Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

PTERROR IN THE SKIES

Onside report by Jim Wallman Having found my box of 1970s period aircraft I wanted to do another run of my Airwars game, designed for 1970s air combat (originally for Vietnam and Aira-Israeli wars). Inspired by Evan’s Triplanes & pterodactyls game, I thought I’d do a variant of that idea set in the later period. […]

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Running Brasshats & Brassards on line

Onside report by Jim Wallman A few months ago I ran my First World War command post game at CLWG in hybrid format, with higher commanders on line and more junior commanders in the room, along with a hidden map run by map controls in a different part of the hall. The purpose of this […]

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Online / Remote / hybrid games

(I’m getting my article in quick this year!) Some thoughts about running such games based on not a lot of actual experience in most cases.  I’m not sure I can define a difference between online and remote games as my experience is with games having a physical set up and one or more participants taking […]

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A great weekend – an Offside Report

Thanks to Jim’s generous work with the tech set up, I was able to attend the whole weekend, and enjoyed it immensely. We went from stimulating design discussions from Dave on pre WW2 China and Japan to James’s very amusing thoughts on how you might game Fuller’s crazy and gas dominated visions of warfare in […]

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Lego Tank Duel

Onside report by Jim Meeting 4 October 2024 I recently came across a range of lego-adjacent models called Brickskrieg. These are self-assmbled military miniatures, roughly the same scale as 15mm. As a long time fan of lego this was instantly attractive and I bought three Panzer IVs and three Cromwells ‘just because’. Having got them […]

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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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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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