Ramadi: Phew! The game is now available after a tense few weeks of final revisions. Well done to Mark Walker (publisher), Ilya Kudriashov (art) and Art Bennett (development) for some fantastic work on this game. You can find the soft version on Wargames Vault for $10 (bargain!). The hard copy is only $26 from Tiny Battles. There is also a BGG page.
What next? Good question. My head is spinning a bit but I do have a few things lined up between now and Christmas.
- The Battle of Waterberg: A Steve Kling design which I am really pleased to be play testing over the next few weeks. This is the 1904 battle between the Germans in SW Africa and the Herero Tribe. It looks fascinating.
- Steel, Steel, Steel!: More work on this. I have purchased War by Numbers by Christopher Lawrence which, on the basis of a quick skim, seems to suggest that the original Avalon Hill CRT was pretty accurate. However, it does contain analysis of Germans and Soviet attack success rates at Kursk which will assist greatly with the next iteration of Steel.
- Desert Hammer: I have been getting into Nordic Weasel's Hammer series (Squad Hammer, Trench Hammer, October Hammer, Winter Hammer etc.). This was inspired by One Hour Wargames and is an intriguing tool kit. Desert Hammer is my version in which I raid the research I did for Desert Eagle and turn it into a workable game.
Anything else? I'm hoping to paint some Stukas (if it kills me). These have been hanging around for ages and I want to get them finished. I also played Hill 70 mentioned by Tim Gow recently. A really interesting narrative online game. For anyone that is involved in leadership training and development of any sort, this little game is a great indicator of your personal leadership style. Very telling. I'm pleased to say that I captured Hill 70 first time round. I might have a go at one of these myself.
Norm has kindly reminded me of the importance of German control of the air over Kursk. I have been doing some more thinking about that and I now have some numbers to report on.
Here is the basic data on German air sorties for the Citadel period on the Southern Front.
Making sense of this in relationship to the Soviet air effort and the ground fighting is next. Lots more to do!
I'm afraid that Norm has encouraged me to start thing about Kursk again by playing Dark July and assorted other Kursk related games. Although this is a slow burner (like most of my projects), I have been doing work on it in between doing other stuff.
So, here is a really interesting question: what was the most powerful German unit on the southern front of the Citadel offensive? May be a great big SS panzer division? Grossdeutschland division?
Well, OK. You guys are quite right. The panzer pushers' favourites are the biggest baddest units on the southern front.
I have been working on data about units strengths and the graph above shows the state of the German forces on the southern front on 4 July. What interests me is the strength of a couple of infantry divisions: 106 and 320.
So not as strong as the big guys but not at all shabby. So why were these units so strong? These two units formed Corps Raus, part of Army Det. Kempf. They are strong because of the sheer amount of attached artillery units. All corps assets were allocated at divisional level. So things to consider in designing the game are around what these scores actually mean in terms of manouvre ability, fire effects and combat capability.
Steel, Steel, Steel! will be a solitaire game with the players leading the German onslaught. It will be designed around the same sort of ideas as my Ramadi game (which is obviously why I have this in mind at the moment, as well as Norm's enthusiastic prompting!). More to come, especially around the source of the numbers and how they will be developed into a realistic game.
but some tidying up first!
KISS My Arras! At long last I have finished the scenario instructions after much thought and tweaking. Very happy with the result. This is one of my designs that can be played as a map and counter game or just set up on a table and play with toys. Revised map and rules (v2) can be found here.
Dragoons Rampant Another little job I have had hanging around for a while is revisiting the the artillery ratings in this adaptation of Dragon Rampant for the Peninsular War. These tweaks make the artillery units more like those in Pikeman's Lament but still with the need to order a re-load activation. I still like these rules a lot and have plenty of Hat guerrillas to paint up (at some point in the future I think!). Latest version of the rules and unit characteristics can be found here.
Next project! Underway now. A not very good possible cover picture. More soon.
