Retired U.S. Navy wargamer/family gamer/pen & paper (tabletop?) roleplaying gamer originally from the Rocky Mountain area. This blog is a collection of ramblings on wargames & boardgames, naval stuff, space, and family. Well, mostly games.
The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and are presented in a personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, or any other agency or employer.
RockyMountainNavy.com © 2007-2023 by Ian B is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
Your review of Flashpoint South China Sea was on point. Well done! Years back, Jon Compton dismantled Breaking the Chains in a well written and convincingly argued piece in an early Counterfact magazine. I’ve written thousands of words on CSW on the inadequacies of Next War: Taiwan. Compass’s own South China Sea is unconvincing. So I think you can reasonably argue that hobby wargaming is performing miserably on potential conflicts, at least for ‘the coming war with China.’ Why is this?
It’s certainly not the absence of material – the volume of documentation in the public domain, on military and political (and economic and technology and information) issues is vast, to the point of being overwhelming.
My own bleak assessment is that, with the odd honourable exception, hobby designers have neither the skills, the interest nor the audience to do much more than recycle old systems. Which begs the question we dare not ask – are our games any better for historical topics?
I think the greatest challenge in designing “predictive” wargames is the tyranny of game mechanisms. Game designers, as smart as some are, don’t always have the insight into many of the issues. As a result, they take tried and true game mechanisms, maybe tweak them a bit, add “modern” platforms, and call it “representative.”
Enjoy your blogging.
I’m in Colorado Springs overnight. Any game stores in town with a good selection of war games? Any shops with: prices below MSRP, clearance section, or selling used games?
Thanks.
“Don’t rush. We got nothing but time ”
– Conductor Jimmy Niehus, retired
Actually been years since I lived there but Gamer’s Haven was an ok wargame store, but Petrie’s was the best family gaming store.
👍
I noticed in your Root play through that you have a son on the autism spectrum, as do I. I can get him to play Qwirkle, which he can dominate, but I’m curious about how you’ve roped your kids into more complex games like Root. My son is 13, and probably more developmentally like a 10 year old although that can swing a bit. If you’ve had other posts on this topic forgive me, just discovered you today.
My 21yo has maturity of a 13-15yo. He can read but not always comprehend deeper meanings or immediately see strategies. We have tried many different game genres. He usually teams with his younger brother in wargames & together they are ruthless. In games with more reading or deeper strategy he usually adopts a certain style of play or keeps to a particular faction (like in Scythe). We have to be careful of “take that” games because situations like what happened in Root are harder for him to handle.
Many times he and I will play a game first so he builds some familiarity. Then we can expand to the larger family gaming group. Other times we have “our” games that he and I usually play exclusively against one another.
Do you meet to play old board games? Any room for more players? I would be interested.
Sorry. Usually play with family and occasionally at conventions.
Pleased to meet you.
I found an Imperium box I had hidden away for years. It is the 1990 edition. Never played it. Read through the rules (took awhile) a few days ago. And thought I could play it. Was difficult to find where to start in the rules again, and where to go from there.
I’m going to re-write the rules so it fits on one or two pages with step by step game movement during a player’s turn.
Anyway, I want to fix some typos also. Did you give tankers a cost of 1 or 2 during your games? The rules say 1, the chart says 2.
I split the difference:
For the Imperials I charge 1 RP – after all the Imperials probably already have ships they can convert to tankers on hand. For the Terrans I charge 2 RP since I figure the Terrans have less shipbuilding capacity and to dedicate tonnage to tankers has a real impact on the fighting fleet.
I just want to say thank you for posting a link to my site.
Dale McCoy, Jr
Jon Brazer Enterprises
Hi,
Can I rope you into blogging about this year’s Valour-IT fundraiser?
http://bostonmaggie.blogspot.com/2008/11/valour-it-kickoff.html
I saw that you were a Navy blog that Galrahn links to and he is this year’s Navy team leader.