Wargaming Small Wars (merged thread)

[William F. Owen]

, we focus on the potential usefulness of such games in education and professional training settings. Comments welcomed!

What is the "peacemaking" thing that they speak of? Is this another word for Victory or Surrender?

[Rex Brynen]

What is the "peacemaking" thing that they speak of? Is this another word for Victory or Surrender?

Wilf, you would like the Liberia game we reviewed earlier on PaxSims--in it ECOMOG steals cars, feuds with the UN, keeps randomly shuffling force commanders, and has a "heavy firepower" option that is quite effective but costs you politically for what the rules term "embarrassing civilian casualties." That's quite apart for the rules for hostages, transvestites, lobbying Monrovia prostitutes, looting the national library, US evangelicals, naive Scandinavian aid workers, cannibalism, the Butt Naked brigade, etc. (the list goes on).

M-A, we've just done a review of a wargame of the Algerian war of independence, Ici, c'est la France. Great game (and historical simulation), although it takes a long time to play through the full campaign. We'll be doing a review of another Algerian wargame as soon as I can find time to play it.

[M-A Lagrange]

Rex:
Are you talking about that one?
ALGERIA
http://www.reservoir-jeux.com/wargam...rs/algeria.php
Just saw it on my favorite dealer website.

I use to know another wargame on Bien Dien Phu, but I this is the only one I could find recently.
Advanced Tobruk System : combats tactiques en Indochine
http://www.agorajeux.com/684-ats-dien-bien-phu.html

Have no idea if it’s good or not. (It’s the last they have. Must not have been a hit).

I also think that this one is perfect for small wars wargaming:

ALL THINGS ZOMBIE
Each counter represents one survivor or one zombie. You choose your star, your “mini-me” if you will, and arm him or her with one of four weapon types. But you’re not alone as you then recruit a few other survivors to form your group.
Then it’s off to explore a beautifully detailed map representing deserted cities, suburbs, and rural areas. But are they really deserted? Not if you count the zombies, the seemingly endless hordes of zombies. But soon you realize that the zombies may be the least of your worries as you run into other survivors. Are they friendly or hostile? Well, the game mechanics determine that. With luck you can recruit them to use in future games. But sometimes it spins out of control

HTTP://WWW.AGORAJEUX.COM/JEUX-DE-SOC...GS-ZOMBIE.HTML

Unfortunately, I do not have much time and also opponent where I usualy spend my days...

[Rex Brynen]

Rex:
Are you talking about that one?
ALGERIA
http://www.reservoir-jeux.com/wargam...rs/algeria.php
Just saw it on my favorite dealer website.

That's the one. Brian Train--who sometimes posts here at SWC--is the designer.

[M-A Lagrange]

Having been working in Liberia “after” the war and before the second one and the final push for peace, I find a little frustrating (I did not play it) that such game is limited to 2 players. Reality was may be not more complex but had several players (at least 4) as Samuel Doe died in the beginning of the war and Taylor’s forces split in various small groups. Also you had several independent groups who entered in the game after this.
I also would be less reluctant than you on the horrific side. After all, for teaching purposes, I prefer to use something that would shock the nice and cute hearts.
Saying so, I found this interesting as it gives an opportunity to simulate real modern conflicts as they are.
Cannibalism was not limited to Liberia, was somehow popular in DRC; taking and selling hostages was a common shared game in Chechnya; resources based motivation is common to almost all modern wars; attacking refugees camps is a daily practice in Darfur…
I would say it is refreshing that board games actually can transcript what small wars are.

Finally, game must have an end and taking Abuja as the end of Liberia war is one option. But reality has shown that it was not the real end of the conflict which erupted once again in 2003.
Also, what seem to be missing are the diamond, rubber and iron companies which were funding the warlords. They did have a role in the war and the “peace” that followed. But as you said in your review, it is a complex context and war to resume in a game.

