Work continues on the next campaign for the GQIII Decisions at Sea series. The next one is likely to be for Fleet Action Immanent a WWI campaign in the North Sea. We have a little work still to go on it before publication. But playtests so far have been promising.

Sudden Storm

Here is the back cover which has a more complete list of what the game will contain.  We are very excited about this module, as playtesting has shown it to be a very involving experience, with lots of different strategies possible.

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.

ACW scenario Books

There are two very good sources for the miniature gamer currently available.  First is the latest in Savas Beatie Press's excellent maps series entitled The Maps of Chickamauga: An Atlas of the Chickamauga Campaign, Including the Tullahoma Operations, June 22 - September 23, 1863.   As with their earlier map books on Civil War battles, this one is designed to bring clarity to the campaign via very detailed and colorful hour by hour accounting.  For the wargamer, there are maps in great detail, along with the history of the movements, allowing anyone to accurately set up their tabletop and game out the numerous skirmishes up to the large battles that ultimately decided the fate of the Rebel and Union armies involved.

Also recommended is a new scenario book on Chickamauga, titled River of Death, available as a .pdf download from the Wargame Vault.  This resource has listings of twelve scenarios fought during the final battles of the campaign.  Importantly, it is designed to be rules-neutral, so it gives figure scales of 20:1 all the way to 100:1.  Likewise, it lists variable turn lengths, total number of men in the regiments, and all the info needed to use in just about any regimental ACW game on the market.  I cannot see why anyone who is even remotely interested in the campaign would not pick up this valuable resource.  I look forward to many games using its scenarios on this largely neglected campaign and battles, which ended up as the second most bloody of all the Civil War battles.  Highly recommended!  Let’s hope the folks at Historic Imagination see fit to publish more scenario books, and not just for ACW.  This type of treatment could benefit any historical era.

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.

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.