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Megagame: Invasion from Mars 04

Dateline 3127.115-119

General Buck’s advanced HQ on West Continent, Cydonia

Following our previously agreed strategy the DRC Government wanted to appear ultra reasonable to external parties (and we’d spent some time working up our DRC Press Briefing and also making sure that we had briefed the INN reporters covering our war.

On Cromwell’s Land (the DMC continent) the Diggers & Miners Collective had agreed to our proposed cease fire and lines had stayed stable since 3127.100. Their willingness to compromise was helped by the assault landing by the IDA on their Northern coast (which was spontaneous and not co-ordinated with us).

We offered the New Cydonia Colony government an immediate ceasefire and offered to withdraw all our forces to the line as at 3127.100 in return for peace talks. While waiting for their response I was to avoid active military operations. All my units stayed in their current locations, using up four RMP to replace losses in units not engaged.

The enemy rebuffed our cease-fire offer rapidly, stating that they wished a personal apology from the President and reparations as well as a complete withdrawal. Accordingly we destroyed the remaining cadre of their tank brigade to the south of DEANVILLE. We also fought an inconclusive sea battle with their flotilla offshore from their capital AGRIPPA.

The MAFC GF Division moved south and assaulted KUTCHI capturing it at the cost of 2,500 civilian casualties. Our sea marine force (which was incapable of movement) caused casualties to the enemy before being destroyed. Some of the GF Division was able to bypass KUTCHI and move further towards ENSEMBLE given their massive over-match to our forces.

One of our Mech Brigades that had previously pushed south along the southern coast road in an attempt to secure a join-up with the advance air mobile forces withdrew to its previous start position.

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Megagame: Invasion from Mars 03

Dateline 3127.110-104

General Buck’s advanced HQ on West Continent, Cydonia

The Martians have landed! They made a major landing with most of a GF division just outside OLYMPUS. My shuttle landing reinforcements for OLYMPUS diverted to ENSEMBLE as the nearest friendly location. A major assault on OLYMPUS took place with indiscriminate bombardment by the Martians, resulting in 4,000 civilian casualties, as well as wiping out my sea marine force (no reported survivors).

A third sea marine force successfully assaulted KUTCHI and displaced the enemy logistics base there. They took some casualties on the way in and two transport flyers were damaged also (but repairable).

Finnish Defence Forces Annual report 2002, p. 7
Image via Wikipedia

On the North coast the enemy armoured division trapped south of DEANVILLE has been all but destroyed. The infantry component has dispersed into the woods and is no longer a fighting force. The tank brigade has been reduced to a combat ineffective cadre. My two tank brigades are at about 50% strength but I have been allocated four more RMP, so have enough to re-build them.

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Megagame: Invasion from Mars 02

Dateline 3127.105-109

General Buck’s advanced HQ on West Continent, Cydonia

Operation VALKYRIE has been a major success! A successful seaborne assault by 3rd Tank Brigade has taken DEANVILLE cutting off the line of retreat of an enemy armoured division (although at a cost of 3,000 civilian casualties and ejecting an enemy infantry brigade West along the coast).

A simultaneous assault by the 1st & 2nd Tank Brigades from the front line to the North has reduced the enemy Division to less than half strength and prevented its escape.

Additionally an Airborne assault has taken place landing a sea marine force in both OLYMPUS and ENSEMBLE, threatening the enemy Air Logistics Base to the South of OLYMPUS.

The news is greeted with delight back home, and I have been awarded a medal. I also have four more RMP and reinforcements in the shape of an Infantry Brigade and the temporary loan of two shuttles to land them in OLYMPUS as soon as it can be arranged.

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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 commander of the Democratic Republic of Cydonia’s Army Group West (AGW) (in reality about Corps strength, three two brigade armoured divisions plus air and sea components with appropriate logistics support). (details of some typical units)

At the game start AGW is already committed and has captured the Eastern end of the West Continent (link to map). This gives a firm jumping off point for the next phase of the offensive and the military balance shows that AGW slightly outnumbers the New Cydonia Colony (NCC) forces.

In my pre-game thinking I had decided to try an air and sea outflanking move, perhaps directed at the enemy Capital AGRIPPA (see map). One of the things that was clear though, was that the sea logistics base needed to be moved closer to the front to support operations beyond the current front line, it being at the maximum extent of the range from the current location.

