Tag Archives: Frank Chadwick’s ETO Series

Posted on

ETO September ’24 Project Update: The Present and Future of Frank Chadwick’s ETO

by

Let us set the Wayback Machine to review Frank Chadwick’s ETO’s past year of development and bring you up to the present with a look into this project’s future.

The multiple volumes of ETO have seen the “completion” (always subject to further playtesting, but there have been very few changes to the rules .docs as things have come together very nicely, greatly assisted by the regular examples of a rule or system, and the extended examples of turns of play which illustrate important system interactions) of their counters, maps, rules, and player aids. The research is done for most of the scenario OOBs (except some “what if” Spain and Mid-East scenarios we would like to include), and the main corpus of the core rules has barely changed over the past year, meaning the core systems and mechanics are very stable. The development team has been piling up accomplishments as we work on completing every volume concurrently (to ensure that when a new volume is published, you will not need a bunch of errata to fix the previous volumes).

Posted on

ETO Series: August 2021 Update

by

Frank Chadwick’s ETO: Gestating an Elephant

For this update series, we must preface with:

Our focus remains vigilantly on “the larger picture” of combined ETO volume games. One of our Prime Directives for this project’s development is that, when you play multiple volume games together, they integrate as seamlessly as possible.

You will see screenshots of our playtest components and from the Vassal playtest kits throughout this article.

Briefly, About Frank Chadwick’s ETO

Frank Chadwick’s ETO is:

  • A multi-volume series of mini-monster size games
  • Which combine into a grand scope wargame of WWII in Europe
  • The scale is
    • 30 miles per hex (with Iceland in the top-left and the Persian Gulf in the lower-right corner of the combined map’s area)
    • 7.5 – 15 days per turn
    • Most ground units are Corps (with a few Division breakdowns and Army buildup units)
  • The game features a simple play sequence (evolved from the classic introductory wargame, Battle for Moscow)
    • Housekeeping
    • Special Movement
    • Combat
    • Regular Movement
  • The core game is very much a clever, modern hex-and-counter Panzer Pusher
  • It includes an intuitive economic model featuring Seasonal income and per-turn expenditures (primarily used for on-map replacements and building/rebuilding from the force pool)
  • There are discreet Air and Naval units and systems optimized to support the “Panzer Pusher” nature of the game’s primary focus
  • It is card assisted in that each Month you select a card or two from your deck to add to your hand and decide when to unleash their narrative events. It is not card-driven in that you do not shuffle your deck and receive random cards that “make the game go;” Instead, you build a hand/strategy to create an important on-map operation, shore up your economy, or military base, conduct political endeavors, etc.
Posted on

TITE’s Interesting Turn, Part IV: A Campaign Game Spring ’43 Turn for the History Books!

by

Below you will find Part 4 in the “TITE’s Interesting Turn” series from Alan Emrich and Jeff Nyquist. If you would like to read Parts 1, 2, and 3 on InsideGMT, you can find those here, here, and here. The full article series is also available to read on the ETO Series Blog here. Enjoy!

Posted on

TITE’s Interesting Turn, Part III: A Campaign Game Spring ’43 Turn for the History Books!

by

Below you will find Part 3 in the “TITE’s Interesting Turn” series from Alan Emrich and Jeff Nyquist. If you would like to read Parts 1 and 2 on InsideGMT, you can find those here and here. The full article series is also available to read on the ETO Series Blog here. Enjoy!

Posted on

TITE’s Interesting Turn, Part II: A Campaign Game Spring ’43 Turn for the History Books!

by

Below you will find Part 2 in the “TITE’s Interesting Turn” series from Alan Emrich and Jeff Nyquist. If you would like to read Part 1 on InsideGMT, you can find that here. The full article series is also available to read on the ETO Series Blog here. Enjoy!

Part II: The Great Pressure Point

By Alan Emrich with Jeff Nyquist

In Part I of this series, we explained the gameplay background behind this exciting single game turn (June I ’43) of Frank Chadwick’s ETO vol. I: Thunder in the East. The past was prologue and we presented first the battles along the border of the Baltic States as a series of maps showing the cut-and-thrust of the war on the Eastern Front along that sector. In this episode, we move south and eastward along the line where a surprising campaign takes some rapid, up-tempo twists.

This article series was written prior to the “ETO-izing” of the rules. We will try to note the changes as they appear.

Posted on

May 2021 ETO Project Update and TITE’s Interesting Turn, Part I

by

Frank Chadwick’s ETO Project Update

May 2021

From the project development team

Work continues on the Extended Examples of Play for the complete series of game volumes. We have found this an excellent way to “playtest” the down-in-the-weeds level of the game and rules and make small adjustments to ensure that the historical storyboard emerges with verisimilitude to a wargamer’s fond reading and research into the European Theater of Operation (ETO) at this series’ scope and scale. With the four-part Operation Weserübung example complete (here is part one), the team is now working on the D-Day invasion/response example. Getting the narrative right on the straight-up battle-odds & dice roll is easy; the trick has been getting all of the stuff in the French Interior department ringing true. The Partisan Detachments and Air Missions happening in conjunction with the invasion are a bit trickier to research.

