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August 2008 Blog Posts (19)

Combat Patrol - command and initiative system.

The command and initiative system in Combat Patrol is simple and easy to implement, however under its apparent simplicity lie some tough decisions for the player to make. In designing the system I wanted to be able to reflect the following criteria:

• The training the squad has undertaken – a well trained squad can undertake coordinated actions. In Combat Patrol, the quality of a squads training is represented by the maximum number of cards… Continue

Added by Dave Murray on August 31, 2008 at 1:39pm — No Comments

International Gamers Awards finalists

FINALISTS FOR THE 2008 INTERNATIONAL GAMERS AWARDS ANNOUNCED

The International Gamers Awards committee is extremely proud to announce the finalists for the 2008 IGA in the Historical Simulations category. Games released during the 2007 calendar year are eligible for consideration.

This complete list of this year's nominees includes:

HISTORICAL SIMULATIONS CATEGORY

1914: Twilight in the East

Designer: Michael… Continue

Added by Peter Perla on August 27, 2008 at 1:14pm — 10 Comments

When Good Game Stores Go Good: Endgame - origianlly written 7/2/08

Well, the game store I blogged about in a previous post has closed its doors after 15 years of serving Atlanta. I wonder if it is the current state of the economy or the fact that when they moved locations they lost clientèle. I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll run into a gaming bud at some point that can offer some insight. My guess is the price of a gallon of gas and disposable income to spend on games are inversely proportional to each other.

I quit going after visiting the new location.… Continue

Added by Mike Rinehart on August 20, 2008 at 9:53am — No Comments

When Good Game Stores Go Good - originally written 3/16/06

I don't know what it is, but part of the appeal of going into a game store is going somewhere that's kind of a not a bad place to be but not a real nice one either.

My local game store (I say local when it was a good 40 minute drive with no traffic) moved from the location where I first discovered it. It used to be in this run down strip mall next to a Piggly Wiggly or Save Rite or some other kind of discount grocery store. It actually didn’t look like the safest place to be after… Continue

Added by Mike Rinehart on August 20, 2008 at 9:51am — No Comments

The War Managers

I just finished reading this earlier in the week. It looks at US Generals views on the conflict in Vietnam. It was written by a General who served there. He sent a questionnaire to all the generals that served in the conflict, and then organized all the data and this book was the result.

It is a very interesting read, and gives a lot of insight into the problems of the conflict.

Added by Gerard Snitselaar on August 17, 2008 at 5:47pm — 4 Comments

POLAND

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The AP's report is correct; if anything, it understates the bluntness of Russia's threat, which very specifically warned of a nuclear attack. For a more detailed account, check out this item in today's Pravda:

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia warns Poland that… Continue

Added by Smitty on August 16, 2008 at 8:37pm — 6 Comments

Re-Entering the Academy

August marks a major career development for me. I'm keeping up my insurance license and remain ready to sell, as much as one can in a recession with high gas prices. But I'm also going to work in two jobs are are more of who I am than what I do.

I'm going to be an adjunct instructor of political science and history. I was already signed up to teach Comparative Government and Major Issues in US History at La Roche College in… Continue

Added by Jim Werbaneth on August 15, 2008 at 6:17pm — 5 Comments

Aug. 10 - Last day of WBC

Yeah...I know that I failed to get my blog posts up in a timely manner. During the pre-con, it seemed such an easy task, but once the gaming got going...suffice it to say that between not having my computer (because it was often being used in the seminar room) and finishing Here I Stand (or other games) after 2, I didn't do much at night other than fall in bed.

Sunday morning I couldn't drag myself out of bed early enough to attend the church service. I did make it down for the end… Continue

Added by Kaarin Engelmann on August 12, 2008 at 10:00pm — 6 Comments

Aug. 9 - WBC Day 5

I spent most of the day helping Karsten run and playing in the Age of Empires III tournament. It was weird to have it down in Lampeter. I felt like it had been scheduled in the wrong location, but Don's impression was that it was the place with enough room. We did a lot of coaching, but a few experience players were present. Amelia played in one of my games, but she was hardly coherent, as she had stayed up almost all night watching the Patriot. Karsten coached his brother Eric and a couple of… Continue

Added by Kaarin Engelmann on August 9, 2008 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Olympic Opening Ceremonies

I watched the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics last night, and I must admit they were visually stunning. The artistic theme celebrated the endless wonder that is Chinese culture, and it served notice on the world that China is a power on the world stage.