A game based on resource control (industrial plants and illegal market) and/or services delivery (through NGO and UN agencies and donors funds) on the soft side and troops’ deployment (that includes also violence over civilian to feed them, peacekeepers in safe places...) and sabotages (understand looting, terror… all the panoply) on the hard side would also be interesting. And Liberia may provide an interesting context for such base. Or DRC… Especially as they give opportunities to simulate real small wars which were somehow simple as less known.

By the way, Gen Bud naked was one of my favorite crazy men. But the Taylor boys I met were definitively as crazy as it seems they are simulated.

Will be a hell to find it in France (just forget it in Sudan) but I’ll test it with pleasure, listening some Luckydub, drinking dirty cane juice and smoking AK gunpowder mixed with weed… Just to feel at home.

[Wargames Mark]

That's the one. Brian Train--who sometimes posts here at SWC--is the designer.

I played a few of Brian Train's games. Liked them all.

One day, I'll have my AIR-based (Adobe Flash for desktop) counterinsurgency game ready to sell. I think it will be well-received.

I've thought about doing one that lets the player take the side of the insurgent, but I'm not crazy about trying to sell that (future) version to the entertainment market.

[Rex Brynen]

I played a few of Brian Train's games. Liked them all.

We've now reviewed it (http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/review-algeria/). Good game, and a good COIN simulation. He's currently working on a multiplayer variant, based on the same game system, that looks at COIN operations in Kandahar.

[Brian Train]

Thanks Wargames Mark, it's nice to meet a player.
I'd like to know about your thoughts on making a game in Adobe Flash - I've been thinking about using VASSAL for the same purpose. A gaming friend has constructed VASSAL modules for my Tupamaro, Shining Path, and Algeria games (available at www.vassalengine.com).

[Rex Brynen]

Warning: geeky wargaming posting ahead.

I'm playing around with the idea using a wargame to illustrate the basics of small unit warfare as an ancillary element of a course next year. (This probably falls into the category of "ideas I'll be too busy to follow up on," but there it is.) I could go with a computer simulation... but there are certain challenges in teaching from that in a group. I could go with a boardgame, but they're rather dry, abstract, complicated, and non-visual for non-gamers. The third option (assuming it doesn't fall into the trap of "my prof plays with toy soldiers") is to use a miniatures-based wargame, which allows you to lecture as the game progresses (to a small group at least).

The question is, however, what scale?

Hobby wargamers largely game COIN/IW operations in 15mm, 20mm ("Airfix" or 1/72) or 25/28mm scales. Even though the ground scale of the rules need not equal the visual scale of the figures, for aesthetic reasons you are confined to 3-4 city blocks (or equivalent) at most, meaning that the tactical decisions involved are not much more than "do I go left through those building, or right around those?"

You can also wargame this is 1/285 (or, in the UK, 1/300) "microarmour" scale. With the ground scales used in most rulesets, a 4x8" table will give you something like 2.5 x 5 km of simulated battlefield, which allows you to get much more in to approach routes, overwatch positions, blocking forces, IED placement, etc. On the down side, infantry are so small as to almost be invisible (although depicted as fire teams with several figures to a "base", they're still very useable).

Of course, the fourth option is to do what I do now, and just lecture from powerpoint. That might actually be the most effective of all (although arguably considerably less fun for the students).

[Brian Train]

M-A Lagrange, les regles, cartes etc. pour jouer ma jeu Algeria sont disponibles en francais a:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/51637/algerie-pdf

Merci,

[AdamG]

Wilf, you would like the Liberia game we reviewed earlier on PaxSims--in it ECOMOG steals cars, feuds with the UN, keeps randomly shuffling force commanders, and has a "heavy firepower" option that is quite effective but costs you politically for what the rules term "embarrassing civilian casualties." That's quite apart for the rules for hostages, transvestites, lobbying Monrovia prostitutes, looting the national library, US evangelicals, naive Scandinavian aid workers, cannibalism, the Butt Naked brigade, etc. (the list goes on).
.

That's brilliant!

[slapout9]

Wasn't sure where to put this but it shows some advantages of board games. This one a BP oil spill board game for told the possibility of our present disaster.



http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_new...ster?Gt1=43001