Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
It’s not a stretch to say that the 1940 campaign is what got me interested in military history – I think possibly the first history book I read was a Dutch translation of “Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years” by Jack Le Vien and John Lord – an utterly forgettable work of historiography, but it did […]
Game Overview I wanted to run a committee game about the decisions taken by the Yorkist faction after they had won the Battle of Towton, 1461. This battle is regarded as one of the most decisive victories – and a bit of a surprise – of the Wars of the Roses. It is also regarded […]
This in two parts, first the introduction I wrote for the game, then the onside report. This was the first rough and ready attempt at a game about running the British Empire. I’ve long been interested in 19th century colonialism and the varied interactions between the colonising powers and the rest of the world. Given […]
The Nine Years War isn’t a particular interest of mine but I read about it as background to my Ancien Regime megagame. Yes, most government expenditure is war related. During the period roughly 1688 to 1783 Britain’s expenditure on the military was roughly 65 – 75%. As a comparison, during the Great Northern War Russia’s […]
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 […]