REAL Wargaming

Started by GJK, May 22, 2013, 06:41:13 PM

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TheCommandTent

Quote from: Grimnirsson on May 23, 2013, 04:50:03 PM
Not want to be off topic, but as the term man-cave came up here...here's what a father and his son had in mind for that...

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/all-star-dad-builds-incredible-arcade-with-his-son/

Wow that is insane.
"No wants, no needs, we weren't meant for that, none of us.  Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

mirth

Quote from: TheCommandTent on May 23, 2013, 06:49:02 PM
Quote from: Grimnirsson on May 23, 2013, 04:50:03 PM
Not want to be off topic, but as the term man-cave came up here...here's what a father and his son had in mind for that...

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/all-star-dad-builds-incredible-arcade-with-his-son/

Wow that is insane.

And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Bison

Meh...I didn't see Gauntlet amoung the arcade collection.

Staggerwing

Quote from: mirth on May 23, 2013, 08:05:47 PM


And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

I just had a vision of Bill Murray dressed in wrinkled fatigues facing a review stand and uttering those lines...
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Rekim

Quote from: Barthheart on May 22, 2013, 07:06:15 PM
Great table GJK! I'm going to build something similar but it'll be about 46"x 90". It'll have to wait until winter again though.

In the mean time I've finished moving into my new man cave. My wife and I swapped offices as she no longer wanted to be in the basement. So now I get the 17'x18' basement office and she has the 9'x10' office at the front of the house... with the sunlight.

Here's what my new space looks like so far:


View from my desk.

What's your connection with the RCAF flag Barthheart?

My wife is a bartender (bar manager) at the RCAF Officers mess here in town.

Barthheart

Quote from: Rekim on May 25, 2013, 03:38:23 AM
Quote from: Barthheart on May 22, 2013, 07:06:15 PM
Great table GJK! I'm going to build something similar but it'll be about 46"x 90". It'll have to wait until winter again though.

In the mean time I've finished moving into my new man cave. My wife and I swapped offices as she no longer wanted to be in the basement. So now I get the 17'x18' basement office and she has the 9'x10' office at the front of the house... with the sunlight.

Here's what my new space looks like so far:


View from my desk.

What's your connection with the RCAF flag Barthheart?

My wife is a bartender (bar manager) at the RCAF Officers mess here in town.

My father was a Chief Warrent Officer in the Airforce. When he retired they gave him this full size RCAF flag and a similar sized Canadian flag. When he moved to Grenada he gave the flags to me.

Grimnirsson

QuoteSo, I wanted to come up with a "cat proof" design that would allow me to leave a game set up forever if need be. 

This is what we came up with... :)

http://wargamecenter.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/cat-proof-wargaming/
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TheCommandTent

Quote from: Grimnirsson on June 06, 2013, 02:27:44 PM
QuoteSo, I wanted to come up with a "cat proof" design that would allow me to leave a game set up forever if need be. 

This is what we came up with... :)

http://wargamecenter.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/cat-proof-wargaming/

That is a great idea.
"No wants, no needs, we weren't meant for that, none of us.  Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

GJK

Quote from: Grimnirsson on June 06, 2013, 02:27:44 PM
QuoteSo, I wanted to come up with a "cat proof" design that would allow me to leave a game set up forever if need be. 

This is what we came up with... :)

http://wargamecenter.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/cat-proof-wargaming/

This is probably a better implementation than the lid that I made out of "peg board" material.  My only concern would be that the cardboard is too lightweight and would shift or slide if the cat did a running jump (as mine can from the sofa to the game table that I use it on downstairs).  My lid is easy enough to pick up (I added handles) but heavy enough that it won't slide on the table.  Actually, the cat slides across the lid because I have the slick side of the peg board facing up.  The problem with my design is that 1) it's not modular to adapt to various board sizes and thus 2) you have this big, long lid leaning against the wall while playing.

