Updated with four additional sessions 31/05/2017
By John Bassett and
the Holborn group
The Most Dangerous Place On Earth
An edifying and uplifting game on the 1961 Berlin crisis
suitable for aspiring Cold Warriors of all ages. Your chance to end the world before the
conference even begins...
Russell King
Why Is There So Much Hatred In America Today?
Series 2
Still the “reverse X Factor” format, still set in 1960s USA,
and still presented by Walter Cronkite – and with all your old favourites such
as George Wallace, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and Timothy
Leary. But…… with enhanced TV coverage, the more soundbitey script requested by
Series 1 participants, and amongst new guests Gore Vidal, Stokely Carmichael
and George Lincoln Rockwell have already agreed to appear – the only question is,
will they make it through to the end of series dinner party in New York past
the vengeful and cruel assassins?
Russell King
Firefight’s Grand Day Out
SPI’s 1976 Firefight on modern armoured tactics, partially
commissioned by the US military, was rubbish …. or was it? A participative
workshop session starts with a presentation of this simple board game, a run of
a game as a miniatures game, and a lively workshop format consideration of the
many possible ways to improve it including scenarios. No prior experience needed. Please feel free
to bring your own 1/300 or 1/285 eye candy to the session! The aim is for the last hour to be a game in
participants’ preferred format.
John Armatys
IDEAS EXCHANGE
It has been a long time since there was an ideas exchange
session at COW, so people might have a lot of good ideas about all sorts of
things wargames related to promulgate...
Rich Biggs
SAVING GORDON
This session starts with playing the ‘rescue Gordon’
scenario, followed by a lively discussion on how to improve the rules. These rules use a deck of playing cards to
resolve things and 54mm figures. White feathers are also available.
John Bassett
Fall Edelweiß
An Army Group/Front level game on von Kleist's 1942 Caucasus
offensive. An attempt to produce a simple
game in which the key factors are logistics, intelligence and planning.
John Bassett
Rote Armee Fraktion
A matrix game on the rise and fall of an earlier generation
of superstar terrorists, the Baader-Meinhof revolutionary group in 1970s West
Germany. Liable to be a black session.
Ian Lowell
WHO DUNG IT!
A light-hearted diversion on the death of Tutankhamūn,
involving scarabs, dice, playing cards, the usual suspects and most probably a
dead pharaoh. Any relationship to any
living, dead or historical personage and/or insect is strenuously denied.
Ian Lowell
REIN-FORCE
Further investigations into chariot warfare by way of a talk
and how to wargame it.
Russell King
The Warsaw Pact Political Consultative
Committee 1981
A simple but accurate drinking game of the last days of the
Brezhnev era. It will be an advantage not to have any skills in RPGs for this
game, but those who have them are equally as welcome. No rules, but full
briefing and pre-prepared speeches given for all comrades during the opening drinks.
Fancy dress optional.
Ian Drury
The
Greater Enemy: Operation Crusader, 1941
A
double-blind map game of the first battle in which British and Commonwealth
forces defeated a significant body of Germans — the Afrika Korps — in
the Second World War. The game is a work in progress: a test of the mechanisms
that I hope will sustain a larger scale 4-5 hour game in the future. Players
represent corps and army commanders, and anyone volunteering to be a liaison
umpire (two would be good) will have their pick of roles in future games.
Ian Drury
Hurrah
Boys, We’ve got them!
A
return trip to Knuston for my 15mm Plains Wars figures, in a revised version of
the rules I used in the 1990s. Between 1868 and 1878 the US Cavalry made 18
attacks on Indian villages (each approx 200 tepees) and all were successful.
What can possibly go wrong?
Sue Laflin-Barker
Asterix and Redbeard’s Treasure
A re-run, slightly revised, of the game I ran at COW some
years ago. Again the game is set in the Forest of Broceliande and features the
three groups, Pirates, Gauls and Romans and a treasure, which may or may not
exist, reputedly hidden by a previous Redbeard, grandfather of the present
Pirate Captain.
