Kriegspiel Game Theory Part Two

Let me first start with I have dug through the internet and come up with all that I can -at this point- on Kriegspiel from its release in 1970, to the end of its production in 1979. That said, here is “The Avalon Hill Philosophy 23”, from Vol. 7, No. 3 (Published in late 1970) of The General:

Side note: Yes, that is the Gary Gygax. If you didn’t know, he was big into wargames before creating D&D.

Anyways, as I mentioned in my first post about the game, I felt it was perfectly suitable for teaching the basics of wargaming. Finding out this is what it was designed for was less of a “Haha! I was right.” and more a testament to the design they created. That being said, there is room within the structure of the game itself to allow for some expansion (like the maps in previous game theory post) to take a player from beginner to some experience (Game 1 and Game 2 in the rules), up to fairly experienced (a sort of Game 2.5 as it were). From there you can wander off into all the other various wargames that existed.

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I’ll save maps for yet another post, and instead focus on the units. In base Kriegspiel, you have only five types of troops:
-Infantry
-Paratroops
-Special Forces (what I refer to as Special Troops in my logs)
-Mechanized Infantry (only in Black army)
-Armor (only in Red Army)
This makes sense as the designers probably assume a player coming into the game has almost no knowledge of the military or their formations. Paratroops, Special Forces, and Mechanized Infantry are all just Infantry with a unique ability (move, move, and stronger/faster respectively).

Over on Boardgame Geeks forum, Dad pitched an expanded counter set:

Special Purpose Force (SPF) (name change of Special Forces). As a former Army Special Forces Soldier, the term “Special Forces” made me cringe. Actually, they’re Marine and Mountain troops, and keep their terrain capabilities (sea, mountain, and forest).

Airmobile. Vertical envelopment capability. CF and movement factors are the same as airborne; but they don’t launch from cities. They have a ten-square range; and can occupy all terrain.

Motorized. Like mechanized unit with tires instead of tracks. They’re capable of crossing rivers without movement penalty; and capable of transiting one sea square (per turn) with an additional movement penalty of some sort. Allowed in forest.

Corps Artillery. Red and Black both would have six Corps; and each corps would have one corps artillery slice. Their combat factor is the same as their infantry units, but the CF factor is lower when attacked. The artillery can range out 3 squares to an enemy unit. Allowed in forest.

Corps Artillery (SPF): Same as the corps artillery, but can also accompany SPF units (sea, mountain, forest).

Expanded Counter Set

While this expansion works for me, I think it should have only one change, in that Special Forces/Special Purpose Force be split into what they truly are: Alpine/Mountain Troops and Marines. This is because while yes, you can train Marines to do mountaineering operations or train Alpine/Mountain troops to do amphibious operations, a mix of the two are not something you see in large standing units. And yes, there might be units with this kind of multiple terrain training, Kriegspiel deals in divisions, not companies or battalions.

As they stand, Special Forces are very overpowered overall. With their ability to move across all terrain they out power most other units in the game (more so with Black Forces). With the right river connections, they can start safely in the backfield of a map and lauch an amphibious assault across the map onto a beach. And with a little luck a unit can pop in to combat, pick a moderate strategy, and then pop out of combat. A couple of them skirting around mountains or forests like this (after across map movement) would cause some havoc if done in conjunction with other forces.

Doing this would require a redone and/or expanded force organization chart for Red and Black (both have three Corps with the core game). Simply expanding to four Corps and making one for each a Marine Corp would work. With the expanded forces including an artillery slice in each Corp, the two ‘new’ Corps would be more functional, and work with the island maps idea we kicked around. Which would work with my possible idea of a random objective matrix (See afterwards/AAR of Kriegspiel Game 3).

The popped out Marine Corp would also be able to shine on the Island Maps I whipped up. Yes I typed up all three of todays post back to back, but this one was started earlier in the week, I just had to deal with house stuff and never got a chance to polish it and and detail before more stuff popped into my brain. One of the one off ideas I had was allow Marines full movement as they are, and only allow Army units to arrive at a clear beach.

