My mate Roland and I often talk about a specific principle of military command, where a commander focuses on units one or two levels down the hierarchy — no further. I wanted to use this to justify the scale of Wombat Gun, my Crossfire variant for the Vietnam War, so I went looking for its origins. In Wombat Gun, players take the role of company commanders. The “two levels down” principle is why the game tracks platoons and squads — not fire teams, not individual soldiers. Player authority is meant to mirror real-world command practice. But where did this principle come from?
Game Design
What to Simulate in a Vietnam War Company-Level Game
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a variant of Crossfire for the Vietnam War—still at company level, just like standard Crossfire. I’m tentatively calling it Wombat Gun.
Then the other day, Adam came over and we played Charlie Don’t Surf by the Two Fat Lardies — another company-level game. That session really got me thinking: what are the key elements worth simulating in a Vietnam War company-level wargame?
Here’s where I’ve landed so far. These are the key features of the conflict that I think any ruleset should simulate. Please share if you have other ideas.
Using geometry to find implicit crests on a hill
While I was ranting about Why I think hills are horrible in wargames rules, I found two rules had a clever solution for dealing with line of sight on hills using geometry. I’d already thought of a similar approach, also using geometry. I call the two approaches “Parallel crest” and “Perpendicular crest”. Both solutions are clever. Which one is better?
The ‘To Hit’ Quandary – 5 plus or 2 minus
It is very common for game systems to give different units different to hit scores. The big question for me is, is it better to (1) give good units a higher to hit score or (2) reward higher dice rolls?
Hits Remaining or Hits Taken – Game Design Musing
In our recent game of Twilight of the Britons, we used markers for the hits taken. But after the game Chris suggested moving to hits remaining. This post explains that element of Game Design and when I’m tempted to use these two contrasting mechanisms.
Three dimensions of game design: Simulation, Playability, Abstraction
My mate Chris and I often debate game design, and specifically simulation versus playability. Wargamers typically think of these as opposites, with a set of rules being either realistic or playable. Chris is, for example, an advocate of simulation and is willing to sacrifice playability to get something he considers more realistic. But I don’t think these things – simulation and playability – are opposite ends of a single dimension. I’m an advocate for playability and simulation is also important to me. I want both. Abstraction is the key to unlocking this combination and is an important third dimension.