Earth Prepares - preparation

 Mark planned on running a game at the Conference of Wargamers (COW) this year based on following up a session at COW 25 last year. The latter explored likely options for an alien invasion of earth using our current level of technology, and potential responses to repel it. This game notionally generated a report which was filed by the UN/MOD, but roll on a few years and several hundred sinister objects have been detected flying through the Oort Cloud in the direction of Earth.....

This was essentially a game development session to help Mark flesh out his ideas, stress test some of the concepts and come up with a workable session for several players in a two hour slot. Doing it remotely over Zoom obviously isn't ideal for collaborative development, but given our geographical locations scattered from one end of the country to the other, there wasn't any other option.

Nonetheless we put on a fine show of hats! Jerry and Jim went for in tin foil and a colander respectively. Tim had a rather fine Stetson with 'Space' on the front (Space Cowboys?), John rocked his very futuristic painting headset which even has a spotlight and targetting reticle. I took my cue from all the RAF adverts on TV which stress that space defence is the job of the  RAF, so wore my RAF Officers side cap.

We were cast as various blocs - authoritarian regimes, liberal democracies, old industries, future tech etc. I ended up as Future Tech and played "Elon Bezos Altman", mainly because I've read all three volumes of The Three Body Problem AND sat through all 30 episodes of the Chinese TV adaptation of the first book. In my past life I was also head of research computing at a large University, so do know something about technology. Should have bought shares in Nvidia 20 years ago... 

The original game had postulated insterstaller travel using Orion Project type ships. Unlike liquid fuelled rocket ships (essentially mass ejection propulsion), the Orion Project in the 1960s suggested using nuclear detonations to propel ships as it is a far more compact form of energy. Various prototype designs for nuclear powered ships above.  

An artists impression of one in operation. The design was canned after the ban on atmospheric nuclear testing was agreed. While it is a very efficient means of propulsion, it has the unfortunate side effect of generating an awful lot of radiation (!). The supposition being that the alien ships were using this form of propulsion, which achieves enough of a fraction of light speed for viable interstellar travel.

As you might imagine, the game rather fell apart at this point as we all had questions as to why we should be assuming what was presumably an approaching alien fleet was using this rather dubious technology. A discussion ensued.... 

Linked to the mode of propulsion was the mode of transport. In the absence of workable cryogenic suspension, we have the aliens arriving as genetically modified seeds, which can survive for centuries and if distributed on earth, will grow into plants and then into actual aliens. See example method of distribution above. As you might imagine, another discussion ensued at this point....

We suggested that all this stuff needed to be presented, but succinctly as just a hypotheses rather than a detailed explanation as there was a real risk you'd just end up running the previous game again. The players at the original session had come up with various defensive suggestions, the main one being a sort of earth based weeding project. A minority report suggested that if the aliens ever landed, we'd lost, and their ship needed to be destroyed in space. All duly noted...

Anyway, what we actually faced was 500 or so unknown contacts, around 100,000 Astronomical Units (AU) away at the very outer extremity of the solar system and with an estimated arrival time 1400 years into the future! Essentially this was a planning game, hampered by the extremely long timescales involved and competing views of the various factions.

Unfortunately as it was largely a discussion thereafter, there isn't really anything to show photo wise. The general game framework was a simplified representation of the solar system with ten significant sectors going right out to the edge of the system, but due to the mind boggling distances involved, the scale was logarithmic so eg the distance from the Sun to Earth was 1 sector and 1AU, whereas the distance to the Kyper belt was four spaces represented about 70 AU, and the Oort cloud which started around sector eight was 100,000+ AU.

As our technology improved we were able to put probes to into space, build bases on the Moon etc and eventually garrison the asteroid belt with railguns etc. There was of course the 'Forever Wars' problem that tech launched into space was completely outclassed by the time it arrived at its destination.

Unsurprisingly the Aliens technology also advanced and a second fleet appeared travelling rather faster than the first with an estimated arrival time of a few hundred years, and suddenly time was running short. 