Sue Laflin-Barker
To Sail the Spanish Main
An excessively simple naval game involving pirate and
merchant ships and possibly some from the Royal Navy. Captains have limited
control over their ships and contact with anything involves someone being sunk,
possibly with loot collected by the victor. The winner is the one with most
pieces of eight – or possibly on a bad day the last ship left afloat.
Graham Evans
Northampton 1460
Take a chance to play the participation game produced for
the Northampton Battlefield Society enabling a historically believable refight
of the Wars of the Roses Battle of Northampton in about 15 minutes. Players are
presented with the options available to the various commanders and characters
present and have to choose how and when to use the actions and resources
available to them. The game has a scoring system that measures how far away
from the historical outcome the players are and the resulting consequences for
the history of this Scepter’d Isle. Copies of the published version will be
available for sale as well, and you don’t even have to play the game in order
to buy one.
Graham Evans
If You (still) Tolerate This
After more than five years this set of Spanish Civil War
Divisional Level rules for 15mm figures has been given a sufficiently
significant refresh to justify returning to COW for a session. The rules
feature an activation system to simulate the difficulties both sides suffered
and fire and melee systems designed uniquely for the period. So if you like
lots of toy soldiers hammering at each other under the fierce Iberian Sun this
is the game for you.
Tim Gow
AWFULLY AMATEURISH
AGINCOURT
The session which has everything: big toy soldiers, a
kinetic shooting system, maps and even a potted history of the campaign. Honed to perfection over six years of gently
pondering and several minutes of development, this may well be the last medieval
wargame you ever want to play.
A mercifully brief game which will run at least twice during
the session.
Nick Drage
The evolution of player tactics in the video
game Watch_Dogs
(and why that illustrates how wargamers are so clever )
Watch_Dogs is a near-future "open sandbox" video
game where you play a hacker able to manipulate the technological
infrastructure of the Smart City of Chicago.
A highlight of the game's design was its "online
hacking" mode, whereby other online players could surreptitiously join
your game and turn it into a hacking battle.
However by using the "hacker mindset", which I argue many
wargamers possess, it was possible to gain a distinct and unfair advantage over
other players contrary to the game designers' intent.
This presentation will give a brief overview of the game,
and then show how innovative players were able to manipulate design issues in
Watch_Dogs to defeat opponents. This
illustrates both how counter-intuitive hacking can be, and how useful and rare
the wargamers'
mindset can be.
Prior knowledge of video games or cyber security will not be
required to understand the presentation, in fact feedback from gamers outside
of video games is particularly welcome.
A PLATOON COMMANDER’S
WAR ON HEXES
WD Display Team
(North)
The WD Display Team (North) (and Sheffield Wargames Society)
game for the 2017 season. The same scenario from Military Training Pamphlet No.
33, Training in Fieldcraft and Elementary Tactics, 1940 as was used to
introduce the rules at COW 1996 but now with the radical innovation of hexes.
Andrew Rolph
RATTENKREIG
75 years on, this is a board game representing the German
attacks on Stalingrad from mid September 1942 to the beginning of November of
that year. Weekly turns, interactive combat resolution and pretty
straightforward rules. Inspired originally by Mike Elliot's 'A Terrible Beauty'
from COW 2016 it features any number of mechanisms stolen from that game and a
great many others.
Tim Gow
SHOOTIN’ TIME!
How the West was really won.
The game of the film of the book.
Or to put it another way, movie-style gunfights in the Old West. Featuring 54mm figures and matrix arguments.
Martin Rapier
KARTENSPIEL, by Phil
Sabin
“In the whole range of human activities, war most closely
resembles a game of cards.” Carl von Clausewitz
A game for up to 10 players which models an early nineteenth
century battle. No dice involved, but considerable fog of war may be present
and the mechanisms may be useful for a range of situations. This rather
splendid game is buried in the appendices to Professor Sabins 'Simulating War',
and having run it at the Sheffield club, it was deemed worthy of the full COW
treatment.