Invasion from Mars

[3127.100 – 3127.104]

Operations in this period were intended to probe forwards while the logistics assets were moved forwards. Additionally some of the damaged units (two combat flyers and a tank brigade) were repaired using the available four RMP (Repair & Maintenance Points). The Operation on the Northern coast was called off as my tank brigade was outmatched by the armoured division it faced (a tank brigade, an infantry brigade and air support).

Original caption: CLOSE SUPPORT-- This is one ...
Image via Wikipedia

However the deployment of the enemy was clear and it appeared that the majority of forces were in the front line to defend against further advances. There was an infantry brigade in the Capital, another with the air logistics base and a third moving on the North coast towards DEANVILLE. The cities of OLYMPUS, ENSEMBLE and ALI were empty.

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CLWG June 2010 Meeting

What you missed at Sunday’s CLWG June 2010 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 some of the Stalingrad episode of World at War which Jim had on DVD on his laptop. This while we cut out some of the cards for playing Come One Come Eorl. Once John Rutherford, Andrew Hadley & Brian Cameron also arrived we started playing.
Come One Come Eorl
This was another tryout of the streamlined rules using the Welsh part of the game. I found that it was relatively easy to pick up, although there was obviously come benefit to be had from having played in a previous version and understanding who all the characters were and what they were after. In all we had a very civilised approach, rapidly came to a relatively amicable settlement of power and lands and then attacked the English. We sent out two colums, with myself in charge of the Northern one and fought in three battles, being victorious in both the ones I was fighting in (not a coincidence I believe).
Overall I had a positive experience and think that this is probably more or less done from a mechanistic point of view. There needs to be a little more work on fleshing out the briefings, but Andrew already knew that as we were working off the previous set with hand-written amendments. The game pieces were good, and the suggestion there was around making each army easeir to identify by using flags stuck onto foamboard counters.
I look forward to playing the megagame.
D-Day Beach Landing
Dead and wounded infantry on Sword beach, on t...
Dead and wounded infantry on Sword beach, on the morning of 6 June 1944. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Seeing as it was 6th June we couldn’t have a meeting and not have a session about the Normandy Landings.

Jim had drawn a map of a typical beach sector on a large piece of squared paper. The Germans were pre-positioned and fired at the closest target they could see. There was also some random artillery/mortar fire using a couple of dice and the map grid to determine where it landed.
The attacking forces were two companies of infantry with some supporting assault pioneers and a mortar. Jim had found some generic ‘jenga’ blocks in a local pound shop and used these to produce a series of section level markers. The system was very simple, each section could take up to five hits (being eliminated on the fifth hit), had to roll 1d6 and score more than the number of hits sustained to leave cover, and moved 1d6 squares each turn. When being shot at hits were scored on a 6, or 5 & 6 if in the open.
IWM caption : OPERATION OVERLORD (THE NORMANDY...
IWM caption : OPERATION OVERLORD (THE NORMANDY LANDINGS): D-DAY 6 JUNE 1944. The British 2nd Army: Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade landing from an LCI(S) (Landing Craft Infantry Small) on ‘Queen Red’ Beach, SWORD Area, at la Breche, at approximately 8.40 am, 6 June. The brigade commander, Brigadier the Lord Lovat DSO MC, can be seen striding through the water to the right of the column of men. The figure nearest the camera is the brigade’s bagpiper, Piper Bill Millin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I started as a company commander, but managed to get killed as I got off the landing craft. I then moved to being the senior platoon commander as the Company 2ic took over command. I then became the Coy 2ic as well as being a Pl Comd. We took about 40% casualties on the beach but managed to get mortars producing smoke to screen the closest bunkers from effective MG fire. The assault pioneers then blew a hole in the wire and I personally assualted a bunker because I couldn’t make any of the troops come with me. This proved decisive and we were then able to move more freely and outflank the central bunker and deal with it.

The other company didn’t fare quite as well as we did, but it also managed, eventually, to get off the beach. What the game had going for it was the relative simplicity of the mechanisms and the realistic level of control (or rather lack thereof) of the troops. Once casualties had been taken it became harder and harder to make troops do what you wanted. Also the plan was what counted, and how troops landed in the wrong place interpretted it. We had a slightly better time than the other company simply because there was less ambiguity on the bit of beach we landed on, so the chance of misinterpretation was lower. Most of uor company ended up in front of the correct breach point, although a couple of sections went right instead of left.
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CLWG Games Weekend 2007 Reports

Some reports from the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) games weekend.