I LOVE my hide-away table that I made though.  That thing is the cats meow (pun intended).  :)
Clip your freaking corners!
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Blood Bowl on VASSAL - Ask me about it! http://garykrockover.com/BB/
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"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

-Dean Vernon Wormer

Grimnirsson

No the thing doesn't move even if Troja (the cat) is jumping on it, it's made of several layers of cardboard and so quite heavy.
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GJK

So now I'm starting a move towards more miniatures for my "REAL Wargaming".  I've never played mini's but my son saw a thread that Nevermore posted that had modern mini's and he wanted to know more about it.  I was told that it was "Force on Force" and so I looked it up and saw that it had some really good reviews and was a very approachable game.  So, I grabbed the main rule book and the Fallujah scenario book and while waiting for my son to return home from his summer vacay, I read the rules.  We played the intro scenario finally over the weekend and it was pretty darn fun.  I'm probably enjoying the model making/painting stuff more than actually playing but I did have a good time.  It's no ASL mind you, but what was important was that my son thought that it was the best game that he's ever played that wasn't on a computer.  And he's played ASL, Up Front, No Retreat and many others with me. He even liked it more than Blood Bowl, which surprised me.

I have no pictures this go around - I made a half-assed mock up of the terrain for the scenario that was non-all-too-impressive I'm sure but I found a great site that covers how to make modern Afghan/Iraqi style buildings and will be working on those in the near future.

So - how many include miniature gaming as part of (or exclusively as) their "REAL Wargaming" ritual?  How do you compare mini's to traditional board wargaming?  Pro's and Con's. 

The Pro's for me would be that you can find cheap plastic mini's everywhere and cheap or even the old micro-armor or if you want the Flames of War stuff.  They seem to be more popular as of late, at least at my FLGS's.  You can find all kinds of rules; many are freely downloadable too.  It's fun building and painting (for me it is) and they are aesthetically pleasing to look at and uh-hum, fondle. 

The only real Con that I could think of is the rules are usually much lighter than you'd find in a board wargame, which may be a Pro for many but I feel that they are typically a simple "dice fest" that rely on the eye-candy more than the game play.  That certainly may not always be the case however of course.  That and perhaps the large table space that is required.

What say you guys?
Clip your freaking corners!
----------------------
Blood Bowl on VASSAL - Ask me about it! http://garykrockover.com/BB/
----------------------
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

-Dean Vernon Wormer

Jack Nastyface

I'll post more, later, but the "buckets o' dice" game mechanic is something that is meant to replace the old "Combat Results Table" lookup game.  Although some of the chit / card pull games offer an equally simple system, I prefer the buckets o' dice mechanic because I don't have to look up endless CRT's.

For example, one game I have played a couple of times with a local game group for WWII naval ship-to-ship action is Supremacy At Sea.  The basic idea of the game is simple enough:  each ship can move so many centimetres, less if you are planning a turn, and to fire you measure range to target.  Combat is resolved using a number of CRT tables that are based on gun calibre, ammo type, distance, etc,  Certain conditions (ie: damage to guns) might cause you to "shift" one CRT level, or perhaps move across to another column.  And there are, of course, seperate tables for critical hits, another one for hull versus superstructure damage. etc.  Moving the ships was easy enough...but when it came to combat, I had to ask for help on EVERY game turn.

Compare that vis-a-vis FoF...my crappy Afghani fighters fire using a d6; the Canadian Forces I am attacking defending using a D8.  Each man in your fire group gets 1 dice, support weapons add another dice, then roll.  Remove any results less than four, then compare the remaining d6 rolls versus the remaining d8 rolls.  If my dice "beat" his dice, he takes that many dice damage.  Simple.

I think more and more games are turning to this buckets o' dice mechanic.  It is certainly the core of "Bolt Action" WWII rules, and most of the Warhammer historical "Legends of..." series used a similar mechanic.  It is, perhaps, less rigorous than a CRT table, which provides you opportunities for detailed combat results - things like "shaken / distrupted" etc - but anything that requires less books, pages, tables etc on the game table is good for me.

Yours in gaming,

Jack Nastyface
Now, the problem is, how to divide five Afghans from three mules and have two Englishmen left over.