Mike Elliott
ANOTHER DARK NIGHT IN
WHITECHAPEL
Following on from the success of "A Dark Night in
Whitechapel" last year, here is a rerun with updated rules based on the
suggestions from participants. Have you got what it takes to survive trading in
the oldest profession on the streets of London?
Mike Elliott
FULL AND GLORIOUS
VICTORY
Being a recreation of the battle of St Fagans, 1648 during
the Second Civil War.
John Curry
Trireme and Bireme
A Game of Ancient Naval Fleet Combat. Nearly all ancient tactical wargames are
concerned with the detail of individual ship combat, recreating the skirmishes
of the ancient naval world. By way of contrast, this set of rules is an attempt
to recreate the fleet actions of the period.
Tom Mouat
WW1 Trench Raid
You play British soldiers taking part in a night-time raid
on German trenches in 1917. It has been quiet – too quiet… High command wants
to find out what is going on… This is a role-playing game for up to 8 people.
Tom Mouat
Battlegroup Kriegsspiel
This is some work I’ve been doing for the Army. Trying to
come up with a simple two-sided, double blind, Kriegsspiel that military units
can use for training and education of junior officers. Up to 6 players.
Tom Mouat
Baltic Challenge
The new Cold War is hotting up. Events in the Baltic States
have been tense, with ethnic Russians in Estonial and Lithuania protesting
about discrimination and the Latvian SS parades. NATO has deployed “tripwire”
forces to the region in retaliation over the situation in the Ukraine and Putin
has threatened to hold “snap” exercises on the Russian border and in Belarus…
This is a Matrix Game for 6 people based on the current situation in the
Baltic.
Tom Mouat
Fetch Felix
A role-playing game about Bomb Disposal in 1970s Northern
Ireland, for up to two people… Just grab Tom in the foyer (ooh, nasty!). There
are no detailed maps or toys, just your imagination and a few dice…
Mike Young
BLOCKCHAIN WARS
This session starts by explaining what Blockchain technology
is and how it functions.. In particular, we will look at Ethereum-style
Blockchains that can enforce contracts between participants, and the possible
effects this will have on conflict in the future.
This will be followed by a game representing a cyber war
between governments and groups of international criminals (with the two
sometimes being indistinguishable). The
unique feature of this game will be that the players will use a Blockchain to
enforce agreements and offers. Ransomware, kidnapping CIA backdoors, extortion,
and political embarrassment points will feature.
John Curry
Mechanised Infantry Battalion Staff in a
combat situation Gaming Simulation Device (1975)
From the archives of the History of Wargaming Project. The game is designed to be played as training
wargame with the maximum of learning taking place. The scenario is a company defence of a hill
line (vital ground) against a Bn attack over a river. Each side is portrayed as
American in terms of the units, but the attackers (the Russians) have a very
Russian like assault plan.
Jim Roche
OVER THERE - A
WARTIME SINGALONG
1917 from Zimmermann to Allenby with songs including the
Internationale for Lenin and British classics.
As well as a monthly look at 1777 and Britain's earlier interactions
with our American cousins 330 years ago, 'Oh say can you see'.
Alan Paull
POLITICS BY OTHER
MEANS
A prototype 2-player strategy micro-game with action cards,
armies, and a few VP cubes, inspired by Clausewitz’s On War.
Scenarios include:
· Introducing
War: the basics
· Limited War:
18th Century warfare
· Vive
l’Empereur: Napoleonic Wars
· The war to
end war: World War 1 in the West
· On War: war
and politics
5 minutes to learn, 30 minutes to play, much time for
discussion
Stephen
Aguilar-Millan
Putin Rolls The Dice
Description: The purpose of the session is to examine how a
political game can be crafted onto a commercial game to be used to generate a
set of potential future conflict scenarios. Using the commercial game 'Putin's
War', we shall attempt to consider some options if President Putin were to
attempt to recapture the 'lost' territory of Eastern Europe. The focus is on
the politics of grand strategy.
