The Wargamer

After scoring some really cool loot on Day 1, Day 2 at Origins is a bit tamer. I made another few sweeps through the vendor room – it’s possible to walk by a table a dozen times and miss something important, so I try to be as thorough as I can. The main reason why it’s easy to miss things is all the stuff that might be called “background noise”. Tables have so much stuff on them and so many people want to show you their games (or sit back quietly awaiting your query) that it’s difficult to find the gems under the crushing competition for attention. 

One of the gems I found last year was the debut of Witch Hunter by Paradigm Concepts (more info can be found here http://www.wargamer.com/articles/origins2007d2/). I really enjoyed playing Witch Hunter but by the time I figured out how great it was, Paradigm Concepts had sold out of it. So this year a copy of Witch Hunter was on my must-buy list, and I was pleased to find multiple copies still available. The atmosphere of a horror-based Colonial times RPG may sound iffy at first blush (I was skeptical) but Paradigm Concepts does a fantastic job with the game and it is one hell of a game (pun intended). I picked up a copy of an adventure module, too, although it should be noted that a number of free adventure modules are available from the Paradigm Concepts website (www.paradigmconcepts.com). I also reserved a seat at their huge Battle Interactive, and I’ll share more about that experience in my weekend coverage. 

Attendance on Friday saw a bit of an uptick, as expected, and a few folks were out wearing their costumes. That’s always fun, but the real costumes typically show up over the weekend, so I made a mental note to charge my camera’s battery in case it got a workout.

My afternoon was spent in the War College. Dr. James Sterrett is a man of many talents, but this afternoon he was running a game of Conquest of the Aegean (http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/conquestoftheaegean/) (one of several throughout the weekend) and using it to introduce gamers to the methodology used at the US Army's General Command Staff College to use commercial games to teach its students. It should be noted that just the act of getting all the pieces to bring this seminar into reality was a major feat. Armchair General and Matrix Games were sponsors. And the US Marine Corps deserves a round of thanks for providing the laptops, router, and projector (called a DVTE, or Deployable Virtual Training Environment) which gave gamers the hardware to enjoy the simulation. This is a really cool piece of kit in its own right, as the Marines can send this suite, fully loaded with training software (including Close Combat Marines the civilian version of which is Close Combat Modern Tactics) anywhere in the world to help Marines on ships or in the field keep up on various skills they need but may not be practicing every day. (As somebody pointed out to me once, just because you're carrying a rifle every day doesn't mean you're staying fully trained on marksmanship and tactics.)

The seminar was broken down into three major parts: 60 minutes for an introduction, planning and organization; two to two and a half hours for the execution of the sim/game; and 15 to 30 minutes of an After Action Review to learn what went right, wrong, and why. 

The introduction started with, well, an introduction. The meat of it was the discussion of the various roles that the gamers would assume. There are six roles, though if more students join some roles can be expanded. The roles were: Commander, XO, Maneuver, Fire Support, Future Operations, and Intelligence. Logistics and Signals weren’t roles that were easily supported by Conquest of the Aegean, and they weren’t particularly necessary to grasping the basic concepts of the process. 

For readers unfamiliar with how the US Army defines these roles, they are in brief:

• Commander – his role is to choose a course of action and approve or deny changes to that plan as needed.
• XO, or Executive Officer – his role is to simply coordinate the staff of people who follow below. At times he may also take on some role in managing the ongoing operations of the battle, depending on the Commander and circumstances.
• Maneuver – this role is to keep track of the present situation, assess actual progress versus the plan, and report this situation to the rest of the staff.
• Fire Support – this player’s role is to set target priorities for the artillery. He assigns the assets and (re) deploys as necessary.
• Future Operations – his role is to evaluate whether the commander’s plan for the future still valid. He will often cycle through multiple plans as updates from the Maneuver staff appraise him of changes on the ground.
• Intelligence – this player’s role is to determine what he believes will be the enemy’s next move.

The exercise itself is designed to teach several lessons, but the first lesson is to teach a commander to trust his staff. The second lesson is to teach the staff to stick to their own roles and not get caught up in other staffer’s responsibilities. Compounding that issue is the fact that Conquest of the Aegean is designed to be played by a single player. In fact, the OPFOR for this seminar was one person Paul Roberts, a beta tester for the game, who had Flashpoint Germany’s Jim Snyder as a backup strategist.

This particular scenario was one where the guys in the seminar took the German’s side as they moved with overwhelming force against a small group of British and Australian troops. 

Watching the simulation unfold was almost as much fun as playing the game. Players would typically congregate round the projector as the game unfolded, then scramble as their commander demanded updates from them. In chatting with Dr. Sterrett during a quiet moment, he confided that the purpose of the exercise isn’t to win or lose, but rather whether the players approached their decisions from the proper perspective. For example, at one point a company of Bren carriers outflanked the Germans and had advanced north of the southward driving German combat force. They were about half way toward the entire, unprotected artillery units. The British player didn’t know how close he was, and he was simply harassing the Germans. The German players didn’t know this. The Intel officer made an assessment that the Bren carriers were heading toward the artillery – a worst case scenario. This wasn’t factually correct, but Dr. Sterrett was pleased. The player had correctly reached a worst-case conclusion and the Germans were then prepared to react accordingly. This is precisely the type of decision the Intel player is supposed to make, and it highlighted this aspect of the exercise.

In the end, the game was a draw. The Germans mauled the British troops, but the Brits stood their ground long enough to prevent a catastrophic overrun. The AAR was enlightening as players discussed what went well and what they could have done better. Everyone had fun, and it is the kind of wargamer’s dream come true to role-play a military staff exercise. Wargamers looking for hard core wargaming with multiple gamers in a face to face environment will love this seminar, and it is the classic wargaming that is the hallmark of Origins.