Siege of Yendor Tryout

Jim put on a session to try out the mechanisms for the upcoming megagame. We spent some time trying to bring down a section of wall, and also seeing whether or not it was possible to directly assault the wall without first undermining or demolishing it.

Jim’s Breeding Idea

This was a design session rather than a game, but we gave it a good go none the less. Jim had come away from the Light of the Trees megagame with an idea that it ought to be possible to do a sub-component of a game about breeding heroes using some real genetics theory. The main aim was that, like in real life, the players managing the breeding programme wouldn’t actually know what the actual genetic make up of their characters were. Over time those players that were keeping an eye on things and using the evidence that they were accumulating would be able to make some educated guesses about the best pairings that would drive their breeding programme in the direction that they wanted to take.

We all started off with a single individual each, although without worrying about whether that individual was male or female (as this was thought to over-complicate things). The idea was to work with a bloodline rather than a series of individuals, although each generation would be split into separate individuals representing the main lines. This was felt to be necessary to allow the breeders an opportunity to selectively breed those with the correct traits with individuals from the other bloodlines.

The fact that we rapidly bogged down was fairly predictable as we tried to track several individuals. There was a fair amount of mechanical detail involved in generating the offspring as well as the players not having enough information to make good decisions about which individuals to breed with which others. There would have been a better handle on it if we’d played out a bit more of the game before moving into a general discussion of the issues, approach and suggestions of how it could all be achieved.

As a design session it was very thought provoking, and I carried on thinking about it for almost a whole week, on and off. Jim’s conclusion from the session was that it probably wasn’t practically possible to achieve what he set out to do. At the time I would have agreed with him, but a few days of thought have changed my mind on that.

I come to this with more than a smattering of background, I studied “Genes, Organisms & Evolution” as an undergraduate, the course forming a major part of my degree. That said I’ve forgotten most of the detail in the intervening 15 years since I graduated. However the text books are still on a bookshelf nearby.

I think that the general premise that Jim was trying to attain is a sound one and that with some streamlining and appropriate background that it can be achieved. The key is to stick with Jim’s bloodline idea and not get drawn into dealing with individuals, except where heroes or other primary characters are required, and these Heroes should have nothing to do with the breeding stock, although their characters will be determined by it.

The key assumption I am working on is that that this is a sub-component of a game that plays over generations rather than a game in itself. As part of the background the designer of the main game needs to make some decisions about how many characteristics need to be tracked, whether these have any inter-relationship or are independent and also how often he wants particular characteristic levels/attributes to feature.

For example let us assume that a game designer wants to track both personal bravery and intelligence in the hero bloodlines. He might decide that these will not be related to each other. For bravery he might decide that there are four possible states, Heroic (no morale required), Brave (positive modifier to morale), Normal (no modifiers) and Cowardly (negative modifiers). Of these outcomes he might want Heroic to be quite rare, Brave to be common but not a majority, Normal to be the majority position and Cowardly to be less common than Brave, but more likely than Heroic.

Taking the assumption that bravery is a hereditary characteristic how does this translate into genetics?

Well you could specify three variants of a bravery gene (alleles are they are known), H, O & C. HH would be the Heroic types, HO the brave, OO and OC the normal and CC & CH the cowards. In these cases the H allele is recessive (so only those with two copies are heroic). The C allele is also recessive, but dominates the H allele. The O allele is dominant over C but not over H.

This takes you into a method of at least allocating a characteristic based on genetics, but it doesn’t address either simplicity of recording it nor of proportions. Not all genes are evenly distributed in the population. Those that confer survival advantages propagate more widely and those that lead to disadvantages rapidly leave the gene pool.

In this case you would expect O & C to be widely distributed, possibly equally. H is likely to be less frequent as though it confers an advantage when hunting it becomes much less advantageous once farming is available, and in fact becomes a positive disadvantage over time. If 10% of the population carried the H gene then 1% (i.e. the proportion with two copies of it) would be heroic. If the O allele was 50% of the population and the C allele the remaining 40% then you would have a distribution as follows:

H (10%)

O (50%)

C (40%)

H (10%)

1 (Heroic)

5 (Brave)

4 (Cowardly)

O (50%)

5 (Brave)

25 (Normal)

20 (Normal)

C (40%)

4 (Cowardly)

20 (Normal)

16 (Cowardly)

Heroic

Brave

Normal

Cowardly

1

10

65

24

Let us also assume that there was a decision to track intelligence as a numeric score also with three alleles generating a score when summed. The alleles being 0, 1, 2. These would be distributed as 10%, 80%, 10% in the general population.

