Hot Blood & Cold Steel

Hot Blood & Cold Steel: game design

  • Megagame: Invasion from Mars 01

    Invasion from Mars is one of Megagame Makers megagames, designed by Jim Wallman and played in Anerley Town Hall in south London. The Invasion from Mars website has the game rules and the map as well as some background info on the downloads page. I played the part of General Stanley Buck, a loyal and competent…

  • Another side of the COIN

    I ran my game of being an Afghan farmer “The Other Side of the COIN” at the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group’s (CLWG) annual conference yesterday afternoon. This was its second outing, you can see my onside report from the first run here. Since the last outing the game has developed further to address some of…

  • What you missed at CLWG in September 2011

    Three interesting games and a load of cake! We started with Peter Merritt’s 1814 political game which looked at how Napoleon’s Marshals dealt with the oncoming defeat of France and the transfer of power. Following that Andrew Hadley brought out his game about the Athenian invasion of Sicily. We then finished with Rob Cooper’s game about…

  • Condor Blues – British soldiers at war

    A very interesting book about the British Army experience from the point of view of two platoons embedded in training the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) in the aftermath of the invasion (so the first half of 2004 approximately). Both platoons belonged to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, but one was on secondment from the…

  • Company Training by Gen. Haking

    When in Southport last week I found an antiquarian bookshop in a very small gap between two other shops. It was very much like the fabled ‘magic’ shops that when you go back to it isn’t there. (Although I hope it is if I get a chance to go back, it had a fantastic collection of…

  • Economics of New Colonies

    I often play in Jim Wallman’s hard SF games set in the universe he’s created. I’ve been thinking about how new colonies get set up and the sort of funding they need. There is a lot of infrastructure required to build a viable colony on a new system. Firstly you need to survey it to…

  • The Defense of Jisr Al-Doreaa

    This is an excellent update of an old classic. Two books in one, the author’s have brought Swinton’s Duffer’s Drift and re-written it for the modern conflicts (which bear more than a passing resemblance to the Boer War). Swinton’s book is in the second half of the volume.  The basis for Duffer”s Drift (if you…

  • Ars Magica – Lumen

    Recently Lumen has been on a trip to Waddenzee with several of her friends from the covenant at Triamore. (See myweb.tiscali.co.uk/thelemur/ars/ars%20wus/1224b_april_wu.html for the write up). From her perspective the journey was mostly uneventful apart from: premonitions of the attack on the ship they were using (during which she mostly made attackers fall asleep); some searching…

  • The Other Side of the COIN

    An on-side report of how the first run of ‘The Other Side of the COIN’ went. In all a fun day with a lot of useful positive feedback on how to make it better for the next time we play it, and there will be a next time.

  • Kings of War

    Kings of War is a blog written by faculty and research students at King’s College War Studies department. A very interesting blog with lots of articles on a variety of different aspects of warfare, both modern and historical. I came across it when looking for things to help develop my insurgency game. I am enjoying reading…

  • Thoughts on an Insurgency Game

    An article I read in the New Scientist on why people got involved in the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia triggered some ideas about trying to run a game about the locals caught amidst an insurgency campaign. Farming Today, Fighting Tomorrow? This is a game to explore why people become insurgents (or perhaps not).…

  • CLWG June 2010 Meeting

    What you missed at today’s chestnut lodge meeting (unless you were one of those present) were some good conversations and two games: Come One, Come Eorl – another megagame tryout from Andy Hadley; and D-Day beach landing – an improvised game by Jim Wallman. We started with a chat as Jim, Mukul & I watched…

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