Topic: How many of you wargame??

[Panzergranate]

I also wargame in 20mm. (1:76 Scale) so I was just wondering how many of you wargame in any period such as Ancients, ACW, ECW, Napoleonics, WW2, etc.

[Brush Wolf]

ACW, AWI, Napoleonics, Ancients, WWII all in 10mm. WWI and WWII Air combat in 1/144. For naval we do WWII, WWI, and the Russo-Japanese War in 1/6000, the age of sail in 1/2000 and ACW in 1/1200.

[Dash Jones]

I do lite wargaming.  Can't stand the snobbery of people into some of what they call "heavy/normal" wargaming.

I consider games like Axis and Allies, Conquest of the Empire, and Risk just as valid wargames and as deep, if not as rules heavy, as Advanced Squad Leader, and other such types of games.  In addition, I don't consider a game that costs 50 dollars for a bunch of cheap cardboard a good investment.

At least SFB has actual models that you can hold and use as opposed to just a bunch of cardboard chits (models of course come separate from the game), and for new players they have their starter rules right there on their site for free download, so if I have no one to play with, I can introduce whoever I'm gaming with at the present via those rules and play.  Hate using chits and consider them a BAD investment if that's all a game offers.  Just sell me the rules for however much, and a d/l and I can CREATE better quality than some of those games come with. 

I DO play Warhammer, but consider that miniatures instead of a real wargame overall.  Have a Space Marines, Tyranid, and Eldar army.  Have a Tau and Ork army that still need to be glued and painted when I get the time.

On what others call lite wargaming, or what I would call what MORE people play because the rules make more sense than a bunch of armchair generals creating rules that are complex and really don't reflect reality no matter how much they think they do (well in general, there are some rules out there which must have been made by prior military members because some of them do seem somewhat like it could replicate what occurs...but that tends to be the exception and not the norm, and to combine realism with fun is even harder), I REALLY enjoy the rules lite wargames.  Just like business strategy OR probably war strategy, keep it simple.  The more complex, the more likely the plan is to fail.  So on that note, played some Star Wars Risk last night, whilst in the middle of a longer game with the fellows that we hit as we feel like it through these holidays.

Current involved with a Conquest of the Empires (original) game, embroiled in contention over Narbonensis as Italia vs. Hispania which has been ongoing for the past day.  We've gotten past the infantry vs. infantry stages and now slowly starting on the catapult/tank buildup stages of this war.  Currently economically I think I have the upper hand, but he has a better navy and slowly is building up on the islands to build up his economic stance.

On another Wargame note, any of you play War of the Ring?

[Panzergranate]

The most tedious set of WW2 rules (and most rediculous) was "Tactical Commander", where players had to "aquire" enemy targets.

A common typical rediculous situtation would involve a tank driving down a road but anable to "aquire" the guy with the bazooka / panzerfaust directly stood 1 Inch in front of him in the open, because the tank's player threw a bum dice roll.

Some other rules have annoying "annomalies" in them that defy reality.

The biggest bug in some WW2 rules that a lot of them couldn't cope with aircraft involvement and so simply ban them or just make it extremely difficult.

Then there is the wrong way that anti-armour is done contary to the actual KEP science.

I ended up writing my own rules 25 years ago and figured how to convert ballsitic mathematics into percentage dice rolls. They've kind of developed since.

I've played Warhammer's "Battlefleet Gothic" and SFB it isn't. Very crude and limited by comparison and is basically galleon style combat in space with futuristic sounding weapons. The nice thing is that using anyone used to sailboat naval tactics will wipe the floor with those who don't.

My son performed a perfect "Crossing the T" taking out 3 x enemy capital ships whilst myself and another player ran a standard Tudor "flank baiting" run down either flank with frigates to lure suckers out of their gun line formation, which worked.

I've played SPI's "Kingmaker" at a convention once, long ago.

[Zenister]

Kingmaker is one of the few i'd be willing to put the time in any more...

many many great weekends spent playing that...

one of the key advantages between 'computer wargaming' and paper wargaming is most of the tedium rests on the machine, freeing the players to think more about strategy and tactics and less about 'what the rules will allow' ofc the downside is the (general) inability to change bad game mechanics...

running/support for actual military simulations is/was (as soon as we get back to exercises instead of bloodshed) a huge part of my job as a civilian.

