Category: games
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Logistics of Megagames
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics Continuing the theme of advice for new megagamers I’m going to talk about the logistics of playing in Megagame Makers style megagame (like Watch the Skies). This is player logistics though, not in game logistics (see the military player advice for that). Logistics of Megagames Megagames are juggernauts. Once they…
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New Megagamer Advice
Advice for a new megagamer on how to get the best experience from a Megagame Makers megagame. Also handy for the experienced megagamer
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Soldier in the Sun (BBC 1964)
Soldier in the Sun is a newsreel type production of the British Army in the Radfan in Aden in 1964. Shot completely on location in Aden and featuring real soldiers talking unscripted about their experiences. I caught Soldier in the Sun on the BBC iplayer where it is still available more or less indefinitely. If…
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OR Driven Wargame Rules
I’ve been tinkering with a set of small unit wargame rules informed by operational research rather than fashions in wargaming for a couple of years. The crux of these rules is the morale mechanism.  These haven’t quite got as far as I would have liked as I’ve not really had any time to complete or playtest…
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Watch the Skies 3
Last Saturday I was control for East Asia for Watch the Skies 3. This picked up where Watch the Skies 2 left off, with some modifications to rules and briefings etc to make it flow much better. There were a number of obvious improvements, the media being a prime example. Media Coverage There were more journalists…
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Megagame Don’t Panic offside report
Last Saturday I was political control for the megagame Don’t Panic. As mentioned previously this is a what if megagame about the German Invasion of Britain in 1940. The scenario necessarily changes history to remove some of the most obvious reasons why the Germans didn’t ever try this during WW2. Anyway my role was to…
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Could there have been a German Invasion of Britain in 1940?
Next week’s megagame Don’t Panic is an alternative history megagame about the German Invasion of Britain in 1940. It’s a popular what if and makes an interesting game for us British because the playing area is familiar to us from our everyday lives. At least it is familiar if you live in the South East.…
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Operation Sealion: A Military Appreciation
The next megagame I’m going to is Don’t Panic a what if scenario on Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Britain in the autumn of 1940. I’m going to be the British Control. So no playing for me. However that doesn’t mean that I can’t look at how I would plan the Operation Sealion…
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1689 Reading List
So far this half a shelf is my 1689 reading list for the proposed megagame about the Glorious Revolution. I’ve read some of this already, and marked up the interesting bits. Notably Bonnie Dundee and the Bruce Lenman books as well as Glencoe by John Sadler which sets the scene for the 1692 massacre very well…
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1689 Megagame Idea
A 1689 Megagame of the Glorious Revolution In November 1688 William of Orange landed at Torbay with a combined force of Dutch and British troops. Early in 1689 the English Parliament declared for William. In Scotland and Ireland things were less clear cut, Scotland was finely balanced and Ireland was more Jacobite than Williamite. The…
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Welcome to Cold Steel Games!
Welcome to Cold Steel Games! This is a fork of my main blog Themself to split out the military history and game related stuff from the reading and writing that has come to dominate it over the last two or three years. Why Cold Steel? It’s a re-purposing of a domain I’ve held for a…
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Megagame – Watch the Skies 2: Global Conspiracy
On Saturday I was the lead control for the East Asia region in Megagame Makers largest ever megagame Watch the Skies: Global Conspiracy. You can read rather a lot about it on twitter, facebook, reddit and a number of blogs because there were over 300 people involved in this megagame. Look for #WTS2 to find…