Towards the latter stages of the game this rather scary looking yellow Star Destroyer appeared, it still hadn't achieved FTL travel, but was due to arrive in 30 years or less. At that point we wrapped it up having built Earths defences as best we could based on a range of Sci Fi novels and films!

That was a very brave session and made a real change from our usual fare of finished games. Well done to Mark for bringing it along and bearing the arrows and slingshots of constructive criticism. There are some very clever ideas in there, and lots of interesting information based on hard science rather than Star Trek. It reminded me in some ways of Mark and Ians game on contemporary satellite warfare which also risks being mind bogglingly complicated and suitable only for rocket scientists, but they managed to make into something quite playable. 

I think we came up with a more tightly structure framework to run the game in, particularly to avoid excessive discussion of the overall premise at start, and also to ramp up the pressure as time starts to drop by orders of magnitude. Unfortunately I was unable to attend COW this year but I'll look forward to seeing a writeup of how it went. 

 

Joy of Six 2026

 Made it to Joy of Six this year, and for once it doesn't clash with COW. WD Display Team (North) put on 633 Squadron, and as I've missed every other run of it this year, I was glad to be able to help out. The venue is close to where I live, so a short 25 minute walk into town. 

The welcome team at the entrance. I encountered a couple of slightly lost people who were obviously wargamers wandering the streets of Sheffield on the way and directed them to the venue. The Sheffield Hallam campus is quite  big and confusing.

Getting one of the halls ready. This show is very different to eg Partisan as it is mainly games with just a few traders.

Very quick Battle of Lens. Huge bases with lots and lots of figures on each, the Baccus demo/participation game. 

Operation Daquet, 1991. The French participation in Gulf War One in 1991. That feels a very, very long time ago now and rather exciting at the time.

I spent an awful lot of time peering at the NATO toys trying to work out what they were before I actually read the game blurb which explained they were French!

Battle of Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish were run by the umpires while the players took the US fleet.

This one was very clever 'Urban Warfare through the Ages' with three boards set up adjacent each covering city combat in different eras.

This lovely Norman era table was set up near the WD stand. I cant remember which battle it was, but the terrain just looked amazing although it was a simple furry cloth over some hills with various bits of scatter terrain.

Sheffield and Rotherham Wargamers put on this rather grand sci fi game.

A beautiful city and some Mechs. I think this stuff is mostly Brigade Models?

The troops line up for battle.

This was also near our table, Gaines Mill (ACW) participation.

The troops deployed, the Union are heavily outnumbered and defending so the players (generally) took the Confederates.

South London Warlords put on this fabulous Marne 1914 game.

The French artillery deployed to confound the Boche.

Froeschwiller/Worth. Another lovely table, custom made this time. It reminded me of Bruce Weigles setups for '1870' (he came to Triples some years ago and put on some games there).

Unlike "1870", the troops are on quite  big bases. These are just skirmish formations, everything else is out of sight for now.

Richard Crawley/Cold war Commanders Calais 1940 game. I just love the custom French style place signs. The scenario is from the Tac:WW2 Blitzkrieg scenario book, I helped playtest a couple of them with Richard.

The toys all laid out on OB sheets. Elements are platoons and manouvre units companies and battalions, rather like Command Decision. iirc 3rd RTR vs 1st Panzer Division outside Calais.

If you look carefully you can see flames and smoke coming out of the German engineers flamethrowers. Figures and vehicles a mix of Heroics and Scotia.

The Ilkley Irregulars put on Borodino using Bloody Big Battles. One of the Tuesday Irregulars (Tim C) played this. Like the the real thing, a rather bloody slog!

Greek City State warfare.

The Battles with MDF team put on a huge demonstration of their 6mm MDF figures, which look very grand en masse.

More of a close up. They do look a bit wooden (sorry!) close up, but to my mind I actually prefer the look of these to the very artificial looking Epic strips which are shoulder-shoulder.

It was only fairly late in the day that I discovered another entire room full of games and stands.

Baccus, as main sponsors of the show, had a huge stand, as well as running the raffle and doing basing demonstrations.

