Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
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 […]
Recently I went to the British Museum to see a small free exhibition – “Playing with Money.” It is about how money, coins and bank notes are used in boardgames and also how boardgames have broadly changed over the last two centuries. In the 19th Century boardgames were for children and their moral admonishment and […]
What does a Greek(ish) city in 2nd Century BCE Asia Minor want to do with its’ time? That is the million dollar question that came out of my R&D session at May’s CLWG outing. Through presenting a game I’ve been developing it’s clear the next stage of the design will be the ‘City Management’ portion […]
Aphorism: “a pithy observation which contains a general truth” During the discussions CLWG members have about game design I hear some very wise comments. So I thought I would write them down. I intend to come back and add to this post as it is a work in progress, and add newly minted aphorisms. In […]
Museum Review by Jim Wallman So, it being a bank holiday it was a good time to finally visit the Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge. I’ve been through Hawkinge many times and always wondered what it was like. Today I found out. Described as the worlds [sic] largest Battle of Britain collection. I […]