More unboxing videos! In limba romana…

 

Two unboxing, or rather unbagging videos of the OSS editions of Kandahar and Operation Whirlwind.

However, the poster is speaking in Romanian, a language I do not know. I presume it’s a positive impression!

 

Yet more sale! OSS Games -25% too!

It’s on! 25% off on published games at www.ossgamescart.com.

Shining Path, Green Beret, Operation Whirlwind are marked down to $17.25; Kandahar, Algeria Binh Dinh and Tupamaro are down to $18.75.

Use coupon code BLACKFRI at checkout.

Sale runs now through Monday the 26th of November. Does not include pre-order items, subscriptions, or games already on sale.

Oh God, I feel so cheap….

Tiny Battles -25% sale

Tiny Battle Publishing is having a sale!

From now (actually, yesterday) until Tuesday November 27th, all in-stock, games in the Tiny Battle Publishing inventory are 25% off.

So this means:

• Chile ’73: $25.00   $18.75
• Red Horde 1920: $34.00   $25.50
• War Plan Crimson: $30.00   $22.50
• Winter Thunder: $27.00   $20.25

The PDF versions of these games, available form Wargame Vault, are also marked down, so they are around $10-12 each.

Now, I tootle my own horn here a lot but I’d also like to draw another Tiny Battle game to your attention: Battle for Ramadi by Jay Ward. This is a small game, no bigger than most of the TBP folio games (83 counters, 11×17″ map), on the battle to retake this Iraqi city from ISIS forces at the end of December 2015. It’s designed to be played solitaire, and it’s a good quick simple game on the high points and considerations of kinetic urban combat. I saw an early version of this on Jay’s website ( Off to CSW Expo 2016… meanwhile, Ramadi.) and I’m glad to see that he has had it published. And now it’s also 25% off; $19.50 marked down from $26.00!

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/ramadi

A rare find?

You gotta be kidding me!

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for an unpunched Konarmiya?

Well, at these prices I guess they need to sell only the one copy.

(I think I might have one left; sell it to you for $99.00…)

Colonial Twilight: a bot for the FLNbot

BGG user Curt Sellmer has created a program that automatically implements the FLNbot that Vesa Arponen made for Colonial Twilight. He says it handles the details of ‘bot decisionmaking, and is similar to a program he created for the expansion to Volko Ruhnke’s Labyrinth game,  Labyrinth: The Awakening: 2010-?

It supports the the Short, Medium and Full scenarios.

It will run on a MacOS terminal, a Linux terminal and the Windows console as long as the Java JVM is installed and the path to the ‘java’ executable program is referenced in your PATH environment variable.

For more information and to download the built package, go here: https://github.com/sellmerfud/coltwi

Scroll down until you see section heading: “Downloading the package”. In that section is a link to the “built package” which is a zip file.

Finally, here is the discussion thread on BGG where he introduces the program, and where players (that’s you, cousin) will discuss questions and problems, when encountered.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2095115/software-runs-fln-bot

Thank you for your work Curt!

 

CFP: Connections-USA 2019

On arrival at Harrisburg, look for the famous 3MI cooling towers!

And while in Carlisle, eat at the Hamilton Restaurant, around the corner from the hotel you’ll likely be staying at. Try the scrapple, sure, but the menus is really good!

This is reposted from an email received by Tim Wilkie, a Great Guy who is organizing the Connections-USA conference.

I’ve posted many times on this blog about how interesting and valuable these conferences are, at least to me. You should consider attending, if you have any interest in how government (primarily the military, but the lessons are often widely applicable) uses wargaming.

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Connections 2019 will be hosted by the U.S. Army War College at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA, August 13-16.

Connections is an interdisciplinary* wargaming conference that has been held annually since 1993, with the mission of advancing and preserving the art, science, and application of wargaming.  Connections participants come from all elements of the wargaming discipline, and include those in the military, government, academic, private sector, and commercial hobbyist fields.  By providing a forum for practitioners to share insights and best practices, Connections works to improve gaming as a tool for research, analysis, education, and policy.

Presentations on any aspect of professional wargaming are welcome.  The 2019 conference theme is Futures of Wargaming, and with that in mind, presentations on wargaming future events, advances in wargaming techniques, wargaming to train future leaders, and related topics are especially encouraged.

Please submit your proposal via the Google Form at the following link (which contains additional information):
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyDQazE8CCsGmzjKorpEdaB1eQF9ijsKOdnYwMC5JnL8-uOg/viewform?usp=sf_link

It is by no means necessary to have attended a previous Connections conference to participate as a speaker.  More information about past Connections events and current updates on the status of planning for Connections 2019 can be found at the conference website:
https://connections-wargaming.com/

Feel free to pass this along to those who you think might be interested, including posting this in appropriate places online.  For additional information or any questions or concerns, please contact me at timothy.wilkie@ndu.edu

Timothy Wilkie
Research Fellow
Center for Applied Strategic Learning (CASL)
National Defense University
timothy.wilkie@ndu.edu
(202)433-4865

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*[best thing I read on the Net yesterday, from “S**t Academics Say”: “We’re all two drinks away from becoming interdisciplinary.”]

“Grom-444”

… was the radio signal sent to Marshal Konev to begin the military operation to suppress the Hungarian Revolution, on 4 November 1956.

Cover art by Kwanchai Moriya

62 years after the event, there are three games on the Soviet crackdown and I have designed two of them:

• Operation Whirlwind, which has been available in one form or another since 2002 – see here for the historical scenario Operation Whirlwind: more historical scenario.;
• Nights of Fire, which is due out in, umm, probably February 2019; and
• Budapest ’56, half of a two-game set on “Cold War Battles” by Joe Miranda (the other game is on Angola in 1987). It uses the “Modern Battles” system that has been used by first SPI, then Decision Games, to cover dozens and dozens of battles. Doesn’t work particularly well to show urban warfare, even when it was used by The Great Dunnigan in Berlin ’85, but that’s just my opinion…   https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23378/cold-war-battles-budapest-56-angola-87