Tracking Bloodlines

The method I thought you would use to track each bloodline is a table with each of the attributes to be tracked down the side and the alleles to be tracked along the top. Each allele would have a score between 0 and 10 to show its relative proportion in the population of the bloodline. An example of this is shown
below.

Bravery

H (r)

O

C (r)

Bravery alleles

1

5

4

Intelligence

L (0)

M (1)

H (2)

Intelligence alleles

1

8

1

In each generation the player running the breeding would be given some feedback of their bloodline’s characteristics. In this case they would be told that they were of average intelligence and not especially brave. The breeder player would then make a decision about trying to improve the bloodline either from the general population, another player’s bloodline (with the specific approval of that player) or from within his own bloodline.

The general population bloodline should be determined before the start of the game and remain constant for the duration of the game. Player controlled bloodlines are very likely to change over the course of generations as the genealogists recommend good matches for strengthening the bloodline based on observed characteristics of other bloodlines.

Breeding from the General Population

There is a general assumption that there are other bloodlines that the genealogists are aware of but which are not part of the played groups. These probably represent the minor nobility or some other class that the main bloodline knows but are lower than those represented by player teams. When breeding from these it is assumed that the characteristic which is sought to be improved is always manifested in the individuals that are to be added to the bloodline for breeding purposes.

Using the general bloodline track (see example above) the umpire checks whether the person has one or two copies of the appropriate gene. In the case of characteristics which are recessive then there are always two copies of the gene. (e.g. If you were trying to breed heroes into your bloodline then you would start off with two copies of the H allele to breed in).

For each of the genes recorded (i.e. Bravery and Intelligence in these examples) you would determine which alleles were to be incorporated into the new bloodline. Roll 1d10 for the copy to be imported (except where we have previously determined that recessive characteristics give an exact gene). We’re already getting an H from the hero, we need to roll 1d10 to see which intelligence allele will be passed on. This is most likely to be an M result.

These alleles will then displace one of those in the general bloodline. If a 2 is rolled for the Bravery gene then the new H allele displaces an O allele. Another 2 for Intelligence has the new M allele displace another M allele, so no real change. The new bloodline track looks like the example below.

Bravery

H (r)

O

C (r)

Bravery alleles

2

4

4

Intelligence

L (0)

M (1)

H (2)

Intelligence alleles

1

8

1

The feedback to the player would be that the family was of average intelligence and above average bravery, although with a larger number of cowards than one would expect. (There are now 4% heroic, 16% brave, 32% Cowardly). This might prompt an attempt to breed out the cowards, harder than might appear as the C allele is largely recessive.

What this system needs is a proper game to sit within. Ideally one of dynastic succession and involving at least a bit of individual character impact on the outcomes. Sadly that isn’t something on my current project list.

Religion in ‘Hapsburg Ascendant’

Brian started off a discussion of the role of religion in games set in the 17th century, particularly his upcoming megagame. His wish was to get some roleplaying of the religious motivations that were what made the 30 years war happen and to get the players to warp their rational decision making process (if you can describe wargamers as rational) to fit the religious mindset prevalent at the time.

We had a fascinating discussion, aided by Arthur having a stack of relevant textbooks to hand in his classroom. We talked around the issues of not giving perverse incentives and not making it too easy for players to work out how they got advantages from religious behaviour.

The conclusions that we came to were that each of the major sects needed to have its own set of rules, that there ought to be a league table so that there was a visual incentive to act correctly (this being a lesson from the Sengoku megagames) and that once a defined level of behaviour had been reached that there ought to be a direct umpire driven reward for the correct behaviour. The reward needed to be strong enough to show that it was ‘God’s work’ but also not so strong that it caused problems. Also we felt that because ‘god works in mysterious ways’ that the players should not get to determine what might happen if they had their god’s favour.