[AcePylut]

SL, ASL, Flattop, VG's Fleet Series, Ambush, Fortress Europa, Russian Front, Third Reich, Pacific War, PanzerGrouppe Guderian, Flight Leader, Dauntless, B-17, War and Peace, Civil War, Turning Point: Stalingrad, and on and on and on.  I played tons of games from Avalon Hill / Victory Games.

www.matrixGames.com has some good computer war games.  Currently sloggin through an Uncommon Valor battle atm.

[Panzergranate]

I don't think that King Maker could be conberted into a computer game.

How on Earth can you programme a computer to perform duplicity??

Part of the fun of KM is seeing the look on an oppoent's face when you out back stab them by changing sides during a battle because the other side has offered you a better deal.

"Do unto other players what that you know they are planning to do to you.... FIRST!!"

Back in the 1980's my brother and myself used to play Rebelstar Raiders, Rebelstar I & II and then Laser Squad on the Spectrim +3 (The beset of the 8 Bit home computers back then!!)

All the above actually came with the instruction manual laid out as wargmaes tables, so that it was possible to play as a traditional table top wargame, instead of as a computer game.

On the PC the series continued with X-COM (UFO Alien Unkown in Europe and the UK) and this followed in the computer wargame theme. A typical campaign game X-Com  usually takes a year or two to complete, even by a typical player spending a few hours every evening. It is very adicitve and I once spent 48 Hours playing one session as I was on a "roll" during a stage in the campaign.

My son, who also became addicted to X-COM when he was younger, bought me the trilogy boxed set for Christmas this year, which I haven't dared to have a go at as I'll be hooked again.

Anyone else here ever wind up an X-Com addict??

The thing with traditional table top wargames, unless you're in a LAN computer wargame, is the social aspect and having a good laugh plus seeing the the look on the opponent's faces when a cunning plan works out.

On the downside, some games. such as SFB do sometimes crawl along with big fleet battles.

The nice thing is that SFC with a well written FMSE script allows 6 x human players with 6 x ships and 5 x AI players with 6 x ships in a single game, and if the polys are kept low inthe models, at a decent pace. Something that is unimmaginable in SFB.

 

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

I loved playing my dad's copy of 3rd edition Gulf Strike... until my mom gave it to Goodwill. I can't find it for sale anywhere online, either... best I've found so far is the 1988 2nd edition.

[AcePylut]

Close Combat 2: Battle of the Bulge

This is the game that got me into computer gaming

Then I gave it to my cousins kid, and picked up CC3: Russian Front

[Panzergranate]

I'm currently playing "Blitzkreig" on the PC as the Russians, mainly because I field a extensive 20mm. (1:76 Scale) force in WW2 onvention games, including a couple of 5 turreted T35 landbattleships, T28, BT5 and BT7. If you seen it in a book, I've a model of it somewhere either in resin or whitemetal or plastic.

I even have the infamous "Dog Mine" canine guided(??) anti-tank weapon. You'd need to read the book "Heroic Failures" to find out how these were intended to work and how they actually worked on the day.

I also field the usual German, British, US, French, Italian and Japanese forces in games sometimes.

The French are the hardest to play in any WW2 wargame as their tanks are thickly armoured, undergunned, undermanned and slow crap. I once managed to cover a allied player's retreating French troops (he decided to retreat as he had a good chance of being forced intoa morale throw eventually!!) with a Char D2 by sheer bluff in a big 3 day convention 1940 game. My Model 1893 47mm. L21 tank gun had a 1% chance at putting a hole throw the maximum 49mm. of flat armour close up, and I was facng a mixed force of 15 Pz.III.E. and Pz.IV.F.1. tanks, whose operating player had never seen a D2 before, and so didn't know what to make of it. With a top speed of 11 MPH on the road, the slow off road movement speed of the D2 must have convinced him that he was looking at a heavy tank, so he played careful and wasted 3 turns hugging cover. He also managed to bounce a few 37mm. and short 75mm. shells of the D2's armour with reasonable failed penetration rolls which only "confirmed" his paranoia.

Another player managed to put a short 50mm. APCBC round into the D2 from the flank and that was that.

The infantry's WW1 FT17 "Coffepots" had already bailed out and surrendered by then. The infantry managed to pull back a fair distance before being overrrun by the Panzers and surrendering without firing a shot in the whole game.

