Category Archives: Hobby General Interest

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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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Filipinos Play People Power

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I was 15 and in the middle of junior high when the titular People Power EDSA revolution took place. As such, the events surrounding People Power stand out as a watershed historical moment during my youth. Interestingly enough, much of the same factions are still involved in Philippine politics, 37 years hence, and the son of then President Ferdinand Marcos, Bongbong, is once again head of state; and is mainly opposed by leftists and factions associating themselves with Cory and Benigno Aquino. Old wounds and issues were once again headlined during the elections and the different sides clashed in social media, and sometimes in real life.

Thus the introduction of the game People Power comes at a precarious time. Many reference the events and personalities of that titular era, and political lines are drawn (You can check my full review of People Power here). I found it interesting to let different types of Filipinos try out the game. From casual gamers, to GMT fans; from people who lived thru the events to millennials who know little about Imelda Marcos; to people with different political leanings and those who are apolitical themselves. Below are excepts from my game sessions with these Filipinos and their reactions and comments on People Power the game.

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The Camden Burials: A Travelogue

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Mark Miklos, designer of GMT’s 10-volume Battles of the American Revolution series, recently attended the Camden Burials honoring fallen soldiers from the 1780 Battle of Camden, South Carolina and shares his experience in the following article. Enjoy! -Rachel

It has been suggested by author David Smith in his book, Camden, 1780 (Osprey Campaign Series, #292) that fully one third of all the battlefield casualties suffered by American arms during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution occurred at the Battle of Camden.  It is no surprise, therefore, that relic hunters in the 1990s stumbled upon the shallow grave of a soldier while digging for musket balls, buttons and other artifacts of war.

That chance encounter was later verified by Mr. James Legg, Archeologist with the University of South Carolina’s Institute of Archeology & Anthropology in 2001.  Tasked with surveying the battlefield, which then as now is primarily undeveloped long-leaf pine forest, Legg thought to interview relic hunters who had been scouring the area for decades.  As a consequence of those interviews and his own exhaustive, 20-year effort to find artifacts, another thirteen bodies were discovered and the Camden Burials project was eventually born.  Forensic anthropologists working for the Kershaw County, South Carolina Coroner’s Office were enlisted in 2020 and tasked with the exhumations and the study of the remains. 

More recently the American Battlefield Trust, working in cooperation with the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust and the Historic Camden Foundation, has been granted an easement by the timber company that currently owns the land, to interpret the site.  In addition, the battlefield has been added to the Liberty Trail, a comprehensive network of historic sites and parks spread across the state to highlight the pivotal role South Carolina played during the struggle for American Independence.  

When it was announced that a reburial with full military honors would be held for these soldiers, and given that Camden is only a three and a half hour drive from my home in the Atlanta area, I made it a priority to attend.  The ceremonies were held April 20-22, 2023.  The impact they made on me will last a lifetime.        

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Twilight Struggle vs Imperial Struggle – Comparison

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Twilight Struggle (TS) and Imperial Struggle (IS) are two great creations of the Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews duet. We waited a long 15 years between the publication of the first (2005) and latter one (2020). Both titles prove to be deep, immersing, and very replayable designs thus no wonder that they have pretty broad pool of fans.

What is more, those games share a lot in common but on the other hand, have also vivid differences. In this article I am going to discuss them!

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ConSim Game Jam Podcast Series Announcement

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Hi folks,

David Alexander and Peter Evans here with an announcement for a new podcast series that may be interesting to followers of GMT Games, covering the first ever “ConSim Game Jam” sponsored by GMT that took place last October.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Consim Game Jam, this 72-hour event challenged teams to create a board game from scratch using only the components found in one of the published games from GMT’s COIN series.

In this podcast series we interviewed the founders of the ConSim Jam (“young guns” Fred Serval and Joe Dewhurst); the Judges of the event (the venerable Volko Runhke, Morgan Gouyon-Rety, and Jason Carr); and the three teams whose games secured themselves a podium finish, including the designers behind current P500-listed designs In the Shadows and Vijayangara (the other placing design on Boudicea’s revolt may join them soon as well, albeit in another form).

These interviews covered what the Jam was like from a variety of perspectives; as well as a wide range of board game related topics, including design and development, building a narrative, the COIN system, how to know when a design is viable, and many more besides!