Posted on

November 11th Update from the ETO Development Team

by

Armistice, Veterans, and Grognards,

On behalf of the Frank Chadwick’s ETO development team, we are happy to celebrate this day that saw the end of the First World War, when we honor our veterans who stood up and defended America, and to that list we want to add our own nod to wargame grognards who have taken the time the learn (and play) the history which puts November 11th in perspective. Our society of armchair historians, wargamers, and those who design, develop, and devour though play these thoughtful “time machines” is a special year-round gift that is ours to share with all who will partake – we know that you have something to contribute.

To help you with that, we have something very big to share. We have opened the public beta testing of Frank Chadwick’s ETO Volume II: The Middle Sea. If you know how to use vassal (or even if you don’t but need the “right game” to start learning how to use it, as many on our team have), we hope you will join us in this WW2 Mediterranean game which features 14 distinct scenarios and several Campaign Games. TMS also adds the ETO Naval System to this series so veterans of Volume I: Thunder in the East will have some great new “toys” to play with managing their naval communication, transport, battles, etc.

To get the ball rolling, go to the ETO Support Page here: https://www.watchword.biz/eto-support and it is only a short scroll down to the Vassal section. There you will find links for the free Thunder in the East and The Middle Sea (beta) vassal kits, as well the latest ETO Rules and the TMS Scenario documents. With those, you are all set.

To give us feedback, either use that website’s Forums, or post us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/282953878860040/), ConsimWorld (http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dda3495/1486), or Boardgame Geek (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/209951/thunder-east/forums/0).

We have our eyes open at each of these locations and look forward to hearing from you as you explore The Middle Sea with us!

Happy Armistice/Veterans Day from your Frank Chadwick’s ETO development team!

Posted on

Frank Chadwick’s ETO Design Philosophy

by

OR: Applying Decades of Lessons since Battle for Moscow

ETO Game Designer, Frank Chadwick

The ETO series has four major design goals:

  • GOAL 1: A mechanically smooth system; this means a minimum of rules exceptions and special cases, and a minimum of bookkeeping.
  • GOAL 2: Game units, resources, and systems which are concrete as opposed to abstract.
  • GOAL 3: Recognizing that this is primarily a ground war game series. This means modeling air, naval, strategic warfare, and production as supporting adjuncts to the ground war game, not as competitors to it.
  • GOAL 4: Logistical constraints must, of necessity, drive game strategy, but these should not dominate the game’s mechanics.

At first glance, some of these major design goals seem incompatible. The conventional wisdom of wargame design is that the more concrete (read: detailed) a game is, the more complicated its mechanics must be. If you want a simple game, a lot of the detail has to be “abstracted out.” I don’t think that is necessarily the case (although it is a lot easier to design wargame systems that way).

Let us consider each of those goals in a little more detail.…

Posted on

Frank Chadwick’s ETO Series: Super-Massive-Project-Update-ex-pi-a-li-do-cious

by

Frank Chadwick, proud designer of THUNDER IN THE EAST.

Designer Frank Chadwick and I have crossed paths a few times in our decades as wargamers. In 1986, I wrapped the Fire & Movement Beginner’s Guide to Strategy Gaming around Frank’s new Battle for Moscow game design. Years later, I would republish Battle for Moscow as a stand-along game with a Winter Counteroffensive expansion kit courtesy of developer Lance McMillan.

Out of the blue, Frank asked if I was interested in publishing a new board wargame, the first from him (I think) since closing Game Designer’s Workshop. Called The Arduous Beginning (inspired by a book of the same name and subject), it used the venerable Battle for Moscow game engine to show the first bounds into Russia of Army Group Center during Operation Barbarossa.

“Am I interested? Frank Chadwick’s return to board wargaming? Huh. Yeah, let me get back to you on that…”

Posted on

Welcome to Frank Chadwick’s ETO Series Team!

by

Sometimes you just get lucky. Or maybe you’re just in the right place at the right time. Such was the case this past month when I attended John Kranz’s most excellent ConsimWorld Expo with my son Luke. On our first day at the Expo, I ran into Alan Emrich and Frank Chadwick. As most of you know, both of them are legends in this industry. To my surprise, they mentioned that due to Alan’s sale of VPG and a subsequent change of focus at that company that returned the series rights to Frank, they were looking for a new publisher for Frank’s ETO series.

A great Soviet counteroffensive in late autumn ’41