Another Map Post

Here are some maps I sketched up while killing time after lights out at my medical facility. I based them off what each country was based off of (Russia for Red and Germany for Black) and made each of the island maps without a ‘host’ country to allow for replayability. Though they are a touch thematic to one or the other.

On these, cross hatching is cities, parallel lines are beaches. Roads and rivers are hard to tell, but content helps. Forests are the little pine trees, and mountains are the chevrons (the ‘A’s with out the middle line).

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Being that Black is WWII Germany, I went with Normandy as a template. Staying in WWII I went with Tinian, Saipan, and Midway for the islands. There is a short river coming from the coast on the left and an actual river on the right, allowing this to connect to the Black Map.

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The first Island Map is inspired by Iwo Jima, Wake Island, and an upside down Guadalcanal.

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Islands 2 is inspired by the Aleutian Campaign during WWII, and this is Attu Island (the ‘city’ is were the Coast Guard had a LORAN station up until 2010) and Kiska Island. For Kiska I would say there would have to be a scenario reason to land, possibly a token representing a base or airfield.

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Dad finally got a fjord map, though this is based on the Murmansk area of Russia. That big fjord with two cities on either side is Polyarny (North West side) and Severomorsk (South East side). The island off the coast is a blend of Yuzhny and Sevemy Islands. The town out East is Teriberka. For the unaware who are asking “Why the hell did he pick this area?!?” I’ll explain: Severomorsk was home of the Soviet North Fleet. Polyarny was depot for their nuclear submarines.

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In all cases, I erred on the side of game play, not terrain accuracy. Guadalcanal, Attu, and Kiska are pretty much all mountains. And Murmansk is mostly forests. But that would make them unplayable, so I left some open terrain for armor or mechanized forces to move around. Graphics wise we could still put some green or brown under them to keep things from looking too weird and remember that terrain is only changed do to the symbol on it.

Anyway, tell me what you think and I’ll pass it along to my Dad.

Kriegspiel Game 3

Soooo… Game three went a little better. But I still lost. Only difference was I gave my Dad a bit more run for his money than the last two. Sadly I forgot to turn on the log file, so my masterful offensive wasn’t recorded. I guess history really is written by the victor!

Anyway, I recall the board strokes, so I nabbed a map file and the end game, and did I quick rebuild via Power Point. So heres the initial setup (roughly).

Now I forgot to include a Red Forces icon for a couple troops just below the left most edge of my Dads Black Forces, but this is were we set had our forces. I won the toss for first turn and immediately ran an armor package up the right side of the map and hooked left plowing over his one paratroop in that top city on the right (the one to its left was also a paratroop). I lost an armor unit while removing his paratroopers. My missing left side unit was also armor and it skirted the left side, while moving on his capital. My three paratroop units jumped in to surround his second paratroop unit and removed it at the cost of only one unit.

Dad’s first turn pushed the bulk of his forces in to my core map and they stayed within that mountainous area in the bottom left for the rest of the game. He started picking off my units in the mountains with a mix of special troops and mech infantry. Also some of his special troops started conducting amphibious movements, while a small armor package moved around the edge of that lake.

My next turn, I finished my movement to his capital, encircling it with my armor packages from left and right, and cleared his capital of his special troops. My paratroop units their moves and occupied the two town he had held, and stood by for another jump. The forces holding my capital sat back and waited.

Dad’s next turn he consolidated into that mountainous area encircling my capital, but staying out of my zones of control (which would have started a combat).

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Having cleared his forces from most of the bard, I started moving along roads a lone infantry unit up and around towards his capital to hold one of its hexes, so as to prevent him from gaining reinforcements. While doing that I held my forces in place.

While I was doing that, Dad was starting to attrite my forces in my capital area. At one point he isolated a unit to the south (blocking a line of retreat), which I would use on my next turn.

My next turn I moved against his isolated unit and jumped in my last two paratroopers. The only problem was doing this meant I would have at least two combats back to back for one unit, but more likely three combats (which is what happened). Our first combat caused me to lose a paratrooper, and the second cost me the rest of my attack force, while only killing his isolated unit. My loss was mostly my fault, as I chose an attack type that was more aggressive than I needed, and Dad chose a defense that was more conservative.

