Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
Onside Review by Nick Luft Recently I attended a “Boardgame Designers Masterclass” hosted by James Wallis. He said at the end of the session that if he wanted us to take away one lesson it was this: if and when you are inspired to design a game, make it immediately. Don’t fret about pretty counters […]
This is the Milmud Editor’s Report 2019 for the CLWG Business Meeting. I can’t be sure that I’ll be able to attend the meeting, but I’ll be with you in spirit if not. Editor’s Report 2019 Restructuring Milmud as CLWG’s website As directed at the previous business meeting the website has been collapsed into the […]
Modelling Idiocy in the ACW [preview] For many years now I have been fascinated with the difficulties of modelling in a fun, challenging manner some of the total losers of history, rather than the usual suspects on the (much shorter) genius list – you know, good old ‘Unfortunate Mack’ (1805), any Frenchman in 1940, English/Russian […]
Onside report of a game design session at CLWG in September 2019 on strategic Finance for the Nine Years War.
Part 2 So the French had made their plans for invading Britain (see Island Fortress 1 for background and details). I needed to find a way of running the British planning game and decided to step outside of CLWG to make use of a small gaming group at work, which would ensure no planning leaks […]
Napoleonic Divisional Management Game (by Peter Merritt) This session was originally inspired to fill the blank page of things on offer…. However, on the day I was surprised to find that (a) I had an audience, and (b) they were all from our wonderful associates based in the Netherlands! After some initial chatting, I began […]
The Art of Steal- Err, Adapting Classic Toys For Wargaming An occasional series on raiding the toy cupboard for wargming ideas (or future Christmas presents, if they’ve not got it already!) #1 – Snakes & Ladders as siege simulator Some considerable time ago now I was looking at the problem of a systemic game process […]
Rehearsal For Armageddon – The Balkan Wars Further attempts at a megagame operational system (by Peter Merritt) The intention of this session was to present the latest in my series of attempts to get a fast-to-play, easily understood system which would form the ‘third leg’ of my design for a – possible – megagame of […]
In September I’d like to run a design session on mechanisms that lead to players making decisions on logistics and strategy. The more I read on the ‘Glorious Revolution‘ and the military aftermath, the more I realise that what lead to victory wasn’t the weapons or the tactics. It was logistics and strategy that determined […]
Island Fortress Concept I’ve always had a bit of a blind spot around the Seven Years War (1756-63). Though I loved the Last of the Mohicans, set to the backdrop of the savage struggle between France and Great Britain for control of North America, I found the scope of the war intimidating and overwhelming. Following […]