Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

Operation Bingo By Jim – Offside report by Terry Martin

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 […]

Full View →

Who Will Win the Fight? – Offside report by Terry Martin

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 […]

Full View →

Seize Warsaw – Offside thoughts by Mukul Patel

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 […]

Full View →

Seize Warsaw! Offside Report – Andy Grainger

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 […]

Full View →

Summer Fling – A (half-remembered) debrief of Old World Order 1898

In the beginning, there was Watch the Skies 1898. This was a new variant of Jim Wallman’s tried-and-true Watch the Skies series of games, but set at the dawn of the 20th century and featuring aliens. By design, it was very high-level and strategic – counters representing entire fleets and armies, abstract economic abstractions and […]

Full View →

A Desperate Day – Offside Report by Andy Grainger

I enjoyed Jon Casey’s game about the Battle of Elouges in 1914, not least because I was able to visit the battlefield in March 2019. It took place the day after the Battle of Mons, one of those rearguard actions that would punctuate the retreat leading occasionally to the loss of almost a complete Battalion […]

Full View →

Each generation gets the games they deserve – Offside report by Nick Luft

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 […]

Full View →

2019 CLWG Games Weekend – Brian Cameron [onside & offside]

2019 CLWG Games Weekend Offside reports (and an onside report) from Brian Cameron about the 2019 CLWG Games Weekend. Peking Duck [onside] This was a re-run of my game on the Siege of the Peking Legations during the Boxer uprising in 1900.  You may well have seen the old film, 55 Days at Peking.  In […]

Full View →

Offside Report on Barwick Green

by Mukul Wow what a feeling, and a great big shout to John Rutherford. The scenario, the UK is imploding politically and economically, UN peacekeepers are arriving to the hotbed of revolution, but we going to a game but a rural little village in sleepy England, think the Archers radio show. ​ ​ Most players […]

Full View →

American Civil War Megagame [offside]

This session was hosted by a contingent of our friends from Europe (while we have any left) at the 2018 CLWG Conference. They had already run a game based on the ‘Seven Days Battles’ on the Virginian Peninsular in 1862. [Campaign note – The enormous Union Army of the Potomac had been rebuilt and (re?)trained […]

Full View →