Historicon prelims

I am much looking forward to Historicon.  It will be a needed break from life here in Los Angeles.  The trip will encompass more than the convention itself, as our group immediately following the con will head to Philadelphia for visits to USS Olympia, a member of the Great White Fleet, then across the river to USS New Jersey.  From there it is on to Gettysburg for two days, and other ACW battlefields following that stop on the way to Richmond, Virginia.  Not even sure where we are going, but I plan to tag along.  I am one of the drivers, after all.

American Battlelines will be on my table at H-con, and I hope to get some feedback on the changes to the rules I have proposed.  Mostly, in fact all, of the reviews from playtesters so far has been positive.  The fiddly bits have been trimmed, and the important decisions left in the game.  Morale is one significant area that was changed.  No longer do you have to roll morale every time you take casualties, but instead once per turn, when the unit is activated.  A significant number of die rolls are eliminated, and it is more realistic, in that a big unit cannot take desultory fire from two units, and then break before its next activation.  Now mods are stacked on the unit for Morale, and it is more like to have adverse consequences as a result.

I look forward to the gaming, the shopping, the camaraderie, and my once-per-year chance to see my partners.  It is the one business meeting I attend in person.

Gaming accessories

The Dial Dude makes great gaming accessories.  I use them for all my American Battlelines games, and will probably adapt them to the Mein Panzer family soon.

Recently, the best maker of paper terrain, Scott Washburn of Paper Terrain, has updated his offerings for 6mm.  That is my WWII scale, so these new bridges along with all his other terrain makes for a very impressive table at a fraction of the cost of resin or metal terrain.

San Diego gaming

We had a game down in San Diego this weekend, a refight of the First Battle of Savo Island.  One of the problems with this battle is that it is almost impossible without masses of rules to recreate the conditions which led to such a spectacular loss by the Allies.  It has the same problem that strategic WWII games suffer from, i.e., how can France lose so quickly.  In both cases there often are "idiot" rules.  In the ODGW version of the battle, we use it as an optional start for our Solomons Campaign.  Even with strong rules hampering the Allies, it is very lucky if the Kaigun can pull off an historical result.  In Sunday's playing of the battle, the Japanese lost one destroyer to the Allies one destroyer, one or two minesweepers, and two transports off Tulagi.   Not bad at all, considering.  Rated a tactical victory for the IJN.

Next time I am in San Diego I am going to run a straight up armour bashing for the Gametowne guys.  They like Mein Panzer, and have enjoyed the two games played so far.  After that, in two weeks, I go down to run Formula One racing using Formula D, a re-issue of the original Formula Dé.  Should be fun.  With Historicon looming sooner than I think, it will be a quite a spring and summer's worth of gaming.

Artillery and other unwanted effects

Artillery was a potent force in WWII, supposedly the #1 source of casualties.  I have never been able to track down the source of that statistic, but it is repeated so often it has become commonly accepted knowledge.  In wargames, however, no one really wants fire from the sky in anything like historical terms.  Looking at historical OoB's, AT guns, mortars, and artillery assets were very common.  Why is it then that players so resent mortars and off-board artillery in their games.  Maybe because it is out of the player's control as they maneuver their infantry and armor around the board.  For the U.S. forces it makes up for untrained infantry and deficient armor.  One U.S. army officer in Europe said once that he moved about five to ten miles each bound.  Then he would call down the artillery on the enemy position, and advance another five to ten miles.  So you can see playing without the artillery for any of the western Allies hamstrings them unfairly.

The new playtest rules have significant changes to the artillery, which make it quite a force to be reckoned with.

MMG and Hidden Movement

The most complicated spotting method you are likely to see is the one used by the Miracle Mile Gamers, who value subterfuge over everything.  Even though it slows down the game, they are willing to have the referee make judgment calls over every line of sight and hidden unit than to put dummy and real counters on the board.  I am going to try and overturn this convention when next I run a game for the MMG dudes.  I think there will be howls of protest. But I am looking at anything that will speed up the game, and this most certainly will.

Recommended modules

There are many good scenario books available now.  Four publishers in particular sell useful products.  Treadhead Games pitches their scenarios at exactly the scale of Mein Panzer.  They have two scenario books covering lesser known areas of WWII, that are well worth the effort.  First is White Death, covering the Soviet-Finnish war in 1939.  The second is Balkans on Fire, covering Italians vs Greece, then some Commonwealth vs German scenarios.  Another good source for scenarios is the Rapid Fire modules that can be downloaded from the Wargame Vault. These translate into MP fairly simply, although it takes some getting used to the Rapid Fire method of OoB's.  Too Fat Lardies produces a number of huge scenario campaigns available for download.  Finally, Skirmish Campaigns puts out books that are located at a level that might be better for the forthcoming Meine Truppen, but they can be scaled up to a next larger scale without too much problem.  Just try to keep the same number of pieces on the map as the scenarios call for, and you should do all right.

