Swofford on drones, ettechera…

The author of Jarhead has written an excellent piece on the future of our ever-more-techied-up mode of warfare:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614488/why-remote-war-is-bad-war

One of a few money quotes within:

The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name. We allow technology to increase moral distance; thus, technology increases the killing. More civilians than combatants die in modern warfare, so technology increases worldwide civilian murder at the hands of armies large and small.

New book: Successful Professional Wargames by Graham Longley-Brown

Graham Longley-Brown served in the British Army as a Regular officer from 1986 to 2003, and finished off his career as the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College Directing Staff Subject Matter Expert for wargaming from 2000-2002. Since his retirement from the Regular Army, Graham has worked as a self-employed consultant (www.lbsconsultancy.co.uk) running wargames for national militaries and their research centres across the world. Graham also developed the Rapid Campaign Analysis Toolset in use by the British military, helped to write the UK MOD Wargaming Handbook, and co-founded and organizes the Connections-UK conference on professional wargaming. (www.professionalwargaming.co.uk)

I’ve known Graham since I first became involved with Connections-UK, at the first conference in 2013. Now he has written a book, Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner’s Handbook wherein he promises to reveal all his secrets.

He’s obviously doing something right!

Published by John Curry’s History of Wargaming project, you can buy your copy here: http://www.wargaming.co/professional/details/professionalhandbook.htm

 

BottosCon pictures

Back from a very good BottosCon, here are some pictures taken by the very able David Rice.

Beginning of a game of China’s War. You can see the Japanese Army ready to “do the Locomotion” into northern China, to link up with the forces heading north from Shanghai. (Photo: David Rice)

 

Closeup of the “home plate” Initiative Track, which works just fine for a 4-player game. (Photo: David Rice)

 

I even got in a few quick games of Kashmir Crisis with Christopher Spence! (photo: David Rice)

Nights of Fire here at last!

Just ecstatic, yass…

 

At last, my designer copies of Nights of Fire have arrived!

Very pleased with the production overall, and the great artwork on the map, pieces and player aids.

Lianne was wowed by the “toys”, too! That submachine gunner does look just like Yul Brynner….

Getting the Story…

…Right on Wargaming.

A very good piece by Ed McGrady, a long-time colleague of Peter Perla’s at the Centre for Naval Analysis.

Narrative, narrative all is narrative because we are working with humans who respond to stories.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/getting-the-story-right-about-wargaming

Con Weekend

Not sure what i was saying here, but I guess it was important…

Going to be a good weekend for wargaming conventions.

I don’t go to many cons, normally just two a year: the big Consimworld Expo in Tempe AZ each summer, and Rob Bottos’ “BottosCon” over in Vancouver on the weekend nearest Remembrance Day.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BottosCon/

Rob has been running this for over ten years now, and it’s grown every year. I think he is now at well over 100 attendees, and while there is and likely always will be a strong contingent of ASL lifestyle guys you can see games of all types being played.

I’ll be bringing the usual bag of playtest stuff with me, most of which will not even leave the bag let alone be tested… I cheerfully admit this is my fault, since normal con behaviour is to pre-arrange the games that you will play, down to the time and table, so you can maximise your time playing and not puzzling through something new and unfamiliar and which may not work all that well.

But I do have a couple of people lined up for a test run of China’s War, which is in a pretty good state now IMO. Other than that I’m bringing the QWexit material, Kashmir Crisis, Virtualia II, Squares of the City and maybe Strongman if the Magic Bag isn’t too full.

http://www.sdhist.com/home.html

On the same weekend is Harold Buchanan’s San Diego Historical Games Convention, down in, yeah, San Diego. A LOT of game designers will be here, and publishers too of course, and a lot of open gaming as well as pre-arranged play and events. And knowing Harold, it will all be well organized and lots of fun! I’d like to make the scene there some day, but it’s not going to work out this year due to day-job stuff.

You take some time and play something this weekend too, y’hear?