Lestrades_Game

Pete and I ran our megagame on the Chosin campaign this weekend and things went well for the most part. Here are some post-mortem thoughts  - we lost about 30% of our bookings in the week running up to the game. From our experiences across Pennine Megagames this year, this seams to be about par for the course. There is a good reason that many Megagames have reserve lists, unfortunately the Chosin Reservoir campaign in North Korea was not quite a big enough draw to warrant a reserve list. - The game itself ran pretty smoothly, relatively simple mechanics, good game materials and a very experienced control team facilitated this. - Having fewer players actually benefited the game, the UN players lost all but one of their executive officers (XOs) meaning that it was one player per Marine regimental team. This actually helped as the game was streamlined enough that two players were not really required to write 3 sets of orders. The Chinese Commissars had a bit more latitude but ev...

Pete and I (of https://spprojectblog.wordpress.com/) are putting on a Megagame in Leeds UK next month! 15th October at the Swathmore centre. So I haven't been posting much recently, busy with that, busy with work etc. Hope to post more soon though. It is a double blind game, written to be accessible for non-military types whilst still having the depth for more experienced wargamers.  Already we've learned a few lessons from prepping this game. Coming up with the idea, the design, the map and rules is all a lot easier than actually putting the game on. We are attracting a good number of players right now, but a month back we were really struggling. It seems the market for wargames is quite small compared with diplomacy/risk style games unfortunately, even if there is more game beneath the hood. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39t62uIctG3SHVBQXZwZmc3Q3M/view?usp=sharing I'm putting together some mapping tutorials for the Pennine Megagamers. Here a link to the first pdf.

On the last Saturday of this past June I enjoyed one of the best learning experiences I have had in wargaming to put a positive spin on it. The day did not start well in character as General von Ruchel I arrived to the field 3 hours late having boarded the wrong train. When I arrived I discovered that my colleagues had spread our forces in a long thin line between the Fulda gap and Gera with no reserve. Control's game map The Jena campaign megagame, designed by Rupert Clamp was devised as a double blind map game. Each side of 10-15 players wrote orders for each division ordering it about a large map of central Germany. When battle was joined a divisional commander collected his regimental level counters and played a simple face to face tactical game. A step up the chain of command it was the army commanders (generals) role to devise the overall strategy for then the divisional/corps commanders and their chiefs of staff teams to implement. Or if you were on the Pruss...

I went over to Manchester this past weekend, a tree fell on my motorbike and knocked out the low beam (high beam still works fine though weirdly), but more importantly I joined in with an invasion of blighty. Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy make moves as the game designers and control team look on. Mega-games have become a bit of a bigger deal over the past year. The London based organisers, centred around a Jim Wallman, have come up north twice now, I played in the Italy campaign game in Leeds a few months back (I will throw together an article on this at some point) and now I served as the German 8 th corps operations officer for an invasion of Britain in 1940. Operation Sea Lion was planned by German high command after the campaign in France but never launched. This game looks at a what if, with a few historical realities papered over a little to make the invasion a little more feasible. The game involves about 60 players in two teams, who have to essentially lear...