Monthly Archives: April 2024

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Playing The British Way at the University

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Several months back, when preparing for the Spring semester course on wargaming, I wrote a blog post about the plans to use Stephen Rangazas’ The British Way in the classroom. The game has now made its debut at the university, and it is interesting to look back and see what worked and how.

Whenever introducing a new game in class, some issues must be considered to ensure that it can work in that specific environment. What gaming concepts will the students be already familiar with? How much time will the game take and how many games could be run and facilitated in parallel? Have they covered the topic of the game in their other classes? As The British Way was released in 2023, it was the first time to be used, and all these questions had to be answered.

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Hannibal’s Revenge Or… If Hannibal’s good enough for Denzel Washington, who are we to say nay?

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by Mark G. McLaughlin (with Fred Schachter)

Does the gaming community need another Hannibal game?  The answer is “why not?” or, more simply an empathic “yes!”: just as it is to the question of a new Gettysburg, Pacific Theater WWII or another Waterloo game (such as Mark Herman’s latest forays into those topics) or of a new upcoming movie on the subject. (Note that Denzel Washington’s Hannibal will be on Netflix later this year.)

Hannibal featuring Victor Mature

Just as Denzel Washington is taking on a role made famous by screen legend Victor Mature and (more recently) by Star Trek’s Alexander Siddiq, among others, so did we also make the decision to cross the Alps into Ancient Italy to confront the power of Rome.

Hannibal featuring Alexander Siddig

We are big fans of previous Hannibal games, including that designed by our mutual friend and GMT colleague Mark Simonitch.  This is a game recently updated as Hannibal and Hamilcar. By the way, Simonitch’s game is the basis for a miniatures’ campaign Mark McLaughlin is involved with.  Battles among the group are resolved using several different sets of miniatures rules – most recently “To the Strongest.” Incidentally, Mark is not Hannibal in this game but has the role of his younger brother, Hasdrubal, and he lost – if barely –in his first outing on the field).

But we digress…