Monday 7 January 2013

Wargaming, Theme and Physical Terrain

While painting furiously for Curt’s Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 2013, I’ve been thinking a lot about focusing my wargaming on creating a specific context and theme. I’ve blogged about this before, but not with any real clarity.

In a way, the background materials and after-action-reports from Bovington 2012 and from our Dux Britanniarum games last year were trying to help create a particular context among the players in those games. During this year, I want to really concentrate on doing this a great deal more and with greater clarity.

I’ve written a blog post for later in the month which looks at attempting to create theme and context in wargaming, drawing on particular location settings and the passing of time as tools which can be inserted into wargames to help create that context. I also want to follow through this approach in a couple of Verdun-related scenarios I’ve been working on which, I’ll post here when they’ve been play-tested.

But as in so many things, it helps to stand on the shoulders of pioneers who’ve travelled along these roads before.

Within this in mind, may I please direct you to a short series of truly outstanding posts by Rusty, from the blog “Hurry up and Wait”. His blog focuses on wargaming the 1982 Falklands War. All of the posts are well worth reading, and Rusty’s write ups of his games and his overall campaign go a long way to creating a verisimilitude that what you’re reading could be placed easily alongside actual battle reports.





I think that the jewel in his blog’s crown are his recent two posts (Method Wargaming and Longdon Preparation for Battle, 1-11 June 82) which take wargaming into a physical context in a real world setting. I won’t spoil your enjoyment by saying too much about the posts here, save as to mention that they create a link between wargaming and physical terrain. I greatly enjoyed them, and as I mentioned in the comments on Rusty’s blog, I thought they contain some of the most original ideas in wargaming I’ve seen.

I’m thinking of how I can try and mirror and reflect Rusty’s own approaches to a physical setting into the wargaming at my wargames club in St Albans. As often happens, reading something as innovative as Rusty’s blog has sparked all kinds of ideas in my own head. It’s remarkable how the blogosphere can stimulate thinking across all sorts of approaches and directions. That’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed blogging so much over the last few years.

14 comments:

  1. Wow. Inpsiring and thought-provoking links.

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    1. Thanks Mike. There's a lot of cross-overs in this sort of approach to what you and Andy have also been doing with Dux Britanniarum on your own (excellent) blogs.

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    2. *smile* Thank you.

      It may therefore amuse you to know that I currently have a box of 50mm Craftfoam, the 2012 Summer Special scenario and a bunch of bookmarked photos of Hessle/Ferriby foreshore....

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    3. Mike, that would entertain, amuse and intrigue me greatly. I've very fond memories of Hessle Foreshore - I played and practised at the Hessle Cricket Club down by the Foreshore in the 80s while at school. I used to know all down that waterfront like the back of my hand! Again, exactly what I had in mind and a very similar theme and approach to what Kris mentioned below. I'm greatly looking forward to what you come up with, Mike!

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    4. Of course, the actual shore I'd be modelling is the southern one, but the northern one has many memories. :D

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    5. Looking at http://goo.gl/maps/PT235, it's changed since i was a kid - the extra rockwall sea defences are new. When I was younger, it was more like the area shown in http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Melton_to_Ferriby_foreshore_-_geograph.org.uk_-_457703.jpg with the red clay 'cliffs' (they're about twice man high), which I'm hoping to recreate for part of a shoreline.

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  2. Scenery to me is a lot in wargaming, I'll head back over....

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    1. Fran, thanks for dropping by (and Happy New Year). Terrain and scenery is one of the core ways in which I try and create theme, so you're spot on there, Sir!

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  3. I'll take a look at his blog when I have a chance later today. I'm trying to achieve just that look and feel with my western town of Calamity. Although Calamity itself will be fictional I'm looking at various western US maps to find a place for it to sit. With a real location I can develop a background that will feel right for that spot. If its close enough (and out here in the west that would mean just about any place I can drive to within 4 hours, that's a day trip for westerners) I can go and take pictures of the area and use those as reference for the model. That's the plan anyway. The reality maybe different.

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    1. Kris, that's a really great idea (and a great comment). That would give Calamity a real grounding and theme in the real world. And, once you start playing the games, there's the option of taking a day trip over there with your players to have a look at the actual ground on the which the actions have been (or will be) fought. Yes, that's just the sort of thing I was thinking about.

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    2. Also, in this modern era? Google Maps/Streetview/Earth, and Bing's 3D oblique aerial shots.

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    3. Mike, great minds think so very alike! You're spot on there!

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  4. Rusty certainly came up with some unusual ideas with the 2 posts, its got me thinking now, dammit!

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    1. Good to hear that, Ray. Although, with all your painting, I feel I should apologise for distracting you!

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