Orange or Lemon? – Onside Report

This game was intended to show the political goings on in the attempt to get a revolution settlement in Scotland following on from the English parliament’s declaration of Prince William of Orange as their King in February 1689 (new style).

The game we played was a highly entertaining roleplay of some of the issues and certainly gave a good flavour and reached, more or less, the historical outcome. I certainly enjoyed it immensely, and I think the players did too.

I designed the game with almost a board game like level of mechanism for winning the support of the non-played members of the Convention (which is essentially an unofficial Parliament as it had been called by Prince William of Orange and not King James).

Almost none of those mechanisms were tested in the game we played, but it worked as a game anyway – almost a proof of the old saying that you could stick a bunch of CLWG members in a room with some game money and an a game would break out. Instead of money I gave them a map of the Edinburgh High Street and an idea. I’ll leave it to the players to tell you how the game actually went.

In terms of future development I will refine the player briefs (I was still working on these when I started the session and a couple are not yet fully complete). This will improve player understanding of the period and importantly make their personal objectives a bit more tailored from the generic ones of:

  1. Stay alive.

  2. Ensure that the clan/family remains in being and in control of its territory.

  3. Increase your/the clan wealth (either through plunder or by increasing territory).

  4. Increase the influence of Clan Cameron.

  5. Have your King accepted as de facto sovereign.

  6. Ensure that your enemy is diminished.

For the lowlanders you can replace ‘Clan’ with ‘family/heirs’. These do work, but there need to be a couple more triggers to get some of the characters to get stuck into being active. There is also a need to explain the general apathy of the population in their support for the King who has antagonised most of them in the last decade, even before he became the King.

Blitz Firefighting

An end to the weekend with an extended bout of firefighting during the London blitz. This game actually started at the same time as my session and I joined in when we’d finished playing Orange or Lemon? I ended up as one of the LFB professionals sent along to bolster the firefighting force.

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CLWG Games Weekend 1995 – Sunday

Sunday

Military Spin

Sunday dawned a new day and I had done my homework on the Charge of the Light Brigade. The reason for my homework was Jon Casey’s game at lunchtime which involved each one of the participants being given a piece of paper with a great military disaster.

As originally set this had to be glossed over and presented in a positive light, the only prohibition being outright lies. A late rule change, which I missed, was that it was to be unidentifiable so others could guess which defeat you had been dealt.

It was very entertaining, whether or not the defeat was disguised, and it shows the possibilities for deception without lying. I like the idea of this game, perhaps it has other outings ahead of it? Although I wrote several versions of what I needed the one I used in the end was as follows:

“In an audacious action Lord Lucan lead the Light Brigade against enemy artillery. The Light Brigade attacked & captured, unsupported, a Russian Battery defended by a numerically superior force. In so doing a large hole was created in the enemy line which the enemy reacted to by committing a sizeable counter-force. Overwhelmingly outnumbered the Brigade withdrew taking relatively few casualties.
 
Never before has such an action occurred and it is unlikely that any other cavalry would have contemplated a similar action, let alone been capable of succeeding in what our cavalry achieved. The bravery & tenacity of the Light Brigade in pressing home their charge under heavy artillery fire will be forever burned upon the pages of history.”

Retreat to Victory

In the morning, before going to the festival of truth I joined in Nigel Howorth’s planning session for a game called “Retreat to Victory”. This was interesting for me as I hadn’t seen a design session before.

As far as I recall it the session was quite wide ranging with several people contributing ideas. Almost every angle was discussed, at what point to start, how the teams should be structured etc.

I was amazed by the level of detail gone into, although it was also reassuring the everyone was keen to help. I hope I get a similar response when I have to plan my game. I hope Nigel’s game is around in the near future as I’d like to see how it turns out.

Incidentally if anyone wants to help I’m interested in doing an end of empire game starting in 1946, or alternatively an economic game, a military restructuring game or even all three rolled into one, although that would perhaps be a bit too ambitious.

Breakers are Breaking

The game I remember most about, and have the most useful criticism for was Phil McCarty’s “Breakers are Breaking”.

I managed to get the briefing on Saturday and had a good chance to look through it beforehand. I played Admiral Canaris in the plot against Hitler.

Although I know a fair bit about the Second World War I didn’t really know anything about the July plot other than it happened and that a bomb had been left in a briefcase under the table in Hitler‘s briefing room. I also knew that Hitler was saved by the table.

