Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

Never Mind the Billhooks

Offside report by Jim Meeting 4 October 2024 Andrew brought some of his collection of medieval toy soldier to allow us to try out the commercial set of rules ‘Never Mind The Billhooks’ (NMTB) by Andy Callan. https://www.nevermindthebillhooks.com/ The scenario was simple, a Lancastrian (yay!) army faced off against a Yorkist horde (boo!) and with […]

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Two Brush Strokes – Japanese Team development Session

Offside report by Jim Meeting 5 October 2024 Dave brought a prototype section of his upcoming ‘Two Brush Strokes’ china-themed megagame that related to the two player Japanese team. This issue for him was (If I understood it correctly) that Japanese olicy in China in the ;ate 1920 was to some degree ambivalent. Whilst there […]

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September 2024 Meeting – Welcome to Serconea

Today’s meeting at Anerley Methodist Church saw four attendees. Unfortunately only one of the two sessions could go ahead due to a short-notice absence on the part of Jim Wallman. This session was a design session where I presented the basic concept for my in-development megagame of democratic transition, Welcome to Serconea. This game tells […]

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A Line Between Disorder & Order

by Jim Wallman Rollbahn “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…” Sun Tsu Sunday 7 July saw a playtest of a game I’m working on that is for an icebreaker game for the Connections UK conference later this year. This is a fast-play simple logistics-themed wargame It is designed to be pick up […]

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Bombing of Darwin Day (19 February)

Today (19 February) officially commemorates a significant event in Australia’s history – the first time since European settlement that Australia came under attack – the largest ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia. Many will know of the 7 December 1941 attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor during World War II. I suspect […]

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Artificial Incompetence

Or How To Build An Idiot Commander When Humans Just Won’t Do Like most of the readership here, I’ve spent many decades of gaming building rule systems at the tactical and operational levels which have tried to model unit and sub-commander skills, often referred-to as CE or ‘Combat Efficiency’ in the modern era. In many […]

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“Birds of Prey, Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers and the Holocaust in Poland” ibidem Verlag, Stuttgart 2021.

By Andy Grainger NOTE I know the author of this book and have read both it and his previous book as cited below. The subject matter, the implementation of German racial and occupation policies in the East, is uncomfortable, to put it at its mildest. By concentrating on a small area this book provides real […]

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Fires Were Started

From Jim Wallman For our September 2023 session I monopolised everyone to take part in my operational 1940 game set in the London Blitz.  We were also pleased to have the attendance of famous board game designer Brian Train who travelled all the way from Vancourer, Canada just to play this game! The rules have […]

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Can you game serious subjects today?

Comment by Terry Martin I am talking about recreational gaming, not professional or academic gaming. Nor am I talking about the iniquities of the Netanyahu regime, the horror of the attacks on October 7, or the tragedy that has resulted in Gaza. That’s not a reason to feel depressed, it’s a reason to feel much […]

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What is a good game designer? A CLWG Hive-Mind Response

Bees in a hive

Last week, Jim Wallman posed a question to the CLWG Hive-Mind: What, in your opinion, are the three (or four) top characteristics of a good game designer?What did the Hive-Mind decide? Contributors: Dave Boundy (DB), Rex Brynen (RB), Brian Cameron (BC), Nick Luft (NL), Peter Merritt (PM), John Rutherford (JR), Deborah Southwell (DS) A GOOD […]

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