With the bulk of my forces gone and only two units in my capital, Dad pounced on them, wiping them out. Now hilariously, he used his movement reward (depending on your attack option, you gain free movement points from your units) and started moving his forces north towards his own capital. And left my capital unoccupied! He said after the game he realized he made that mistake after wrapping his turn. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth I double checked how many reinforcements I could bring in on a turn. It wasn’t much.

On my next turn I brought in the only thing I could: one infantry unit. By this time I had my infantry unit sitting on his capital and started moving my armor package down to met his forces, and like an idiot, moved one unit into the pass, and not really doing anything with the combat, other than losing a unit (I forget if he lost one too, but at this point I was pushing for him to get a pyric victory).

On his next turn, he obligatorily turn a few units around and monkey stomped that infantry unit into the ground, and then reoccupied the capital.

At this point I had only 20 combat points and decided to charge with my last two armor units and got them killed, and took a unit or two with me. As you can see, it wasn’t enough to pull a draw either. The game lasted about 12 or 13 turns, and none of them were simply one or the other doing nothing. We were always shuffling around somewhere.

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Hindsight being what it is, there were a few times where I know I made bad choices on placement and/or combat options, which then cost me more than I had need to spend. I probably should have unoccupied my capital as soon as I took out his paratroopers and held the line and brought in more infantry. Another place was encircling his isolated unit. Doing that pretty much meant he went with an all or nothing mindset, were as leaving him an escape route (if a defender has to move and can’t, that unit is removed anyways), might have caused a shift in his thinking. I think next game I’ll suggest switching forces and see how I do with Black Forces.

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After the game we had our AAR/design chat and talked about possibly shrinking or bulking out the Corp structures, depending on how many maps you use. Which works for Red but while talking I realized doesn’t work for Black. Reds’ Corps are symmetrical, Blacks are asymmetrical. Which led us to talking about using scenarios with fixed force organization charts and placement. I think what I might do is work on a random roll objective chart that each side rolls 2D6 (using them as a right and down on a matrix), and that becomes their game objective. It’ll require looking up D6 percentages so placement in the matrix isn’t skewed.

Kriegspiel Game Two

So Friday morning my dad and I had trouble getting connected, but finally after a few different programs, we got Discord up with no issues. I’ve used it for various gaming purposes, so all he had to do was sign up and download the program.

So after 30 minutes, we finally were able to start the game, and boy did it go alot differently this time (though I still lost). We also played this game with the terrain effect rules in play and the boards in a long strip.

I again took Republic of Red and my Dad took United Black. As we have been poring over this game, the names have stood out and coupled with the force structure of each ‘country’, its kinda of obvious that these are WWII Germany and Soviet Union. Moving along…

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Dad took charge of set up of the game in Vassal, and choose this board layout:

If we had been at a table -across from each other- his board is upright to him and mine is upright to me. Hilariously this put our capitals only six hexes apart. This time around I started with almost all of my armor, alot of my special troops, and a couple each of paratroops and infantry. Dad had all armor and special troops, and a couple paratroops as well. I won the coin toss for who goes first and heres how things went.

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Turn 1

I kicked off the game with a parachute assault into Dad’s backfield, and I can say this was a 50/50 good/bad idea. Good cause it pulled some forces back, but bad in that I only had two paratroops. I should have skipped a couple more special troops and used more paratroops. As it stood we were one to one for odds (units double their combat factor if their attacked while occupying a city hex) and I barely squeaked a victory and occupied the city with my sole surviving paratroop unit.

The only other thing I did during the turn (prior to combat) was move to secure my city hexes with mech troops.

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Turn 2

Dads turn and he of course decided to deal with the paratroopers in his city, whilst also launching an offensive towards my capital. Sad to say, the poor paratroops didn’t stand a chance. Dad had chosen to Blitzkrieg and this gave him a four point move after combat.

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Turn 3

My next turn had no combat, just some moves with battlespace shaping in mind. I think it helped in drawing things out a bit.

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Turn 4

Dads moved two of his mech troops to square off against my infantry in the northern woods, while beginning to circle my capital.

That combat went ok -for leg infantry in woods vs mech infantry- with me killing one of his mech troops.

