Last edited 20 June by Tim Gow
Presenter(s)
TITLE OF SESSION
running time number
of players
platform
description
The Session List
Peter
Perla
WARGAMES:
WHAT AND WHY
25 minutes any
Zoom
Plenary
lecture
Mark
Herman
THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL AND HOBBY WARGAMING
25 minutes any
Zoom
Plenary
lecture
Russell
King
THE
DAY OF THE JACKAL
90
minutes 6-8
players
Zoom
DeGaulle
needs shooting for dishonouring our war dead and giving Algeria back to the
terrorists. This game carries out the original plan to whack
DeGaulle in his car on his way to the Elysees Palace. If you fail,
you're facing the firing squad, and Edward Fox gets all the
money. Features Auntie Yvonne, Paris Match, some bonkers driving and
- I shall say this only once - the over-violent, gun-toting French Police.
Ed
McGrady, Peter Perla, John Curry
UNFORTUNATE DIFFERENCES
2 hours
Zoom
The game
will introduce players to the active edge of professional wargaming led by two
of the top professional wargamers in the world. Participants will need to have MS Powerpoint.
This is a
simple, quick, force on modern force game in the area around the
Senkaku’s. It sets up a knife fight between Japan, China, and the
US, one that is inevitably going to get messy. The players represent
the Japanese JTF, the US CSG commander/Commander 7th Fleet, and the Chinese
Eastern Theater Command. The Chinese have occupied the Senkaku’s
with “demonstrators” and slapped an exclusion zone around the
islands. The Japanese are determined this will not stand and have
sent a SAG along with a couple of amphibs to sort things out. The
US, with its UK partners (represented by a couple of UK Daring class DDGs),
wants the whole thing to go away. But the US still has a CSG
muddling around somewhere out there keeping an eye on things. We
will start with a planning turn, its best to designate someone in charge as the
commander, and we will communicate using maps with annotations on them. Please
try and annotate legibly otherwise I may assume that your comms are not working
that turn! Basic turn sequence is: space (settle
down, remember your ROE), cyber (capabilities will be assigned), C4ISR (how do
you see stuff), and then air, surface, and subsurface. Logistics,
like always, won’t play much of a role here.
There
will be three teams: Japanese, American, Chinese
John Curry
ECW
VIRTUAL TEWT (TACTICAL EXERCISE WITHOUT TROOPS)
90
minutes any
number
Zoom
The epic
struggle between King and Parliament continues. Your army is in the line
of march on the wat to take the city of YORKVILLE. The enemy have
deployed, do you dare offer battle? You are the experienced command staff
of the army, you must deploy your forces and issue your orders.
You will
have maps, photographs of the terrain, ORBAT and reports from scouts.
John Bassett
GIVE
ME BACK MY LEGIONS!
20 minute
presentation + 40 minute discussion any
Zoom
A review
of John's sprawling Roman internet game which took place in the spring, with a
focus on lessons for future multi-centre games ans some thoughts on subjects
for future games.
Martin Rapier
ONE
HOUR WW2
90
minutes including post-game discussion 4
players, plus observers
Google
Meet, with Skype as a backup
An
adaptation of One Hour Wargames for brigade level actions in WW2. A
largeish action on a small table in a relatively short period of time for up to
eight players involving toy soldiers and rulers. Owners of Neil Thomas's
'One Hour Wargames' my struggle to find much resemblance to the original rules.
John Armatys
THE
CONVOY - A SIMPLE GRIDDED AGE OF SAIL NAVAL WARGAME
2 hours including
post-game discussion up
to 6 players
Skype
A chance
to try my pre-steam, iron and steel variant of Bob Cordery's "Gridded
Naval Wargames" (Eglinton Books, 2018) using a very small hand drawn
board, some very old 1/3000 ships and the cheapest IT kit available.
Jim Roche
COW 2020 SINGALONG - TENS, TWENTIES AND MORE
1 hour any
number
Zoom
This session will feature some drinking-related songs,
including 1620's The Parting Glass and 1970's A sailor ain't a sailor, ain't a
sailor any more, marking the ending of Rum Ration. I hope to provide an historical/military
context for all. Along with Wee Joe and his adventures in Russia in 1920. We
will also mark Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech in 1920 by singing the
non-historical Tomorrow belongs to me, while I promote the Bernie Gunther
novels.
Gary Sheffield
WARGAMING AND HISTORY/HISTORY AND WARGAMING
30 minutes
any number
Zoom
In this
talk Professor Gary Sheffield reflects on his career as a professional
scholarly military historian and his other life as a wargamer. He has used
wargaming for teaching purposes for over 30 years as well as being a
recreational wargamer. Gary looks at how useful he has found wargaming as an
educational tool, and discusses its strengths and limitations in informing his
research. Over the years he has come across many influential wargamers such as
Paddy Griffith and Phil Sabin, and will give his thoughts on the contribution
of these people and others to the hobby/profession. Finally, he will indicate
some areas in which he thinks there are possibilities to develop wargaming.