With this scant background my briefing seemed quite good. With hindsight there were one or two things missing. None of the resistance team knew what scale the plotters organisation had, things that the characters certainly would have. This in turn affected how we saw certain cues and how we acted. Just a little more detail would have turned round how I played the game.

Another major factor which influenced the resistance team was that the briefing said that the turns would last four days, this meant that we didn’t really try to plan the immediate post-explosion takeover, instead we planned for contacting the Allies to negotiate a cease-fire and the post-coup control of Germany.

We took it as read that if we offered the Wehrmacht control of all ground forces that they would follow us. Had we known that the turns were actually to be one day long we would have taken a less strategic view and probably planned the immediate stuff. I’m not saying that the outcome would have been different but we would have planned differently.

All in I enjoyed the game, even though I quickly decided to leave Germany. Originally to talk secretly with the OSS and latterly permanently (or until the Allies had won the war and made me head of the new Abwehr) when an arrest warrant was issued for me.

I think the game itself worked fairly well, the idea was engaging and the format worked. All it needs is for a slightly expanded briefing for the resistance (I can’t speak for the others) and an agreed turn duration. We had a fairly extensive debrief and most of this was talked through, so I’m sure Phil has his new improved version waiting on the shelf for another outing. I’ll look forward to it.

That’s all, at least for now.

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CLWG Games Weekend 1995 – Saturday

This was the first Chestnut Lodge event I had attended and I must say that I enjoyed it. I was fortunate enough to have read the last few editions of MilMud. So I had a vague-ish idea of what was going on. I managed to find Chestnut Lodge eventually and turned up in the middle of the first turn for the Origins of World War One.

Origins of World War One

This was a rather intriguing game, with a good dash of paranoia all round. The game went quite well, although the timing was a bit confused. It wasn’t clear to the players what year it was, although I am sure that the umpires knew quite well. This wasn’t a serious problem in the sense that everything happened when it happened and not in any particular time sequence. At least that’s how I perceived it to be, I may be wrong. I’ll say no more as I’m sure others are better placed to offer more constructive stuff.

Pickles’ Railway Game

The next thing I was involved in was Jonathon Pickles Railway game. From talking to Jonathon this started out as a time-filler and grew into a behemoth so fast that he was forced to put it out of its misery on the Saturday evening.

It was a very good game as it went, although I thought that it went a bit slowly. Jon blames that on the lack of mechanical counting devices and help in sorting out the railways. Doing everything manually took time and contributed to the sudden demise of the game.

That apart the game would be worth doing in it’s own right, it was fairly engaging and involved as much activity as one was willing to give it. About the only concept that I didn’t quite get to understand was exactly how the stock market was operating, but then I never actually asked anyone to explain it.

The rest of the game seemed very obvious with only a minor skim through the brief, which seems ideal as I understand that not reading briefing is common. (Government Ministers certainly don’t read their briefing, so why should anyone else be expected to?)

Watch the Skies

As a blow by blow account of what I did at the games weekend I ought to mention Jim Wallman’s game, well he brought it along with him anyway. It was an MB game that Games Workshop could have written, the less said the better. Especially as my side (the baddies) got wiped out.

I did play in Jim’s trainer for Watch the Skies which I enjoyed, and managed to get landed with command of the SAS team. In the process of the operation we saw lots of strange stuff, reported it all back to Hereford, and didn’t fire a single shot!

This lead on nicely to the evening session of Watch the Skies. I had arranged with Mukul to join the Chinese team and looked after their operation. I managed to cause a fair amount of paranoia amongst some of the other teams, especially the Brits.

After peacefully resisting any attempt by the British to board my container ship, during which no-one was hurt or threatened by any weapon, the British shot a dozen or so of my crew after attempting to abseil onto the deck of my ship.  I had handcuffed the first two down. After such severe provocation I was forced to retaliate by shooting down the helicopter.

I also engaged the frigate with an ATGW, successfully hitting it amidships. Unfortunately a freighter is no match for a warship, however small, and I had to allow the Brits aboard before the 4.5″ shells hit something vital. After we got the fire out and the Brits had searched the ship, and found nothing with which to justify their piratical actions they apologised and withdrew rapidly.

I have learnt my lesson, there is no paranoia at Chestnut, everyone is out to get everyone else. Next time I’ll have anti-ship missiles.