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Turn 5

Nothing happened during my turn, because I felt my positions were good and trying to shift would have meant leaving units with no support.

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Turn 6

We finally remembered reinforcements, and the log for this shows us rifling our graveyards to recall who was left. Dad of course had another mech troop to pull into service, and did so on his capital. For the rest of his moves, he consolidated his forces.

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Turn 7

All I did on this turn was an 18 hex (roads only cost 1/3 a movement point and I had six) movement by one of my mech troops from my rear to the capital.

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Turn 8

Dad continued his own shaping ops, and moved some troops to the north side of the map. As it stood, I was facing a heavy mech unit thrust towards my capital and a couple flanking maneuvers too. My reaction was flawless…

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Turn 9

I did nothing! Ha-ah!

I only made space to try and start bringing in reinforcements, but was leery of opening to much because of his paratroops and the fact that you can’t reinforce if an enemy occupies even one square of your capital. I could open all three (and weaken my defense too) and he could have simply dropped his one paratroop in and nuked that idea.

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Turn 10

The horns of Dad bull started closing in.

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Turn 11

I finally got to bring in a reinforcement -mech troop- and stuck him out back to keep away those pesky special troops.

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Turn 14 12

Poking fun at Dad and his lack of situational awareness aside, this was the turn he started trying to take my capital.

The combat for this turn actually went a couple rounds before that fight east of the capital was done. It started with my infantry in the woods dying without taking anyone with them. Dad chose to split the combats two ways. His mech troop versus mine. Sadly we both lost units (ok for him, bad for me).

The other combat -my mech troop versus his special troops- cost him a special troop and a withdrawal of the other.

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Turn 13

For my next turn, I brought in another mech troop and moved him into the line. While dad might split a combat and try to over power one unit, the other two would have to be fought together in the aftermath.

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Turn 14 – For real this time

Dad moved on my mountain city, and also started trying to bring a larger force in against my capital. He had exhausted his mech troop supply and was now brining in infantry.

The combat up in the mountains went about as well as you would think in an area prone to avalanches: we all died. At least this time I took two units with me instead of one.

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Turn 15

So it turn out, I hadn’t noticed I was reinforcing using troops from Corps that were a part of a larger game scenario, and had pulled a paratroop unit out that I wasn’t allowed too. So I had to stop and find another one. That and moving a special troop out of the backfield were all that happened.

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Turn 16

Dad again encircled my forces and ended his turn with just movement.

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Turn 17

All I did was launch another paratroop unit across the board and tuck my special troop into the back of the line around the capital.

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Turn 18

Dad finally made his push on the capital this turn. With like everyone.

Dads split his combats and I started bleeding units again. Of course he had chosen a card that force him to disengage afterwards.

The other combat took another of my mech troops out, but it was like three to one odds, soo… Final state of things this turn were looking bleak.

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Turn 19

I tried to “Hail Mary” this turn and it went… Poorly…

I took out the special troops, but at the cost of one of my special troops, my paratroop unit, and another mech unit. Some times a gamble pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.

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Turn 20

Smelling blood, Dad moved in for the kill.

The first combat cost him two mech troops and one of mine.

The second wasn’t as good for me, and saw him consolidate on my last unit stuck up against the woods and mountains.

The last combat saw us both lose a unit, and that is how the turn ended.

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Turn 21

I threw caution to the wind, and Blitzkrieg’d into his units around my capital. Also brought in two poor infantry just to toss them into the grinder.

The first combat cost me the last of my special troops on the board.

The second saw me take out one of his mech troops, but also lose my mech troop, and that again dropped me below 20 combat points.

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While there were turns that nothing but moves happened, I think this played out a bit better than the first. Hindsight says that the turn 1 paratroop assault was useless and I should have either taken more paratroops or none at all. Next time I’m going to make sure the capitals are farther apart and I might mix things up a bit with my force composition.

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After the game, we also went into some game theory stuff -which I have a post for but it needs expanding/polishing ATM- and talked more about how the troops could be expanded. I’m still in favor of splitting the Special Troops into Alpine/Mountain Troops and Marines. Having a mixed ability unit like that works well with the core game play design, but he has some ideas about expanding it out of the WWII thinking that seems to be prevalent, and the Special Troops would become an odd duck when viewed next to them.

