Wargames

Posts that touch on the topic of conflict simulation

Tomorrow’s Matrix War

Aron Clark1 Comment
Peter Andrew Jones – Today We Choose Faces
w/ Prisma filter, originally seen here

I’ve been fascinated with the Tomrrow’s War rule set, difficult but fascinating. My summary of those core rules here.

Equally fascinating is the the Matrix Game concept, info here.

Being holed up for the past two’ish years I’ve turned my attention back to miniature wargaming, but friends are distant and my days are often full. I said to myself “self, you ought to setup a remote game”. “Good idea self, let’s try making that a Matrix game too”.

Recruited a few friends to help me with my madman’s plan. Linked below is an evolving collection of our comms, where everything done via bcc’d e-mail – forcing a fog of war amongst the players.

We made good progress with the scenario and background setup in our first week. Then high summer hit, two graduations and a wedding yet to come. We should get back to this game in a few more week, setting up a table with some miniatures and dedicated player photos.

Progressive notes for our game linked here.

For the King!

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…and parliament I suppose, for those of you with a more puritanical bent.

Original work by Will Nickless
Worcester Royalist Charge – English Civil War – 1976

There is a very fine To The Strongest variant for the ECW, titled For King & Parliament, which our club has had on the table these past few months. We are working our way through a nicely organized collection of scenarios for the period as well, the Siege of Norchester.

Part of my learning method is simplification, here is my first K&P effort.

I’ll continue to refine this quick reference if the inspiration strikes. Please let me know if your have questions about these rules or my interpenetration. We’ve been playing a good deal and expect we will continue to do so.

Streamlined To The Strongest +Battlefield Generator

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Information spread across multiple sources, locations, or systems is difficult to access. This is a maximum of my professional world and applies equally to my hobby world, especially with complex or evolving rulesets.

To the Strongest is one such use case where periodic updates via the Even Stronger compilation add or clarify rules from the core book. I have taken on a small project to summarize the core rules, simplifying where I can, and adding the ES amendments.

That streamlined TTS effort is now available here.

I’ve posted previously on the topic of To the Strongest here, which includes:

  • A reformatted quick reference sheet,
  • Video tutorial on playing the game with Table Top Simulator, AND
  • A video of a demonstration game

April 18 Update

Have just finished another random generator tool, this time for TTS battlefields. That tool available here, sample output follows:

July 13 Update

Here’s my first attempt with the random battlefield generator, working as designed.

I’ve had a thought about roads, which should always be an easy activation if following the track.

This house rule provides a further improvement to the use of a road even while in open ground.

Frosty Star Graves

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Filtered work by Jordan Penalva, cover for Gordon Dickson’s “Dorsai” when published by Ace.

I’ve been interested in Stargrave and while I have plenty of painted miniatures I have zero inspiration to create a crew, even less desire to puzzle over 52 powers, stat mods and what not. I want my friends to be empowered to start playing whenever we gather, not be blocked by record keeping before we even start.

Inspired by online RPG character generators (e.g. save vs total party kill) I’ve built a Google Sheet that randomly generates a Stargrave Captain & First Officer quickly. It produces things like…

There is a good deal of error checking here, but there could be a few bugs lurking especially on the 4th & 3rd powers for the Captain & First Officers respectively. I’ll continue to fine tune that section, but the tool works well enough for the stated objective.

Thank you to the Reddit user u/5eret who compiled the power list, that was my data set for this project. Without your work my task would have been much more difficult.

You can find the Stargrave generator here.

I have also done a 1st edition Frostgrave grimoire generator, which you can find here. It is an Excel document but you should be able to use it with Google Sheets or Open Office.

Too Dark

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Dorset County Museum children’s art project – Prisma Filter, The Scream

It was 2000 and something and Too Fat Lardies had broken onto the miniature wargaming scene. They brought with them a simpler approach to the rule mechanics, focusing on degrading morale and leadership qualities, along with a passion for the history before the game.

One of the first sets our group settled on was Dux Britanniarum, a dark ages rule set with an abstracted campaign system. Perfect for our group! But like many things we quickly become distracted by the next shinny thing on the horizon, rinse and repeat.

I’ve been waiting to go back to Dux Britanniarum, perhaps someday I will. Fortunately in those heady days of collecting and painting a new scale I also prepared a quick reference sheet, available here.

Too Fat Lardies’ rulebooks tend to read a bit like historical essays. They meander a bit from subject to subject, key points buried in abstracted sections. Far different from the technical manual approach that I associate with the US tradition.

This quick reference should be helpful when finally returning to Dux Britanniarum.