Our group just recently ran a Soviet-Finnish game out of the Treadhead games book, that the Finnish barely won.  They had to kill a lot of the enemy to do it, though.  And I can now legitimately say that I have won at least once in a Mein Panzer game.

Artillery and the ubiquitous deviation

In almost every WWII game, indirect fire artillery fire deviates randomly.  This is patently incorrect, as spotting rounds that came in were invariably corrected and fire brought on target in almost every case.  There were rare cases of short rounds in the war, and they became so infamous that games endeavor to recreate them in every artillery shoot.  A recent discussion on the Forum at the ODGW web site illustrates the confusion over how artillery worked, and works.  The rules for Mein Panzer and certainly for Meine Truppen will be amended to account for this reality.

For those of you who want a lucid explanation directed at the layman on how artillery works, go here.  It will give you all you really need to know about how artillery works, and how different nations employed this essential arm of combat during the Second World War.

Real wargaming

Here is how it really should be.

San Diego road trip

Travelled south to San Diego to host a Mein Panzer engagement yesterday.  My standard training scenario, "Is That You, Sacha?", has small amounts of artillery (mortars), infantry, and light AFV's, which makes it perfect for novices spooling up on the rules.  It pits an American Armored Cav battlegroup against a German Panzer Recon group.  After playing it, most gamers are ready for more involved units and tactics.  Each time I have run it, there has been a dramatically different outcome.  This time the "Amis" won, using a long range gunnery duel with the AFV's to decide the issue.  The infantry in the centrally located town failed to make contact with each other, and did not factor in the fight.  I believe both sides had a good time, which bodes well for more games in the future.

Debuting Mein Panzer

I am scheduled to referee a Mein Panzer game in San Diego for the Gametowne local group on the first weekend in December.  ODGW has a standard scenario which I use for these games, involving light recon forces fighting over a town.  A little armor, a little towed artillery, and a little infantry — just enough to give everyone a taste of how the game is played in combined arms fashion.  These are experienced gamers, so they should pick up the rules quickly.  The scenario is quick and dirty, with no hidden movement or anything else to get in the way of the action.  I suggest it for any game system as a trial run. It is located here for your gaming pleasure.

I worry about doing a good job of presenting the game, so that it is an enjoyable experience for all involved, and that it shows the game in a good light.  It is always good to study up on the rules prior to playing so that there is a high degree of familiarity with the rules when the time for the game comes.  The scenario should be easy, and the level of play required simple.  And mostly, the ref should be ready.

Drum beats on the Battleline pt.4

The first round of comments from the ODGW staff has been received and answered, and it was not as negative as I expected.  In a post to me, "lively discussion" was the operative term for their first game using the modified rules.  This first staff playtest of the revised American Battlelines generated a predictable wave of questions.  Some were omissions; others were clarifications and explanations.  Overall the game plays cleaner, but this means making changes, which are rarely welcome.  Battlelines had some kludgey rules to it that detracted from its forthright play.  Taking those out meant making the game simpler, and more concentrated on the tactics rather than dealing with special one-off rules.  I have reduced the number of lookup items, to make finding the correct modifiers (of which there are still too many) easier. I have yet to post a Command chapter, so that area is still unresolved.  Otherwise, the comments did seem to be somewhat supportive, rather than wholly dismissive.  Playtests on this set of rules have not been forthcoming, so I will have to wait longer for neutral results.  I am an inpatient man by nature, so that is a hard thing for me to do.

In terms of controversy, wait until they find out I want to change the cover.  Currently a game for the AWI, Mexican-American War, and ACW has a 50-star U.S. flag on the cover.  Bit jarring, that.

Formations

I am currently doing some research on the variety of attack formations used in the horse & musket era, specifically from the ACW back through the Wilderness, or French & Indian (native American) War.  Though few were used in North America until the large formations of our conflagration in 1861-65, they require study for the usage to which they were put for understanding all the conflicts, including the Napoleonic era.  While slogging through Steven Ross's book, From Flintlock to Rifle: Infantry Tactics, 1740-1866, which I can only read in short sections due to its dry-as-dust presentation, I have just about finished my current read on the politics of the secession during the ACW.  Then I will launch into With Zeal & Bayonet Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783, which comes highly recommended as a tactical study of the British army in its war against the rebellious colonists.  The all-important maneuver aspect is requiring a great deal of study, so that we can get its effects fine-tuned, and decide what to include and how to include them.

Drum beats on the Battleline pt. 3

Entrenched views change slowly.  I have updated two chapters for the American Battlelines project, and I am awaiting the controversy, since I have simplified several of the rules.  The only thing more involved, and still not very complex, is charging, which is to horse & musket games as torpedo attack resolution is to modern naval games.  Am awaiting responses to this latest version of the rules.