GJK

Wow, great response that sparks some good dialogue.  I hadn't thought of the "buckets o' dice" (BOD) as a "system".  I have John Prados' Third Reich (boardgame) and if you read some of the ratings comments on BGG, many complain about the BOD system and many also have praise.  I haven't played that game much so never really had any thoughts on it personally.  I also own, have played and rather enjoy "Fire in the Sky" (MMP).  It too uses a similar BOG system and I thought that it was very innovative when I first learned and started playing it.  No CRT's, you roll x number of dice, and 5's and 6's are "hits".  Easy enough.  Hmmmm, so where do I stand on the BOD system.  I guess I'm mixed about it.  The "traditionalist" in me loves charts, charts and more charts as it seems (on outward appearance) that you are really crunching numbers and getting quite detailed in historical accuracy.  I guess the other half of me likes the quite simplicity of the BOD system.  Man, that is some thought proviking stuff.  Looks like we have a sub-sub-topic Q here; what do you think of the BOD system vs traditional CRT's?  Thinking more on it, I think I'd lean tables and charts but can certainly put up with BOD systems in certain games.  I don't see ASL running a BOD system, that's for sure.
Clip your freaking corners!
----------------------
Blood Bowl on VASSAL - Ask me about it! http://garykrockover.com/BB/
----------------------
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

-Dean Vernon Wormer

Jack Nastyface

Each system has it's strengths and weaknesses, and has value when metered against the kind of outcomes you are looking for.
Some of the challenges with CRT's is they very clearly define the "odds" and the minimum or maximum damage (outcomes).  So when facing an assualt of GEVs (Defense 2)in the classic Steve Jackson game of the same name, an effective defensive force could be created by selecting only units with attack factors of 2 (thereby forcing a 1-1 CRT result for every attack).  Infantry squads of strength 3 didn't give you a material advantage (rounds down to 1-1) and missile Tanks (also Attack factor 3) were only valuable because you could fire at range.  As a result, I tended to load up on light tanks (Attack 2) and 2xInfantry squad and maybe use only 1 "heavy" unit as knockout punch for anything that had been disabled.

And therein lies the challenge:  most CRT's depend on odds.  So:
6 man squad versus 6 man squad = 1-1 odds
6 man squad versus 11 man squad = also 1-1 if you round down
but the combat difference in these is, respectively, 0 and -5.  The CRT table simply doesn't capture this difference.
I would say another challenge of the CRT system is that in general, they TEND to reduce an entire engagement into a single dice roll.  And the 6 possible results for the 1-1 odds table probably look something like this:  1-defender dies, 2-defender reduced; 3-defender retreats ; 4-attacker retreats; 5-attacker reduced; 6- attacker dies.

Of course, CRT's and modifiers do make sense in large scale engagements.  Just how many dice would one roll for the entire 3rd Panzer Lehr?  And any game which needs / requires DETAIL hit information (Panzer) where the hit and damage is calculated for each shot or attack also lends itself to CRT's and critical hits, etc.

I suppose what many gamers don't like about the BoD mechanic is that it does allow for "extreme" hits or miss situations.  I recall an game of Axis and Allies (a BoD game) where my opponent rolled 3 hits (roll of 1 on a d6 vs each attacking plane) with his AA guns versus my 4 strategic bombers.  The other side of that, of course, is the tremendous roar of joy or defeat that followed that roll...an experience that doesn't happen on a more "statistical" CRT.
Now, the problem is, how to divide five Afghans from three mules and have two Englishmen left over.

Grimnirsson

QuoteSo - how many include miniature gaming as part of (or exclusively as) their "REAL Wargaming" ritual?

We usually don't play minis because we have a bunch of hex and counter wargames and card (war)games on the shelf, so you have to draw a line somewhere. I say 'usually' because Hiimori and I are fans of the great Warhammer 40k universe. So after reading the novels, playing games on console etc. we said 'let's try the real thing'. We have everything here, rulebook, minis, painting stuff...but to paint these little fellows takes soooo much time. I suppose it will take a while before I can send my Space Wolves into battle against her Emperor's Children ;)
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