Hot Blood & Cold Steel

Category: games

  • Making A Killing, James Ashcroft

    Review of “Making A Killing” by James Ashcroft who was a mercenary in Iraq in 2003 & 2004. Well worth reading.

  • CLWG Games Weekend 2007 Reports

    Offside reports from the 2007 CLWG Games weekend, including – Jim’s Breeding Idea – Siege of Yendor tryout – Religion in Brian Cameron’s ‘Hapsburg Ascendant’ – Onside report of my ‘Orange & Lemon’ – Jim’s ‘Blitz Firefighting’

  • CLWG Offside Report – November 2006

    There were three sessions at the British end of the November ’06 meeting of CLWG; no doubt Daniel and Nick will enlighten us separately on what we missed at the continental meeting. In order of appearance the attendance was Trevor, Mukul, Jim, Brian, John, Peter Howland and myself. The sessions were: * Torchwood. A Victorian…

  • Did McKinsey Invent Matrix Games?

    Most of today I spent on a training course called “Top Down Thinking” being run by a nice chap from PA Consulting who is the project’s workstream leader for technology. What was most interesting for me was the way it boiled the presentation of just about anything down to a ‘Governing Thought‘ and some key lines…

  • Hot Blood & Cold Steel – onside Report

    This was a design session on how to do a WW1 skirmish game, focusing mainly delivering a participation game for Jerry Elsmore’s 50th Birthday con. I’d already done a first darft of the rules but wanted to talk through some of the principles about what I wanted to achieve. I found the discussion particularly useful…

  • Revolutionary Warfare

    When I played Andy Grainger’s A Month in Country I immediately thought of some of the parallels with the Revolutionary Warfare (RW) game that I have run myself a couple of times, although with only a few players. I would particularly like to re-do my Palestine game as the players I ended up with (well…

  • What you missed at the January meeting of CLWG

    The Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) January meeting (Sunday 9th January) was in Jim’s office near Holborn. This one had 14 members in attendance. When I turned up there was a promotion board going on for one of the characters in our long-running Starship Marine campaign (details of the campaign and a history of the…

  • CLWG December 1999

    What you missed at the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) December 1999 meeting. The CLWG December 1999 meeting started from 12 at John Rutherford’s house and we played until after 9pm. Afterwards we chatted, with the aid of several bottles of wine, until almost midnight. In total we had 13 members at the meeting. It started…

  • Invasion of the West – Onside Report

    Invasion of the West was a Cold War turned hot alternative history game that I ran at the March meeting of Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG).  Having cast around for someone to do a plan for Invasion of the West Mukul volunteered, even though he wasn’t able to turn up on Saturday. Mukul’s plan is…

  • Chaos, Confusion, Cowardice & Incompetence (C3I) – Onside Report

    One of the things you missed [at February’s CLWG meeting] was C3I which actually turned up and was played in the afternoon (because I always turn up at lunchtime and much prefer twice as many half-day meetings). Although this was a figure game it was scenery light and what was used was pretty abstract and…

  • AD69 Megagame of the Year of Four Emperors

    Write up of what happened at the AD69 Megagame of the turbulence in the Roman Empire when they had four Emperors.

  • It's No Picnic!

    Collected press releases/public statements made by the players and the umpire produced Headlines for the Frost City Herald during the Disaster Simulation Tryout Game run by Megagame Makers on Saturday 17 May 1997