Double-blind 15mm WWII on 13 November 2010
Hello.
I am planning a 15mm World War II game for 13 November 2010 at the Forest Avenue Congregational Church on the corner of Stillwater and Forest Avenues in Bangor. My idea is a game that simulates Regimental and Battalion warfighting a bit better than the average game. There is a little prep involved, as you will see.
The concept is an infantry fight in the bocage of Normandy (great place for double-blind). The two 8'x5' boards will be separated by a large semi-mobile bulletin board. Each player will run a battalion on one side or the other or be the regimental commander on the given side (poor sod).
Only those that are running battalions will be at their board. Regimental COs will be away from the board, working from a map and messages back and forth. Battalion players will not be allowed to co-ordinate between themselves. That is Regiment's job. Regiment also handles artillery requests and plots them on the map (i.e., artillery shoots at terrain, not targets directly), including general support artillery from Division or Corps. Battalions handle their own mortars and infantry guns, as well as attached armor support and antitank guns. Any prearranged fire plans will be set down in writing by the Regimental COs before the game. Any air attacks will be handled by the referees (and perhaps Austin, who can be deadly).
IF I can get victims, er, "volunteers" to be the Regimental COs before game day, I can send them game tables, maps, force structures, intelligence reports, and the Division Operations Order by e-mail. That will allow them to prepare the Regimental Operations Order, any fire plans for artillery, and so on before the game day itself. I can also send battalion packets (game tables, maps and OBs) to Battalion COs, if they ask for them.
Command Decision is a mobility oriented (a Jeep can theoretically move up to 120" per turn on a road, for example) set of rules where each vehicle represents 4-6 vehicles and infantry stands represent a platoon. Game scale is 1"=50 yards, 1 turn=30 minutes. It plays quickly, faster than game time with a little experience.
If you're willing to give this a shot, let me know.
Bob Bailey
Sounds very cool, Bob. I love double and triple blind games. I will try to make it.
Hello.
Thanks, Dean. I hope to get a good turnout of the World War II gamers and let them try this out. There will be the usual "visual disturbances" (e.g., enemy troops that are not what they seem on the board and the like) in this one.
I was thinking of having players use the periscopes you gave to Austin & me at Huzzah! to do things like select targets. We did that before with simple mirrors in a 1:285 game with some interesting results. Works better with 1 vehicle = 1 vehicle games, though. I have some ideas for airstrikes as well.
We will have a "period" meal for the players as well. Last time I did France in 1944, Bill Drisko used two words I thought no one would ever use together: "Good Spam." We had fried Spam & cheese sandwiches that time. We'll probably do something German this time, but we'll see.
Bob Bailey
Hello.
The game is scheduled for 13 November (Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday that month). The basic information is ready to go, so anyone who wants to be a regimental CO can contact me and get map, game charts, equipment data, OB, and such.
While we can lay plans and set up forces at the game, laying out who gets what and what the oplan is would speed things up. Also, Regiment will be responsible for preplanned artillery fires and peregistered artillery concentrations.
If you're interested, let me know. Even if you'd rather run a battalion, I can send you the map, charts, data, and an OB for the battalion (which might change when Regiment gets done setting the attachments and detachments).
Bob Bailey
Hello.
Don't forget us on National Game Day. I've got overall COs for both sides, but we still need battalion commanders.
Bob Bailey
I would love to, but our daughter is coming to Maine for the weekend.
I will watch for another opportunity.
Mike
Hello.
The game went less well than I would have liked. There were too few players (such is life), but the rules are designed around higher-level COs being around, so the idea of having Regimental COs at a different table and working from a map was not a great success.
The battle was not bad. Part of the US 90th Infantry Division ("Tough 'Ombres") took on a depleted German infantry regiment.
The US forces attacked through the woods on each flank while the artillery pounded the first two towns. When the Corps artillery shifted to smoke for 1 turn, the US troops advanced down the middle as well. A recon Jeep managed to avoid a minefield between two rows of wire and then stopped just before entering another minefield on the main road, but the building he sheltered by had a German unit in it. He survived, but it was interesting. Another recon Jeep just cleared the edge of the smoke and was taken out by German mortars, but he spotted the German infantry gun in a building before being nailed.