MMG and infantry

Here are pictures of our 6mm infantry, based and ready for play.  With these we fight out both pure infantry actions and combined arms battles.  We also have French, British, and U.S. troops.  The figures on the left are Heroics & Ros, while the Germans are GHQ figures.  The Germans were based better than the H&R, which could use flocking on their bases — something I will rectify some day.

Miracle Mile Gamers

My group of gamers is called the Miracle Mile Gamers (MMG) for its location in Los Angeles.

Despite calling itself a "playtest" group, the players are notoriously resistant to rules changes.  They like the consistency of one set.  We play a full bore version of Mein Panzer exclusively — only WWII, and only 6mm.  The ODGW Lounge on the website has many of our AAR's (after action reports).  Sacha, our host for our battles, is an architect by trade and does a superior job at creating scenery for our tables.  His excellent set-ups create believable villages and terrain for us to fight over.  Fortunately, he has a large amount of Geo-hex 12" terrain that he obtained before the company disappeared and the stuff became terribly overpriced merchandise.

The Meine Truppen rules have been extensively tested by our group, and are literally the only version of the game we play, although we use squads rather than sections.  1" = 25yds is our preferred scale, and lends itself to great infantry actions.  Even without the MT improvements, Mein Panzer is a great infantry game.

Strategicon

I attended Strategicon in Los Angeles this weekend as an official representative of Old Dominion GameWorks.  As publisher of General Quarters III, my presence was requested by the “Special Projects Team.”  They are a good bunch of guys who are literally swimming upstream, trying to inject interest in miniatures into this thrice-annual convention by inveigling gamemasters to run lots of games.  Strategicon had become a miniatures desert for a while, and now it is still pretty arid, but there is a trickle of activity.  They are doing their best.  One of the things the Special Projects people do is run GQIII games in 1:700 scale, on a cordoned off area of the exhibit hall floor, with a measuring cloth ruler about 20-30 feet long.  Very eye-catching and well attended.

Strategicon itself is predominantly a boardgame and role-playing con, with Euro games in abundance in the boardgame rooms.  Historical gaming takes a back seat everywhere, including the miniatures area, yielding much of its space to Star Fleet Battles, Warhammer in its various incarnations, and Battletech.  So there is a challenge in looking for passing folks interested in trying something new.

I refereed two games of the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, a fairly well balanced scenario between the USN and the Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy).  In the event, it was a US victory, with the Japanese inflicting almost as much damage to themselves through collisions as were inflicted by the Americans.  Historically, USN cruisers' gunfire quickly disabled one Japanese light cruiser. Then two IJN destroyers collided during one's torpedo attack.  Finally, a Kaigun heavy cruiser sliced off the bow of yet another destroyer.  In my games, the U.S. won once, and in the other they had their head handed to them by successful Japanese torpedo fire.  As usual, there were problems with getting adequate table space for games.  Despite using 1:6000 miniatures, I had problems running a game on a small 6’ x 2½’ riser.  The con can do better in allocating sufficient area to miniatures games.

Some friends from San Diego made a day trip to the con, and played in a car racing game called Speed Rally (I think).  It quickly degenerated into Circus Maximus with automobiles, with only one car moving at the end of six laps.  Much hilarity as they collided with and shot at each other.  A good bit better than the much-revered Car Wars, in my view.

I managed to include playing in one game run by a local gamer of the Battle of Iuka, Mississippi, an ACW historical affair from 1862.  Had my entire Union brigade run off its center position by the successful charge of one somewhat depleted Confederate brigade, so I was done fairly early in the game.  Eventually the Union would win, surprisingly.  The casualties the Confederates were racking up finally caught up with them.  Great fun, and demonstrated another game system and how it handles American Civil War combat.

I traded my first edition of Yaquinto’s game Ironclads.  Glad it went to an appreciative friend, who will make some use of it, since I never will.  As much as I enjoy naval conflict in general, ACW has never appealed to me.  Too much like hitting an anvil with a hammer.  Mais, chacun à son goût!

Meine Truppen playtesting

So I have a few responses from my four hundred and one email blast to the Mein Panzer database.  Good to see that some are willing to try out my weird and unusual concepts.  I have one idea that is very radical, involving a wholesale change in the way the game is played.  May introduce this to the playtesters at a later stage as an alternative.

secret pleasures

Dare I say it?  I play other publishers' games.  And enjoy them.  I think that no one has a monopoly on the right approach or answer.  And ODGW does not cover every period in which I have an interest.   Seeing how other designers answer the questions of how to simulate a battle churns my creative juices.  Let's face it, as one of my professors in college once said, you will have one, maybe two, completely original ideas in your lifetime.  It may not be the best place to have them on something as mundane as a wargame.

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.