Explaining Next War: Korea to a non-wargamer

[bayonetbrant]

This column actually does a very good job of explaining how a wargame is designed to model conflicts

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/2e6814c84f14

The game designer must take a lot of information and make abstractions and comparisons about nearly everything, using whatever data points he can find. The F-16 fighter's got a long combat record, allowing for pretty accurate modeling. But the fighting ability of the North Korean 105th Armored Division, which hasn't seen battle since 1953, is purely a matter of conjecture.

Next War: Korea reduces quality and quantity of the armies and air forces on both sides to numerical values. For example, a North Korean mechanized brigade has an attack value of five, a defense value of five and a high level of road mobility on roads and clear terrain. A U.S. mechanized brigade has a slightly greater value. If this sounds off the mark, remember that the North Korean brigade has lower-quality vehicles, but many more of them.

A U.S. F-15C fighter has an air combat value of five, while a North Korean MiG-21 has a value of two, making the F-15C more than two-and-a-half times more powerful in air-to-air combat. A B-52 bomber squadron is twice as powerful attacking ground targets as a North Korean Su-25 bomber squadron. That too may sound inaccurate until you factor in range and sortie generation.

This abstraction converts entire armies and air forces into cardboard counters that battle their way from one end of the Korean peninsula to the other.

there's also an excellent discussion of the maps, too.

[mirth]

Anyone been playing Next War: Korea or Next War: Taiwan? I'm about to start on Korea this weekend with a buddy of mine. Any thoughts/tips would be welcome.

[Nefaro]

Anyone been playing Next War: Korea or Next War: Taiwan? I'm about to start on Korea this weekend with a buddy of mine. Any thoughts/tips would be welcome.

Don't fall in the benjo ditch.

[mirth]

Don't fall in the benjo ditch.

That's normally my go to game style :P

[Tinkershuffle]

I bought Next War: Taiwan in march/april but haven't played it yet. The game states that it's not "introductory wargame" but I think that's mainly because of the lack of proper illustrated examples of plays which makes the rulebook a bit difficult to understand at times. Luckily there are some great videos by GMT on Youtube how to play the game.