Rapier Miniatures were in attendance and it gave me a chance to have a really good look at their stuff close up. Lovely figures, excellent value for money but very much epic scale '6mm', similar in size and proportions to Baccus. They still have printed catalogues though, which get a big thumbs up from me.

The WD stand for 633 Squadron.

All set up and ready to go. This is the highly portable version of the game using a 1/300th Mosquito. John managed to bring all this down in his rucksack. I added my RAF Officers side cap for period colour.

We managed to run the game 24 times during the day, it was busy in the morning and late afternoon with a bit of a lull around lunchtime.

The bombers reach their target. 23 of 24 missions were successful (the failed one needed anything but a '1' for his last plane and duly rolled disastrously). One very skilful/lucky pilot managed to reach the target with all nine aircraft! That had never happened before. 

I managed to not spend any money on toys during the day at all, although there are some manufacturers whose websites I will be visiting. I need some more 6mm aircraft and I feel a distinct lack of armoured trains... Despite that I came away with a 2mm Mosque (thank you Richard C), a pack of paint pens (thank you John A) and half a dozen dice (thank you South London Warlords and congratulations on the VC).

That was a geat show, nice to be back again. As I said earlier it has a very different vibe to Partisan, Fiasco etc and well worth a trip if you fancy something a bit different for a change.

 

Strike Force One

 Recently on the Wargames Developments WhatsApp group the subject of Strike Force One came up. This was first produced in 1975 by SPI as an introduction to (board) wargaming and they used to give it away free at conventions etc. Hilariously it is still in use today on professional (as in DoD etc) wargaming courses in the USA, where the students are introduced to the basic game and then modify it for Cyber, drones, chem etc. One of my WD colleagues was involved in some of the chat about modelling chemical weapons, and some of the others were a bit disparaging about how simple it was etc. 

Anyway, I'd completely forgotten I own it, but of course it was given away free with Nicky Palmers 1977 book "Comprehensive Introduction to Board Wargaming", a book I read cover to cover at the time. Nicky Palmer also took part in the definitive two part series replay of 'Third Reich' in the AHGC General along with Marcus Watney, from which I learned a few more interesting strategies. I was fortunate enough to play a few games with Marcus in later years.

Anyway, I digress. I did play Strike Force One a few times in the 1970s and then forgot about it. After the chat on the group, I just had to give it another go.

It really is pretty minimal, ten counters, four turns but a surprisingly comprehensive set of rules as it has to explain in some detail concepts like CRTs, 'moving adjacent' (aka Zones of Control) etc. There is a page or so of advanced rules which include things like stacking and more advanced terrain effects.

The game is set in  a hypothetical WW3 invasion of West Germany with four US companies facing six Soviet ones. The Russians have four turns to capture two of the three towns.

The initial setup is fixed. ZOCs are sticky and in the basic games woods are impassable - lets assume everyone is mechanised and these are dense forests. Units can only stack one per hex, movement is four hexes and every unit has the same combat value. The CRT is pretty brutal, a 2:1 only gives a 50% chance of success and most results are retreats. A single 'Defender Eliminated' appears at 3:1, so most eliminations will be by forcing retreats on units which cant - due to ZOC, stacking or blocking terrain.

The Russians swarm unit X at 3:1 and push it back. This exposes unit Y to encirclements next turn if it doesn't do something. Combat between adjacent units isn't mandatory btw, but ZOC stop all movement and retreat.

The US try a 1:1 counterattack and manage to roll AE! that isn't good. They push Z forward to protect Y southern flank (it is on an objective).

The defence collapses spectacularly in concentric attacks. One Russian pins A in the village at the top.

By turn 4 it is a complete wipeout. 

OK, that was good to remind myself of the rules. I need to be much more canny with the US and make use of the blocking terrain to channel attacks so they are only at 2:1 or worse. Unfortunately the initial setup is fixed so X is always going to get attacked at 3:1.

On the next run the US did a bit better, and ended the game losing but with half their units and one village in hand.

Next game ended up much the same. I seem to recall the attacker having a much easier time of it when I used to play, but some of the people on BGG seem to think it is more balanced game, so I'm either a brilliant Russian or useless US player.