We also spoke about the maps how to expand them. The Kriegspiel module for Vassal has an extra set of boards and we talked about how they go with the main boards (badly) and how they really don’t add much to the game without objectives. The core boards were made to link any face to a similarly sized face on the other board. But the connections are asymmetrical and only work for the core boards. Evening adding another sets boards would require a weird Black/Red/Black/Red structure. The extra board -I realized after poking at them- are just repaints of the two main boards. So they too only work in a fixed fashion. I’m not going to go more into this as its kinda of half that theory post I mentioned.

Kriegspiel Game Theory

So after my second game with my Dad we again started talking about tweaking the game. And during this he mentioned something that I had kinda noticed -that Red’s map had alot of mountains- and something I hadn’t noticed -Black’s map has alot of forests-, which caused a light bulb to go off in my head: Red’s forces were tailored for fighting on the Black map and Black’s forces were tailored for the Red map.

Blacks map is heavily forested

8x Mechanized Infantry

5x Special Forces (move through woods and mountains)

2x Paratroops (Airborne jumps and move through woods)

3x Infantry (move through woods)

Reds map is very mountainous

6x Mechanized Infantry

3x Special Forces (move through woods and mountains)

3x Paratroops(Airborne jumps and move through woods)

9x Infantry (move through woods)

As you can see, if you move into the enemies map, your troops gain advantages from the terrain (which with the terrain effects rules in play make infantry less sucky).

Now the Core (also: Red Map & Black Map) maps can come together with no issues, no matter the edges connecting. Because each map has four unique faces, you can get eight different configurations. Some of these configurations however, aren’t the best for game play. Like the one we just played which had the national capitals only six (cross country) to eight (roads) hex’s away from each other. In a game were occupying a hex of an enemy’s capital negates it ability to bring in reinforcements, that too damn close! Additionally as a Red player, you would be dumb to not try to use the mountains as a barrier. Which means you would be favoring two of the four side of your map. As a Black player, you have more cities on water, which gives you more amphibious assault ability to beaches. So Black players should be trying to make river connections.

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Map board configurations

Now in the Vassal module, there are two extra maps someone made: Map A and B. Heres the catch though, Map A will only connect to Red Map, and Map B will only connect to Black Map. Upon messing with A &B, I figured out that A is a repainted Black Map, and B is a repainted Red Map. So this both helps and hinders game play. It helps because you can now swap out one side and do extra combinations like Red map & A, A & B, B & Black map. Or go four deep and truly have some deep assault movement.

Black and B on top, Red and A on bottom.

However you run into the same issues with the two core maps when you do a 2×2 grid. In that the Red map and Black map have to touch, and then A & B have to be touching their partner. With attrition and denial of reinforcements the only two paths to victory, having maps that don’t add much to the game play isn’t helping matters.

To correct this I tried inverting horizontally maps A and B, to allow them to connect to the other color. So had now I had maps Red, Red A, and Red B (R,RA, RB). And Black, Black A, and Black B (B,BA,BB). But the same problem happens: the A & B maps will only work when touching either a Core Map (Red/Black) or another letter map (RA to BA, RA to BB, RB to RA). The poor design idea of adding A & B is now compounded. Which led me to giving the core maps a hard look.

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Giving the maps a look with an eye toward design, I noticed a few things:

Black Map	Red Map
Roads – 36	Roads – 40
Rivers – 34	Rivers – 20
Forests – 15	Forests – 8
Mountains – 3	Mountains – 18
Beaches – 3	Beaches – 5
Cities – 5	Cities – 5

I averaged these to get starting points for terrain on my expansion boards.

Also I noticed that the roads served no purpose in connecting to another map, only the rivers did. The roads simply divided the map -notionally- in half along the long axis and in thirds along the short axis (for wont of a better way of describing the maps). The rivers were then either above or below long axis roads, and either inside or outside the width axis roads. Finally the roads divide the map up by five hexes, then a road, and then another five hexes (and in the case of long sides: another road and another five hexes).