Meanwhile on the centre and left flank, the British and Belgian players were putting up a stiff defence. The French right flank collapse lost the game. eventually as it took another 10 turns to encircle the remaining allies holding the town. The game ended with the British surrounded but holding the main street and a couple of blocks with armoured cars and light tanks plus a A11 infantry tank. The Belgian forces were reduced to an officer and one other rank after a brilliant ambush of a German motor rifle platoon went wrong.

Like I said, the French are the hardest side to play in a game as apart from lousy equipment, the chances of failing a morale test are very high.

I've also fought a campaign set during the 1937 Russian - Japanese Manturian war, whch was interesting due to the limitations of the forces.

I've played "hammering Iron" which is an ACW naval / riverboat game. All I can advise here is don't go for a tinclad as these catch fire real easy. Best boat to go for is an unarmoured stern paddle boat as then you can carry a greater weight and size of cannon (a couple of 12 Pounders) which make quick work of even armoured and tin clad boats, plus the odd monitor. They're also half again as fast as anything armoured and more maneuverable.


   

[Dash Jones]

I loved playing my dad's copy of 3rd edition Gulf Strike... until my mom gave it to Goodwill. I can't find it for sale anywhere online, either... best I've found so far is the 1988 2nd edition.

At the time of this posting...you have six hours

http://cgi.ebay.com/GULF-STRIKE-3rd-Ed-Persian-Gulf-war-game-UNPUNCHED_W0QQitemZ290194947870QQihZ019QQcategoryZ2558QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

good luck

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

Thanks for the heads up, Dash. The bid is in.

[Zenister]

Close Combat 2: Battle of the Bulge

This is the game that got me into computer gaming

Then I gave it to my cousins kid, and picked up CC3: Russian Front

absolutely loved those games, (minus the horrible AI) i found copies of them while digging for my OP disk (still MIA)

[Panzergranate]

I have "Close Combat - A Bridge Too Far" here.... played it to death.

I think that my son has an earlier "Close Combat" lying around somewhere.

The thing is that I receive these games Christmas or birthdays or I buy them, then forget I have the things because I'm in the middle if playing a campaign on something else.

I still prefer proper table top wargaming in WW2 and other periods to computer based wargames. Table top wargames don't have Windows crashing the game for no apparent reason, etc.

But if you listen to a Microsoft spokesperson, they'll say that nobody has complained about their new line in parachutes to date.

 

[Father Ted]

I used to have a huge selection of AH and Victory Games sets, but the only ones I could ever find a human opponent for were 'Civil War' and 'Empires in Arms'. I also had the complete Captain's Edition of SFB, F&E, as well as just about everything to do with Battletech. Unfortunately, my grandfather, RIP, threw them away about 10 years ago without realizing how valuable some of that stuff would be worth today(and how much money I spent for them back then). 

The only ones I ever did regular multiplayer gaming with were SFB and Battletech(our group played lots of Battletech). I went to Origins in 93, did okay with my mechs, but I got clobbered in the Patrol and Captain's tourneys(note to self, don't take a Klink ship when your best ship is Hydran). Still, it was a good time, got to meet Steven V. Cole, and we had a ton of beer in the hotel room.

[Panzergranate]

I played a WW2 game, over the Christmas week, against my teenage son Robert and old friend Dave (Dave and myself have been wargaming for over 30 years now), in a limited Soviet - German late 1942 battle.

To prevent a table covered in tanks, we limited it to 3 x Platoons of tanks, troops, artillery for the Russian defenders (me) and 4 x Platoons for the Germans (Dave and Robert).

I went for a T34/76C platoons (4 x tanks) and 2 x infantry platoons with battalion infantry guns (2 x 76.2mm. L16.5) and 1 x 45mm. L66 anti-tank gun firng "Arrowhead" HVAP. The T34s had an attached SU122 asault gun, which is not a tank destroyer though gives the impression that it is by its shape.

My infantry also had 3 x Maxim MMG and 3 x 17mm. HMG on havey wheeled carriages for back up.

The Germans fielded a platoon of Pz.IV. (5 x tanks) made up of 2 x F, 1 x G and 2 x H types and later fielded a standrad platoon of 5 x Tiger I tanks.

Their single platton of infantry used an IG40 75mm. infantry gun for support, which is Dave's stock method of attack, baring in mind that infantry guns can be loaded to fire when being moved by design. Dave uses the IG40 to pick off bunkers, MG posts and the occasional AFV with HC shells, which is what the real weapon was used for.

Needless to say, I lost, but only after a stiff fight and a few beers. The dice were against me that afternoon, obviously.