beats on the Battleline pt. 2

I am anxious to see all the posts arriving about the Battlelines playtest rules, for good or ill. Have not come up with a good plan yet for the Command section, though some limitation on the ability of all units to do whatever they want is likely in the works. The original designer of Battlelines absolutely hated morale and command rules, so much so that he never used them when playing his Mein Panzer games. He left it up to me to design those sections. Now I have been doing quite a bit of reading to see how command was administered in the late "Lace Wars" period, just prior to the Napoleonic years. I want the rules to work within the game context, but also to be unique in giving the flavor of late 18th century warfare in the New World.

Drum beats on the Battleline pt. 1

The first several chapters have made it to the playtesters via the ODGW web site, which, wonder of wonders, seems to be working now, even for yours truly. There have been changes to Battlelines, which will annoy, even outrage, those who are used to the old version, but the proof is in the playing. I want to see how it works first before cutting off the new version at the knees. There were some anomalous things that occurred in the rules, that I struck out, making the rules simpler and cleaner. We will see how they are received in this new, controversial version.

new place for playtesters

The web site is now accessible. A key feature preventing access to many ISP's has been turned off, allowing almost everyone through. The only requirement for access is that you register. Once you have done so, shoot me an email at gregoryfk@odgw.com, and I will give Battlelines volunteers playtester status.

Battlelines volunteers

We still hold out hope for the web site, which is undergoing repair as I write this. In the meantime, I have completed the first two chapters, and am willing to send them to you, since they are introductory and do not need the meat and potatoes of the actual rules, which start with Chapter 3.

N.B. My writing style is most definitely different than that of the original designer, so if there are jarring syntactical shifts, you'll know why.

Playtesters, please

Now the response from TMP has been most heartening, but the possibility of using the ODGW web site as the venue for discussion seems unlikely. What with its mercurial accessibility, I hold out no hope of using it reliably. This blog, however, is stable and perfectly easy to find. So here may be the gathering place for the Battlelines playtest group. I just knew this electronic space would come in handy some day.