The engineers took serious casualties to clear one set of wire near the two towns, so the US "battalion" commander (he was running two at that point) decided to opt for clearing wire with tanks, which was much faster. However, that came to an end as the time ran out on us, with one of the 3 Shermans being blown up by a long-range flank shot from a Stg III.
The US got through the first set of towns, but casualties were high enough to make much more of an advance problematical. The US artillery was frightfully ineffective because of the quality of the Germans, and with them dug in behind mines and wire, the odds were not good.
Next up is Korea in 1:285, using heavily modified Tractics rules. The game is on 11 December 2010, starting at 10am, at the Forest Avenue Congregational Church.
Bob Bailey
Excellent effort, Gentlemen!
Thanks for the AAR, Bob!
Billy and Chris hosted something similar with Bastogne using radios and such- very novel, and adds another layer of mystery! Peter Rice ran many games involving several game sessions huddled around maps and making those decisions at the higher levels. I think it works better if everyone is either making the plan or getting to the point of contact (strategic/grand tactical) or playing the game on the table (tactical). That way, nobody gets left out at the table- the real reason we game.
There is always a disconnect- either waiting for reports from the table or waiting for orders from above. The only problem with that is, for it to work, it takes multiple sessions to accomplish, and a dedicated group of gamers. Email could help that substantially, but past experiences have all fizzled... Has anyone been in a play-by-email game that lasted more than a few years (other than board game adaptations)? It would be great to have a game that starts by email and winds up at the table every so often- game days and HUZZAH!.
HOW DO WE MAKE IT WORK?- COMMENTS WELCOME
RICE? RICHTER? DEAN?
Bob,
I love those sorts of games and am bummed to have missed it. They do require a lot of players, and tons of prep and work on the part of the game master, but the results are worth it. When I saw the weather report for the weekend I knew I was sunk- no way I could avoid the barn cleaning and leaf raking.
Bob: Sounds like I missed a good game. Hopefully I will be free on another opportunity. The remainder of 2010 is a wash for me. I'll be looking to see if my day off schedules match up for something in early January.
Niven: When I was in school and when the kids were babies my gaming group out of UMass ran two long term campaigns. One was a Cold War fictional adaptation (went about a year with weekly strategic turns) with some long forgotten rules set for the table top, and a Napoleonic campaign (I think bi-weekly turns that lasted about two years) with table top actions resolved with E3. Both games had an economic system for trade and building units. In either case a dedicated game master was needed as well as a good sized group of players. Those games were played before somebody invented the internets....
Mike
"HOW DO WE MAKE IT WORK?- COMMENTS WELCOME
RICE? RICHTER? DEAN?"
" . . . They do require a lot of players, and tons of prep and work on the part of the game master . . ."
We'd love to be a part of this but it would have to wait for some time. Pretty busy right now with other prospects but do agree that these sorts of games are a great deal of fun - and of course, a great deal of work . . .
Andy
Hello.
I have done at least 10 of these in my group. We refer to them as "campaign games".
The most common method is to get several sheets (about 2'x3' each) of heavy clear plastic. Hardware stores usually have the right sort of stuff for winterizing windows, often in a roll that you can cut into as many sheets as you need. (Years ago, I got some clear plastic sheets like this at Origins '77 in New York from Lou Zocchi; they have hexes printed on them, with an ID number in each hex - GREAT for naval games!) The key factors are absolute clarity and reasonable thickness. I also have sheets (slightly larger than the clear sheets), in white, of the material used for the roller blind that pull down and catch and (sometimes) snap back up on their own. That makes the maps easier to read and work with. They are stored in cardboard mailing tubes when not in use.
