Thursday 15 September 2011

Reflections on Blocks and the Naval Wargames Society

I managed to get myself in a writing flat spin whilst attempting to finalise the first draft of my Block rules. As usual I had contrived to cram too much in too quickly and as the result the whole thing looks an unwieldy mess. There are some good points but these seem to have been buried under the great wad of overly complex mechanisms employed.

I have put the end result to one side for a few days - simply so as I can 'clear my head' and look at them with a fresh pair of eyes. I have sufficient block related activities to be undertaking in the meantime though as I need to add the labels for the 20th century kit as well as the unit identifying strips. There is also the felt to be cut for roads and rivers. One thought did cross my mind though - and I shall be exploring this further at the weekend - and that is that there are an awful lot of Command and Colours based rules sets around. The core combat mechanisms  I am employing are based on this system and so any further insights as to how other gamers have tackled the subject are most welcome. A number of these appear on the following site: http://www.tsoa.be/html/fuseliers.html and although I do not intend using them wholesale they are invaluable as a source of ideas.

A chance conversation at the club last night with my old friend Ernie Fosker gave me a good deal of satisfaction - we were discussing the blocks I had taken along to show him - as he exclaimed, without any prompting from myself I might add, "It is like a 3d boardgame!".

That is exactly the look I am striving for.

On another note I finally got around to renewing my membership of the Naval Wargames Society. I have been a member of the society at odd times over the years but for one reason or another had allowed this to lapse some time ago. This criminal oversight has now been duly rectified!

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