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Now with this information, I fiddled with adding two boards as well, but with an eye to them being usable as either a Black/Red map checker board or all one color on each side of the table. I used Hex Kit (the cost of this and all its tiles sets was the same as the base program of a dedicated wargame map making software) and knocked out the core maps in a very colorful style. Sadly it wasn’t until I’d done ALL the maps and layouts that I realized I’d added a half hex to the maps (they go five hexes/road/five hexes/road/five hexes along each long edge). Which meant they didn’t line up right till I cropped them in Power Point (used too show layouts to Dad). Oops.

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I added colored borders to – one: differentiate between each map; and two: to enable connections if sides swapped maps. Allowing Red to start on the Black map (and Black on the Red map), shifts the game from offensive in nature to more defensive. Now you have to assault through your weaknesses, into your enemy’s strengths.

My expansion maps I designed while I was at work and I didn’t have space to lay them out all together (save the Bridge map), which caused trouble when I did them at home yesterday. I went with diagonal layouts (Black connections on a long and short, Red on the others). The idea was good, but execution was off. But first, my Bridge map, which is meant to only work between the core maps.

I thought about making a “reverse” side to this, but didn’t remember to do so before moving on to the other maps. None of which I saved in Hex Kit at all, like a dumbass. I did export them to PNG files and cleaned them up in GIMP. So we can at least see them.

As you can see on the Bridge map, Red gets more mountains, and Black gets more forests. With the ways the map is now, it lengthens the playing area. It also forces the attacking player to use the proper troop types to clear avenues of approach for the rest of their forces. A few special troops and infantry can slow any push through to Red map. On Blacks side of the map, their limited infantry could also slow advances through the forests.

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The idea for these Diagonal maps, would be that they would be reversible. So the ones that have Black on top, would be on the two sides of one board, and the ones with Red on top would be on another. The layouts of these either gives both sides more room to maneuver and allows for offensive or defensive strategies, depending on who gets what Core map.

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I again kept things mixed 50/50 for the maps so that you don’t end up with Red sitting on a huge pile of mountains and practically no way to guard the passes, or Black getting human wave attacked by masses of infantry coming out of forests they can’t clear out easily.

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Because these were proof of concept designs (working with what I had graphics wise) I’m not too upset I didn’t save the files. I have a really good grasp of Hex Kits UI now, and could remake them in a few hours (at the correct sizes no less!). Going forward now requires hashing out troop types with Dad so that there isn’t map combinations that just let one side steam roll the other. Also I have some ideas for how to utilize Marines (after separating them from Alpine/Mountain troops) and have a couple map ideas that dovetails with them. But those are thoughts for another post. I also found PDFs of the old Avalon Hill General Magazine and combined with an article reference list (bottom of page under community wiki) on Board Game Geek I want to take a look at the designers thoughts and rules verdicts -if any- before remodeling to much more of the game.

Building out the Site

As many of the games I play are point based ones (WH40K, Warmachine/Hordes, Flames of War, etc), I felt keeping a current progress set of pages would be better -for me mind you- then lots of little postings.

First up in the chute is my Dark Angels Army. This is made up of Deathwing (1st Company), Ravenwing (2nd Company), and 5th Company. I’ll probably focus on getting them cleaned up and painted (or finished painted in some cases) this year.

However I will take some time to at least organize the chaos that is the rest of my collection. Particularly getting like items with like items. Like getting my French and Indian War miniatures all in one place. I think their in three boxes right now. The I can work on getting them rules.

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I still need to text him a link up time -and reread the dang rules- but me and my dad will have a rematch of Kriegspiel this Friday. Hopefully I do better!

Kriegspiel

Kriegspiel is an old Avalon Hill game, first released in 1970. The few complaints about this game come from it not being attached to a specific thing (most wargames from this era were tied to a specific war or battle) and a lack of dice for randomness. Now having played many wargames and miniature games, I feel justified in saying that Kriegspiel is best used to teach the basics of wargaming. It hits all the basics you’d need with having a pile of rules or chits (the little cardboard bits that represent units) to intimidate a new player. The fact that a game can be played in a very short time also helps for clubs or class rooms.

