But now the real work begins as although teh content itself was interesting, it also contained seven games (which although designated board games in my eyes should be taken to the tabletop) that simply set up and beg to be played. In particular two WWII era infantry games:
- Fire and Movement (A rural infantry battle: "an attacking battalion versus two defending companies")
- Blockbusting (An urban battle: "an attacking company versus two defending platoons")
Half way down the page you will see an "Infantry Combat" Link which gives a useful PDF to Print Out
The intention is to take them to the tabletop and play them over and over again, then contrast them with some of my many existing WWII rule sets (Command Decision, Spearhead, BGC, Great Battles of WWII, Squad Leader to name but a few) to 'compare and contrast' and see what comes out in the mix. If I had a new years resolution it would have been to make more use of my WWII assets (er, I mean toys).
That's not to say I am forgoing the ancients as Strategos II, BBDBA and Phil Sabin's book on "Lost Battles" figure highly on my radar screen.
Oh and I have also to paint the Bismarck (again) and finish off my 1/72 Mosquito and Westland Whirlwind
3 comments:
I'd spotted that you were reading that book over on Shelfari and was going to ask what you thought of it.
Love to see the Wirlwind mate
Cheers Al(s),
The Whirlwind will eventually make it of the production line ;)
"Simulating War" I think is a CLASSIC, a bit on the wargaming intellectual side of things but if you can cope/like with very simple 'boardgames' then I think it is well worth the buy
It is very different from "Lost Battles" as it is not his "thesis" (aka wargame rule set for ancients warfare simulation) but rather a "hotch-potch" of recipes that have been proven to WORK and provide a realistic simulation of war
A mutual friend of ours (agent BW) found it 'disappointing' but I think that is because it is a 'simple' recipe book that "gets the job done in two hours flat" and a lot of chrome/colour has to be lost to get into the "bare bones of the simulation"
Note: The "job" in question is a classroom tutorial to get groups of 4-6 "very novice" wargame/boardgame players through a simple simulation. Most commercial wargames are too complex for the above environment, so the simplicity teh author beings is quite refreshing (to me)
It certainly gave me enough food for thought than will occupy the next six months wargaming activity for me
It also gives a reasonable NEW (to me) way of wargaming air combat,in "groups" of planes ... moving away from one toy one plane
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