Rumors of My Demise and a Developing Set of Rules

Harte Ağustos 07, 2022

I am deeply humbled. I disappeared and did not consider that during the times of the pandemic that this might cause concern.

Just before the US plummeted into lock downs and rising COVID infections, I found myself being called to return to music (I mean my own music. I'm in a band but I don't do much writing for it). Music, like wargaming, can demand a ton of time, but unlike gaming, drains me of energy in all sorts of ways. The creative process, for me, is not an enjoyable stroll in the park but the tearing of some hideous thing from the purple-black tendrils of doubt and pretension, hurling the putrid sputtering mass into this reality, and wrestling it into something less horrible, through the power of blood and sweat and tears, presumably for sharing with the world. The latter opens up gaping dimensions of doubt unknown to those who have never walked that path.

But I digress. The point is, writing and recording sucks up free time and I am terrible about balancing my interests.

I returned to gaming in June however with a handful of G Company games, including revisiting D-Day with the US Army's 1st Infantry Division. Some thinking about what I wanted from my games led me back to company element games, and then some more reading led me to battalion element games with a goal of playing GrossDeutchsland's advance during Operation Citadel (more to come on that, including five scenarios with painfully simple maps made in Google Draw, suggested orders of battle, etc.).

It may be hubris speaking, but this reminds of me of the pictures in older war games books. Please note the card stock buildings are prototypes, and not finished. I wanted to make collapsible Russian style buildings. They work, I just need to make more and finish them.

As an apology for disappearing without so much as a word, allow me to present a draft of what I call Divison Squares (I was calling it Space Wars early on as a joke, because that implies outer space and perhaps even Star Wars, when it's not about that at all. Which tells you all you need to know about my sense of humor.) There is nothing new in there, just an amalgamation of mechanisms that work for me, written for me, but now cleaned up a bit in case anyone else finds use in them.

The Division Squares rules began as Battalion Squares where each unit is a company. I'll revisit those eventually. This picture is an early game using those - hence the mixed heavy weapons company for the Germans.

Although I have played them for at least two dozen games, there are still things missing and it's a living document (for instance air-to-ground rules are missing, as are mine fields. Both of which will be added eventually). These are intended for playing WWII on a grid with a regiment to a division+ per side in a smallish space.

A German divison (GrossDeutschland in the scenario, but could be a generic Panzer Division) advancing against a Soviet rifle regiment (199th but could be any) in trenches- one tank unit has already been destroyed (off camera bottom right). There are three scales of vehicles in this picture, for those following along at home.

They work for One Hour Wargames scenarios as well, at least in my limited tests (mostly I've been playing GD at Cherkasskoye - a table layout and scenario based on a historical battle.) However, expect most OHW scenarios with OHW sized forces to play in about 8-10 turns (not unlike OHW rules in my experience).