My first game in years and my dad hands me my butt. But he has been pouring over the rules alot lately. With both of us on Vassal, we were able to figure out the how to run the system and get a game in. So heres the battle report.

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My dad chose black and I took red. I flipped my map, so as to put some mountains in his way. And then forgot to take mountain troops. Doh! We rolled to see who goes first, and my dad got turn 1.

Starting positions of units.

Turn 1 – Dad/Black
-Goes 2-1 on Armored unit in mountain pass; I lose my unit; he moves his to block the right side of the board and hold the mountain city.
-1-1 on mountain city; we both lose our units.

Turn 1 Moves

End of turn 1 after battles.

Turn 2 – Me/Red
-I move my special troops over by my infantry to possibly block his armor from flanking me.
-I launch two paratroop units from my northern city: one joins my armor on the left flank.
-I move an armor unit down to thin river side area; we both lose our units.

Turn 2 moves.

End of turn 2.

Turn 3 – Dad/Black
-Dad uses his paratroops to hold mountain city
-Launches an amphibious attack from his two river city in the south, landing on the beach near my lake side city in the north; They then move the interpose themselves between my left flank and center.

Turn 3 moves.

Turn 4 – Me/Red
-I launch my last paratroop unit to my lake side city, bring the odds from 2-1 down to 1-1.
-On the right flank I move all three unit in to contact with his leading unit; Our first battle, I lose an infantry unit; in our second battle, we both lose our units.
-To thin his special troops out, I move an infantry unit to engage one of his special troops; we lose both unit, putting the left flank at 2-1 in my favor.
-To clear the river side area, I move an armor unit to his and block the exit from the pass with my paratroopers; no loses, but dads unit falls back.

Turn 4 moves.

End of turn 4.

Turn 5
-His armor on the right flank consolidates and pushes towards my northern city.
-His armor unit near the river reengages mine; we both lose our units.
-The armor unit near the mountain city moves to clear my special troops; I lose my unit.
-The last of his amphibious units tries to go 1-1 against my infantry; we both lose our units.

Turn 5 moves.

End of turn 5 and game.

Game ends because I’m below 20 Combat Factors. The Red Republic will be avenged!

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I think next time we play, I’ll have us type out “Turn #”, “Moves”, and “Attacking” to help ID each turn and phase. Because while I logged the game, I forgot to take captures during each turn, so it took going back through and looking at moves and removal of chits to figure out the turns.

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If you’ve got an interest in the variant rules my dads working on (and I’m throw ideas at him using my experience), check it out on Boardgamegeek.com.

Going Forward in 2021

So over on my RPG blog, I just wrapped up a month of straight character building and I need a bit of a break from that kind of rush. But I would like force myself to put some effort into this blog as well.

To help kick things off, I picked up a digital copy of Operation Pegasus from Task Forces Games (yeah its old, but I was looking for copies of Nexus Gaming Magazine and tripped over it) for $5. Its usually $8. I’m going to look into getting the map and chits printed (at the very least the map). The plan will be to set it up in and run through a game or two while noting down moves and such. *pause for a software check* Oh wait, Vassal has a module for it. And ebay has cheap copies.

Well shit. I might just run a few of these from within Vassal. Cause they also have Tactics II, Starship Troopers, and Kriegspiel (my dads trying to work through some variant rules over on Board Game Geek). I’m going to see if he wants to try running a few games.

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So I poked at Vassal and got my dad on board to try it. Then we played a game of Kriegspiel this past Friday. I got my ass handed to me. But in my defense, he’s been going over the rules for some time now, trying to expand the game a little. If your interested in contributing to the conversation: Boardgamegeek.com.

For our game I flipped on the log file function and saved that once the game ended. I’ll put together a post covering how he banged me up.

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So getting to the point: February I’ll be posting more here. I’m not going for a post a day. Maybe a game or two a week (with write ups), a little bit of showing off of my miniature hoardings (no painting just yet), and finally some game theory stuff like my dads doing. I have rotating days off (due to working at a medical facility) so I can’t be tied to something that takes more than an hour or two a day on my workdays. Which for wargames is going to be hard.

Following February, I’ll probably start doing a couple posts here and a couple posts there each month. If I can keep that pace through June, I’ll be happy.