Get water-based magic markers (I use the Sanford Vis-a-Vis markers) and make it VERY clear to players that those are the ONLY markers to be used for the maps. Draw up your campaign map on a sheet as you want it to be, with place names, roads, &c., all in place. Then turn it over and lay the next sheet over it. Trace the map onto the new sheet, writing the names in mirror writing (this is a skill that I have developed quite well). When you turn the second sheet over, you have the map on the back, readable, and the players can move troops and note enemy locations on the map with the markers, erasing the old information as they go with a damp paper towel. Make as many maps as you need, and you're off. I have been known to trace maps for games, once using a map of North Carolina in the Civil War that I got from the North Carolina Historical Society and once tracing a map of the Pacific for a large naval strategy game.
You can also use paper maps with plastic overlays of you want. For that, I use clear report covers sliced into two sheets at the crease where the little binder clip attaches.
The advantage to this system is greatest when the game is played by the group in one place (operational rather than tactical or strategic level games). The maps are kyfed by the gamemaster after each move and laid over each other in a private area, then intelligence that players have gained is added to their maps. Then the maps are returned to the players for the next move. This is a really great way to play naval air games (carrier battles) where search patterns and such can be done and played out. In those games, I track weather on the GM's map. In ground games, it teaches players early on the exact reason why they have all that light cavalry, and the fact that they want MUCH more of it.
Games over greater distances are best done via e-mail, although we have done them by mail in the past. These take more time and can be expensive in the case of postage. I have taken advantage of the distance factor by having a gamer in Michigan handle intelligence work for the US Navy in the strategic Pacific game we did.
Larger games (we did a couple of War of the Austrain Succession games where each player played a country) can have campaign newsletters where events can be reported and players can write articles to put others on notice or spread disinformation. I have noted the capture of spies in articles there as well as seemingly innocent things that effect later events.
Be advised: these things take A LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT by the gamemaster. It also helps to have the gamemaster play in someone else's game to understand the limitations of the systems and the games. When I played in one, I suddenly realized that I had been denying information to players that they could have had by looking out the tent flap because it took a lot of effort to provide it to all players. Take the time and do it right.
I'll get into specific games we've done in a later post.
Bob Bailey
Bob:
I remember being part of (and having enjoyed) the games you mentioned. Remember the WWII game where I sailed my carriers on the most direct route (and got nailed) or when my Engineers got nailed on Flank I didn't think was that well defended?
Enjoy them all. Sorry I had to miss this last one (due to my surgery.)
Rick
Hello.
My suggestion to those considering this type of game: Start small, with a game that can be played at a get-together.
Draw out the map and set the scene for players at a get-together before the one when the game will happen. Introduce it to the players and watch them react. I did that with a Seven Years War campaign (our first) between a fictional country based on the British and another fictional country based on the Prussians, set on an island that they split, so that there was room for naval as well as ground action. The players gathered around and immediately started talking operationally, with movement routes, logistics, and recon activity coming up in rapid succession. It warms your heart and guarantees enough players to run any game you want.
Land games are usually best to start. Things like the run-up to Antietam or part of the Battle of the Bulge work well, keeping forces reasonable. If you have the figures, a WWII carrier battle, like off the Solomons during Guadalcanal, is good, but doesn't give the same scope for discussion.
As a gamemaster, expect oddities to happen because of time, distance, and player quirks. We had a Civil War what-if campaign based on that North Carolina map I mentioned above. The idea was that Grant had decided to take ship and go to North Carolina to cut Virginia off from the rest of the Confederacy in 1864, thereby forcing Lee to either abandon the state or split his obviously inadequate forces to fight open battles in Virginia against III, XI, and XII Corps and North Carolina against I, II, V, and VI Corps. One of the Federal corps commanders decided to destroy the only bridge across the Tar River behind his corps "so that the Confederate cavalry doesn't get it." That, of course, put him out of supply, as his supply line was cut by his own action.
Time and distance made it so that the army commander got the word and sent a countermanding order, which arrived by courier as the flames reached their height.
Bob Bailey
One that we played (with the Bangor Group) was a "what if ...?" in which Longstreet was sent West to support Bragg in TN vs Rosecrans. Not a bad game & played very well. My problem (as Bragg) was that I underestimated Bob (as Rosecrans.)
In spite of that it went very well. Bob has copies of what I sent as well as (I assume) what he sent as Rosecrans.
Rick