John Curry
The Great Mutiny 1857
1 hour 5
players
Zoom
The rebellion against the authority of the East India
Company was widespread through much of Northern India, but essentially it was
sparked by the mass uprising by the sepoys of the units of the Army which the
company had itself raised in its Bengal Presidency (which actually covered a
vast area from Assam to Peshawar). Seeking a symbol around which to rally, the
first sepoys to rebel sought to reinstate the power of the Mughal Empire, which
had ruled the entire Indian subcontinent during the previous centuries. Lacking
overall direction, many who subsequently rebelled also flocked to Delhi.
You are in a group of likeminded civilians with some
regular officers and men of the East India Company. The enemy are spread out
and lacking coordination. You are breaking the back of the rebellion one group
of rebels at a time. It is a tactical map-based game.
John Curry
A Practical Guide to Storming a
Medieval Castle
1 hour any
Zoom
To celebrate my new book, A Practical Guide to Medieval
Warfare by Richard Brooks and John Curry, I will talk about storming a castle.
Faced by questions that were unanswered by the history books, the obvious thing
to do was to hire some castles and pretend to storm them. This talk is by one
of a few people who has actually climbed a siege ladder in recent times,
dropped rocks off battlements and shot through arrowslits.
Tim Price
Remote Kriegsspiel
2 hours 6-8
players
Google
Meeting
Tim Price, a
professional wargamer working in the Government funded education sector will
demonstrate how to run a two-sided, double blind, Kriegsspiel, using free tools
and no downloaded apps. The session will
include a game.
Tim Price
Hadley's Hope
2 hours 6-8
players
Google
Meeting
Sci-Fi
skirmish game with toy soldiers and limited information.
Graham
Longley-Brown
DEFENCE
AND RECREATIONAL WARGAMES
40 minutes any
Zoom
Graham
Longley-Brown has wargamed since aged eight, used wargaming for serious
purposes throughout his military career and been a professional wargamer since
leaving the Army in 2004. He was the lead author of the 2017 MOD Wargaming
Handbook and published his own Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner’s
Handbook in 2019. He is co-organiser of Connections UK, the leading
conference outside the US for wargaming professionals (those who use wargames
for serious purposes). In his talk on ‘Defence and recreational wargames:
distinctions and synergies’, he will discuss some of the differences between
these wargame contexts and invite comments and suggestions from the wider
community that might enhance Defence wargaming.
John
Curry
Battle of Landsdowne 1643 virtual battlefield tour
1 hour any
Zoom
As is
traditional, there is a pre COW walk on the Friday afternoon of COW. This is
the virtual replacement looking at an important and well preserved battlefield
site. This will start with a 20 mins introduction to the battlefield, then
break into small groups to look at the period accounts, maps, photos of the
ground and use Google Earth to walk around the battlefield. Then each group
will present their thoughts to the whole group.
Bob Cordery
WD40 – OILING THE WHEELS OF WARGAMING SINCE 1980
40 minutes any number
Zoom
A look back at the history of Wargame
Developments, how and why it came about and what it has achieved. Bob is the only current member of WD who
attended the original Moor Park conference in 1980.
Mike
Elliott
ADVENTURES
IN LOCKDOWN
1 hour any
Zoom
A general discussion about
our wargaming experiences in lockdown:
Did you do more or less
wargaming?
Did you use the time for
painting figures rather than playing games?
Methods: solo, online, other?
What has worked for you?
What didn't work?
What can we learn from the
experience to improve our wargaming activities in the future?
David
Bradbury
On His Most Catholic Majesty's Service
1 hour
Zoom
A simple
look at the decision-making of the commander of a Spanish light warship on
cruise in the Mediterranean in 1551.
Michael
Young
CARRIER
STRIKE: WARGAME PLAYTEST
90 minutes 2+
players, plus assistants & observers
Zoom (but players
must have Excel and PowerPoint with macros to be a play the force commander
role)
This is a
wargame looking at the effectiveness of the new Queen Elizabeth carrier task
force written entirely in PowerPoint and Excel, illustrating how you can write
a detailed wargame using just these media, and play it over the internet. It does this by extensive use of Microsoft
Visual basic macros in PowerPoint and Excel. I have been commissioned by Dstl to develop
this game and have permission to use this as a playtesting session.
PowerPoint
and Excel was an interesting choice for developing a wargame, but it has the
major advantage that these programs are present on all the MoD computers so
there are no difficulties with porting the game from one system to another.
The players
move their forces by moving shapes and arrows on a on a PowerPoint slide in
design mode (making a new slide each turn) , and then fight them by putting the
slide into presentation mode and clicking on the unit shapes and arrows. Clicking this way activates macros, User Forms
and Excel Worksheets to resolve the movement or combat.
I’m developing
this at the moment, so this will be a work in progress, but I hope to get some
good feedback and suggestions on how to further develop the game.
David Burden
Remote Wargaming
60 minutes any number
Zoom
This session will introduce the different forms
that remote wargaming can take before providing demonstrations of three
different technology solutions for ways of playing remote games synchronously
(i.e. all players active in real-time): Roll20 (2D), TableTop Simulator (3D)
and a prototype Virtual Reality (VR) environment. Demonstrations will include
equivalents of SPI type hex games, and figure based games. There will be a
chance to ask questions about each system and the session will close with an
open discussion of the merits (and demerits) of different approaches and how
they might be used and evolve in the future.