Some of the images were truly unforgettable. I was personally thrilled to see the celebration of Zheng He, the Ming Dynasty eunuch admiral whose treasure… Continue

Added by Jim Werbaneth on August 9, 2008 at 3:49pm — 12 Comments

Combat Patrol - Line of Sight 101

In this instalment of the system behind Combat Patrol I will look at the line of sight rules. The development of the line of sight rules for Combat Patrol went through many versions before the final system currently used was settled upon. The issue with a game at this scale is that you want to eliminate ambiguities but still have a system that allows individual soldiers to peek around corners, hide in doorways and generally use the terrain to… Continue

Added by Dave Murray on August 9, 2008 at 9:00am — 2 Comments

Oral history - my Dad at Hiroshima

I had lunch with my father today, and the subject of the anniversary of dropping the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came up. My father was an 18 year old sargeant in the Counter Intelligence Corps stationed in Tokio immediately after the War. The CIC was a precursor of the CIA. His barracks was in the old Japanese Secret Police Headquarters, where the Japanese did their interrogations of captured US airmen. He had a desk on the 8th floor of the Taekoko building, which was across the street… Continue

Added by Ted Torgerson on August 8, 2008 at 4:21pm — 5 Comments

Some Thoughts on Dice Rolling.

Dice are an integral part of wargaming. In most wargames dice are used to resolve combat.

For most of my gaming life I have struggled to "not blame the dice". When things go wrong in a game, it's easy to blame the dice. But vocally blaming the dice just ruins the game for everyone. I know I dislike it when an opponent starts blaming the dice when a game goes "wrong". It really serves no purpose and makes the game not fun for everyone involved. Intellectually, I know the dice are not… Continue

Added by Kimbo on August 8, 2008 at 11:00am — 23 Comments

Aug. 3 - Second day of WBC Pre-Con

Well, Jacob managed to get up on time and play in his Semi-Final game again Jason Levine. He was thoroughly trounced, but Jason gave his some tips about how to improve his play, and Jacob actually listened! Perhaps he'll be a threat for the championship next year. Jason played Chris Trimmer and was throughly pummeled. I think Jacob needs to get some tips from Chris, too :)

Things have been pretty quiet. I went down to registration early and Don said he only needed me around noon. All… Continue

Added by Kaarin Engelmann on August 3, 2008 at 11:30pm — 4 Comments

Aug. 2 - First day of WBC Pre-Con

I got up in time to help with setting up registration, though I'm glad that it didn't open until 9. I was worried that Jacob wouldn't wake up in time for his War of the Ring tournament at noon, so I left a wake-up call for him. Karsten says his strategies are quite good, and he thinks Jake may actually advance.

Registration is fairly brisk for the first morning, especially since not many people realized we'd be open. The Guermuths and Brosius families and Jason Levine are helping out… Continue

Added by Kaarin Engelmann on August 2, 2008 at 11:30pm — 2 Comments

Aug. 1 - Departure for WBC

Stayed up late last night and got up early to stow all of the games in the van--it took something like 10 storage boxes. I stuffed my clothing in the spaces between games to ensure I could fit Amelia, Jacob, and Rebecca's luggage in when I pick them up. The roof rack is our back-up. It's a good thing Harry Flawd stored the Juniors Library games in Lancaster. There's no way I'd have room to haul them up, too.

After a memorial service in the early afternoon and a nap to fortify me, I… Continue

Added by Kaarin Engelmann on August 1, 2008 at 11:30pm — No Comments

AVL Game Ends

Just yesterday, one of my PBEM games of A Victory Lost came to an end. As the Axis, I conceded with about 2 turns left. Several of my most powerful units were out of supply and out of command, and two of my most important HQs had been bounced so that quite a few crucial units were out of command. This is only my second completed game, so I'm not surprised that I lost--I made more than my share of mistakes.

Some thoughts:

--The Vassal mod for AVL is so good that it makes its very… Continue

Added by Akiva on August 1, 2008 at 2:15pm — 4 Comments

Lock 'n Load: BoH Redux: The Alamo

Last night, Dean and I played LnL: BoH again, this time tackling the Alamo scenario (based on the final battle scene from "Saving Private Ryan." I took the Americans again, and faced a very tough situation. My objective was to keep the Germans from crossing a bridge for at least 5 turns (the scenario has a variable end point). I only had about 4-5 squads and one ordnance weapon to oppose numerous squads and three vehicles (including a Tiger tank).

Ultimately I lost the game--the… Continue

Added by Akiva on August 1, 2008 at 2:07pm — No Comments

The most popular wargames on Consimworld...

A thread on BGG prompted me to check out which games are most popular on CSW, i.e. how many posts they got.

I chose to limit myself to games (and game series) which have garnered more than 10000 posts. Very few games make that threshhold (and I hope I didn't miss any!):

If you add in game series (admittedly, the distinction between the "individual games" and "series" categories is something of a judgement call) you get the… Continue

Added by Charles Féaux de la Croix on August 1, 2008 at 5:50am — 25 Comments