We had a wonderful time chatting with folks to create this, and hope you enjoy listening to these interviews as much as we had in putting them together!

Finally – this podcast series also inaugurates the launch of our new Podcast: The Spicy Fish Board Games Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback as well as suggestions. If you like what you hear, or would like to hear more from us or request content please contact us at spicyfishpodcast@gmail.com.

We hope to see you at the gaming table!

Dave & Peter

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Convention Report: The GMT Delegation’s January 2020 Visit to Bellota Con III in Badajoz, Spain & Congress of Vienna (CoV)

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The Locale: Landscape picture taken from the Bellota Con convention site. Dominating the scene is the Guadiana River and the ancient bridge with Roman ashlars on the horizon as well as the old fortress of Elvas on the Portuguese side of the Spanish-Portuguese border.

Note: If you would like to view any of the above or below images in a larger size, you can click on the image and it will point you to the full image file.

Badajoz is a small and quiet city in the southwest of Spain with 150,000 inhabitants. It is replete with history relevant to the Congress of Vienna game period. It boasts an old fortress with 17th-century Vauban bastions that was key to the southern corridor between Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War. It was occupied by the French March 1811 after the Spaniards surrendered.

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Your First Game: Combat Commander for Beginners and Experts

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Author’s Note: this article has Combat Commander: Europe as its focus, but is more or less applicable to the series in general.

Speaking in the broadest of terms, if you are thinking of playing your first-ever game of Combat Commander, you fall somewhere along a spectrum that starts with people who have never played a wargame and ends with those who are decades-long devotees of complicated hex-and-counter systems like ASL. Combat Commander has something to offer for everyone, but depending on your position on this spectrum you might want to know what mindset to have when approaching this game to help you figure out what it is all about.

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General Eisenhower’s Armchair: How War Becomes a Game

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This is a guest post from a friend of a friend. It speaks to the relationship the world at large might have to our hobby as wargamers. We thought you might enjoy it… — Mitch

by Jerad Alexander

Davin has a problem. His advance on Poland is being gutted by the collective will of democratic Europe. His army of high-powered Russian and Belarus troops are being hammered by NATO air power across northeastern Poland and the Baltics. His casualties began to mount on the second week of his campaign—how many has it been? 5,000 dead and wounded? 7,000? Davin isn’t a military general. He hasn’t trained for any of this. He lives with his girlfriend Joanna in Chelsea. He collects soundtracks on LP and works as a webmaster. He’s not even Russian. He’s from
Fresno.

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Community News: New Wargame League Website

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The Wargame League:

Grognards and fellow wargamers!   Many of us are relegated to playing our favorite games using the left half of our brain against the right half. For those of you that cram in as much fun as you can over the 9 days of WBC or some of you trek to PREZCON, ORIGINS, or some other gathering. Many may even meet as a group at a hobby store, or other such gathering at a local venue. Whereas all of these things have merit, they miss the ability to reach out across the ether to engage those stalwart souls that also yearn for competition in the many games we have come to love.

Whereas some of those games can be played and resolved in a couple of hours face to face. Many that I will discuss here can take much more time than we can devote in a single sitting even if that is over a long weekend. Utilization of Vassal and email has led to the ability to play across long distances and provide the vehicle that prevent leaving a game set-up on a table for weeks or months.

To that end, The Wargame League will try to address these issues in several ways. First – the website will link to those intrepid souls that already run a ladder in a popular grognard like game; i.e. TRC, War at Sea, Waterloo, VITP, G88. Second – we will establish ladders for those grognard games that currently lack a separately run ladder; already established: Africa Korps; and soon to follow – Bitter Woods, Breakout Normandy, Thunder at Casino, Luftwaffe. Third – the website will expand to include games that include hidden movement such as the Victory Games Fleet series, as well as some larger and more complex games from GMT, MMP, Compass, SPI, and others.

Some of the anticipated additional ladder games suggested and now on the site include Normandy 44, Ukraine 43, Russia Besieged, Next War Korea, The Barbarossa Series, La Bataille de Quatre Bras, River of Death, Devils Cauldron and Day of Days among others.

In the meantime, I ask those of you that are interested to keep a look out for the web site: wargameleague.com for updates. Additionally, you can email me at jeff.lange@mac.com for more information and to suggest games to add to the ladder.

Good luck on your future games, and may the odds be always in your favor!

Jeff Lange