Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
I have always believed that the success of sessions can often be judged by how quickly time passes and in this game it was noticeable how nearly all the players’ first comments post game were along the lines of ‘where did the time go’. This was an online version of a traditional map based WW2 […]
This was Deborah’s game about the surreal sounding but actual historical happening – the Emu Wars of 1932 in Australia. Just to set the scene, this was: “a nuisance wildlife management military operation undertaken in Australia over the later part of 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be running […]
Emu Wars is a landscape (map) -based game derived from real life events. In 1932, over 20,000 emus, large flightless birds indigenous to Australia, broke through the rabbit-proof fence on their annual migration to the coast. The emus saw the recently established croplands as a ‘tucker basket’, and the farmers saw the emus as dangerous […]
My role in this online game by Nick Luft, was as Chief of Staff to Deborah at 5th Panzer Brigade HQ. Communications. This game worked fine using Discord. The different channels worked fine or maybe fine. It took me a little while to get idea of the game, and it moved very fast, so I […]
As part of a course on game design, I was asked to critique a game. I thought it may be of interest to other Military Muddlers. Urban Nightmare: State of Chaos (Game designer: Jim Wallman) is a megagame exploring how government and city authorities in the USA might respond to an emerging zombie apocalypse. The […]
This is a follow on from my previous piece about using an interactive map hosted by ConceptBoard. All the controls referred to here relate to features on ConceptBoard. I guess that these techniques will be easily recreated on other Interactive Whiteboards. Seize Warsaw – at Virtual COW 2021 I ran a slightly modified game of […]
I have been thinking how to enable the players to have their own interactive map and counters. I was disappointed how I facilitated the players’ map in my recent game “Seize Warsaw“. I had provided the players with a map and counters via a Google Slides (PowerPoint). James Kemp copied this and maintained his version […]
Many thanks to Nick Luft for putting on his game about a battlegroup of the 4th Panzer Div attacking Warsaw on 7 Sept 1939. I found it rather spooky in a couple of ways and they affect my initial impressions of the game as well as reflecting my status as an old person. Back in […]
Seize Warsaw was inspired by reading about a failed offensive of the 4th Panzer Division which attempted – on its own – to attack and take Warsaw. This event occurred during the collapse of part of the Polish Army, 6 and 7 September. The Panzer Division thought it could push into the gap formed by […]
This is a review of a radio broadcast and a musing on the ideas it deals with. Review The radio broadcast was on the BBC World Service and is part of the series: The Cultural Frontline. The episode: Board games: The politics of play It starts by looking at the boardgame Pandemic, and its happenstance […]