I thought I'd give it a go with the advanced rules. Woods cost 2MP but combat strength defending is doubled in them. Units can also stack two per hex. The US weathered the first attack, abandoned the centre and then occupied a lot of woods. The ZOCs block access to the villages and the defending units are doubled in the woods, and they all have open retreat routes. This is a much tougher position for the Sovs to attack. 

The Russians focussed on the north and managed to drive the US out of the woods (at 2:1 with four units) and then the village.

I'm not quite sure how the US managed to both lose a unit and get another surrounded! I must have made another mistake.

With two villages in the bag, the Sovs just put ZOC on the last US units to keep them bottled up.

That was actually kind of fun and an interesting blast from the past. I think it is very funny that serious people are still playing this, but I can see how it is a simple framework you could add chrome to - rather like the Neil Thomas One Hour rules.

There is plenty of stuff about it on BGG https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5960/strike-force-one-the-cold-war-heats-up-1975 and you can always download it from the SPI games archive should you feel the inclination.

Scratch One Flat-top!

 Mark was hoping to run Worthington games solo effort 'Scratch One Flat top", a game covering Pacific carrier battles, at this years Virtual Conference of Wargamers (VCOW) back in February. Obviously it is a single player game but we've played loads of these as teams and he wanted to try it out beforehand. The Tuesday/Wednesday regulars all pitched up and we gave it a shot.

The playing area and ship reference cards. This is very similar to the Hunt the Bismarck game with large sea areas subdivided into four, ships have flotation points and the option to burn fuel for extra speed. The main difference with the Bismarck game is that the US player commands two carrier Task Forces, Lexington and Yorktown, each with fighter and bomber groups and an assumed surface escort.

Fairly obviously this the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese are trying to invade Port Moresby with their invasion fleet following the track of white dots from Rabaul down to Moresby and the US have to stop them. Somewhere out there are Japanese carriers, whose actions are run by the game system as it is a solo game.

Normally we'd do this sort of thing on Powerpoint, but Mark had run out of time so for Tuesday we prototyped it with a jpg image of the board and updated it using MS Paint.

The CRT. Carrier groups can allocate fighters to CAP and to bomber escort. Bombers just attack things, there are separate CRTs for both and give an idea of the optimum force levels to allocate. The P results are planes lost, and S results are hits on ships. The ship cards show how many fighters and bombers each carrier has remaining. Like the Bismarck game, combat is very abstracted and the fixed rather than proportional nature of the CRT means you are much better off doing big strikes than little ones.

A downside of using MS Paint as a collaboration tool is that it ends up tiny on the shared screen in Zoom. I projected a copy of the map onto my big second screen to keep track of things. We were all US players, I was allocated the role of Admiral and each TF had a Captain and an air group commander.

We set off westwards with the two TFs in adjacent large squares. each carrier can search one adjacent large square, rather oddly this has to be orthogonal.

You can see the TF tracks on the image above after a few turns. Lexington is blue and Yorktown is gold. The Japanese fleet is tracking along its course marked by red blobs, and the big red blob next to Yorktown is a Japanese carrier group! Shokaku and a light carrier (Shohu?).

A carrier battle duly followed which was quite good fun, but annoyingly Lexington couldn't join in as although it was adjacent, it wasn't orthogonally adjacent. That seemed a bit silly to me. Anyway, we came out top, Shokaku was badly damaged and Shohu went down although poor old Yorktown took quite a hammering. Lexington manouvered to try and catch Shokaku, but it slipped away westwards.

We decided to call it a night at that point to have a washup session. In the AAR it turned out that another Japanese fleet carrier had sailed right past us! We had a good discussion about how to better run the game as a remote team game, and the following evening planned to try it with Discord and parallel presentations using Powerpoint and ConceptBoard to handle the unit display. Sadly I wasn't able to make it but I gather it went well.

tbh although I like the concept of the game, I wont be rushing out to buy it as it just seems too abstract to be a decent simulation of carrier warfare (and this from someone who likes Dominion of...) but it is a good way to pass an evening. I like team based decision games, but I could do with slightly fewer unruly Captains!