Games and Wargames

OK, so while I'm basically a peaceful chap at heart, I like to involve myself in table top wars. I also play a large number of non-war "Euro" and "American" style boardgames. See my BoardgameGeek profile for all the details.

Periods of Interest

Medieval

At the moment, I'm most interested in battles of the medieval period (particularly the English Hundred Years War, c. 1340-1430). I was particularly inspired to "get into" this period after watching Kenneth Branaugh's Henry V. Proof, once again, that television is a corrupting influence, and should never be let in the house. I have Soldiers and Swords, Tin Soldier and Essex 15mm miniatures.

I now believe that medieval wargames are better represented by rules dedicated to the period. Ancient period rules, I believe, give too much control to generals for precision manuvers. My current favorite is Chipco's Days of Knights. One can also borrow additional army types from their fantasy rules called (you guessed it!) Fantasy Rules!.

The photos included with the 2nd edition of Days of Knights and Fantasy Rules Lite are photos I took. (The photos of the armies on the web pages were taken by someone else, the ones included in the books are mine.)

I have created a series of counters for use with DOK. These can be downloaded from this page.

There is an excellent board game in Strategy and Tactics #177 on the Hundred Years War, which looks like it might work well as a campaign system.

American Civil War

Volley and Bayonet is my choice for this period because it allows you to play the really big battles with a reasonable number of figures in a reasonable amount of time. I've created a set of V&B pages.

World War II

This is also a period I'm still thinking about getting into. I recently purchased Arty Conliffs Spearhead rules and was really impressed. It has nice mechanics for the difficulties of changing orders (especially for Russians) and looks like it simulates the ebb and flow of battles very well. Units are plattoons and you're a division commander, so combat is fairly abstract. I'll almost certainly do this with Heroics and Ros infantry and GHQ vehicles in 1/285th scale.

For more tacical games, I'll probably use Yaquinto's Panzer, Armor, and 88 boardgame rules or GDW's Tank Charts miniatures rules. All are squad level games.

Modern

I'm also interested in modern warfare. Interest in modern warfare has waned since the Gulf War, because Americans have become very cocky about the quality of their equipment (particular armor). To combat this (no pun intended), I've become interested in a (hopefully fictional!) future Russian civil war scenario, pitting modern Russian vs. Russian (possibly with some European allies on one side). Should make for a more even combat. Problem: how do you know if the T-72 facing you is on your side?!

I play Avalon Hill's MBT (Europe) and IDF (Israeli) tactical board games.

Fantasy

I used to play a fair amount of Fantasy Role-Playing in college, but find that I don't have much time for it anymore (see photography and music). I used to play GURPS from Steve Jackson Games. I also liked Ars Magica for it's realistic Medieval Europe setting and interesting use of the Faery peoples. Let me also recommend Steffan O'Sullivan's FUDGE RPG. If you like fast play and design-it-yourself flexibility, this may be for you. I'm also one of the few people on the globe, apparently, that liked Avalong Hill's Powers and Perils.

I usually dislike fantasy board games. However, I must say that I love Avalon Hill's Titan game. It has a great fantasy feel to it, with the various monster, and the combination of separate movement and battle boards works very well.