Weekender XLBS: The Element Of Surprise
March 1, 2020 by dignity
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Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday Folks 🙂
So I’ve been thinking more about the deployment mini game we were discussing. Specifically thinking about how a military leader duped the enemy through lighting campfires etc.
It got me pondering decoys (heck the allies used inflatable tanks before dday) and should decoys be part of the system.
If you have decoys then I would imagine spys would be the counter balance to that.
Opens some interesting possibilities, the key is… are they fun? how not to make them convoluted?
If we have ideas, how do you want us to get them to you?
Feel free to post here mate or PM me 🙂
I think ‘Chain of Command’ and ‘Clash of spears’ have interesting mechanics that allow for semi-hidden deployment without creating too many additional rules. Maybe this is where the back of the unit cards can be used ? One side is the ‘deployment’ phase, which has generic stats and limited options. The other side is the regular unit card which gets used as soon as enemy units ‘see’ each other (this could be a card draw with bonuses to establish initiative). Give each player a few extra ‘fake’ cards to make the initial approach a bit more exciting. Maybe certain commanders… Read more »
I’ve always loved written orders/map movement games. Rather than locking down units automatically when within a certain range I think a spotting roll to identify a unit which then must deploy would be better. I would also add in dummy units as per Clash of Spears and tons of other rulesets have to add a bit more confusion which us never a bad thing in a wargame @warzan If you can find it Advanced wargames by Donald Featherstone is a great read as are any of the books by him,Grant,Young and Bath. A lot of today’s ground breaking new sytems… Read more »
Little note on the corona virus.
I have already received a couple of mails from KS that the production/shipping will be delayed for some time to not sure when it will be delivered because the production is slowed or stopped.
Here in Belgium it is the same, people who came from China, Korea and a couple of other countries in that region or Northern Italy have to stay home for 2 weeks.
XLBS was always one of my favourite shows, but unfortunately I have had to give up watching them as unlike all other videos you put out I seem to spend more time watching the buffering circle than i do the show. I did persevere for a while but to spend over three hours watching a 1 1/2 hour show is to much. Does anyone else have this problem?
Where on the planet are you based mate?
Bear with us we may have to rethink Vimeo anyway…
I have a similar problem, in the middle of Victoria, Australia. I often wait till the day after to get a more settled viewing.
What quality do you watch it at?
I’m using 4G data exclusively at the moment, and I *always* dial the video quality down to 360p minimum. Since doing that, it never freezes. When trying to watch at 1080 or 720 it would often freeze
Happy Sunday, I love the smell of XLBS in the morning!
Happy Sunday!
With any luck the current health scare will give the Pangolin a break; they’ve been ‘hunted’ for use in Chinese medicine for years and have become endangered. I put ‘hunted’ in quotes as they roll up in a ball when threatened and can be picked up and put in a bag.
As a D&D monster that would be interesting to play about with if a giant version became an armoured ball able to control its direction…
I was thinking Stratego like rather than Battleships… all about hidden information.
In games where deployment involves attackers and defenders (e.g. FoW) how about if the attacker has a recon value/roll that reveals the location of a certain percentage of the defenders force, but other units are unknown or even in reserve. A number of tokens can then be placed many of which are decoys but some are units or minefields.
I’m all for moving tokens on or off board to represent fog of war until contact reveals the situation; anything but “I deploy a unit then you deploy a unit…” (yawn)
My favorite show atm is definetly Gerry Can , how awesome is he ? Who can fix your missing KOW 2 player starter set prize ? Gerry Can of course , it arrived a few days ago thanks so much for chasing it up for me Gerry I shall be doing a Northern alliance / Evil twin army in your honour . Game looks awesome btw . Thanks again ❤?
sorry for the mix up and the delay, glad it’s arrived. Time to break out the snow foxes and get to stabbing!
On the element of surprise, this is what I always think of:
https://youtu.be/7xhiQgtyMH8
Now back to the XLBS
Regarding hidden movement and maps, the Admiralty Trilogy games (especially Command at Sea and Harpoon) use maps initially while fleets search for each other. Players plot their ships’ movement on map sheets while a game master has a master map, telling players when they can roll for radar detection and the like. When one fleet detects the other, they have a real opportunity for surprise, opening fire, launching aircraft or missiles. The target fleet has no opportunity to respond until they detect something, acting on their currently plotted orders. That provides a true element of surprise. It gets really intense… Read more »
I can see the coronavirus having an impact in two areas, supply chain and events. In areas that are in lockdown then retail units will probably see a drop in sales. At my company we do a raft of events throughout the year and if most are cancelled it’ll have a major effect on the business, as a big chunk of sales are generated at those events. The big problem we have in the UK are the zero hour contracts, because a lot of those people won’t be able to afford to go into self isolation, so many will probably… Read more »
Happy Sunday! Interesting show. Congrats to the Golden Button winners and well done Warren for shutting down the app chat.. Pencil and paper for the win!
Great show. First @warzan the greatest old wargaming book is “Napoleons Campaigns in Miniature” you want the one with the purple cover. If you can’t find it I may or may not know where to get a free pdf. The battle you’re talikng about is Trebia. Lake Trassimani is the Campfire one and it’s the only battle in History where an Army fully ambushed another army. The Roman Maniples/Centuries were super OP because they could move and react so quickly. Anyone else getting hit in a flank was very very bad, in fact quite a few Ancient battles ended as… Read more »
Baking in an element of surprise. At a unit level as the guys discussed there are a fair number of examples from different game systems and genres already out there. A heads up fight using the battleship board method seems fairly pointless unless you give some serious terrain buffs. Most I imagine would likely keep their force together in a single block laid out in a manner that best protects the more vulnerable assets. Moving into scenarios tied to this method of pre-game build up in campaigns has me far more interested. Although I think you have scaled it for… Read more »
Your “Achtung” is good but “Minen” is pronounced “mean-en”
Kind regards, Some Dude On YouTube
Happy Sunday … hidden deployment sucks … not my kind of game at all.
Probably not what you’re after but something which might be interesting to do: Have two web cams set up on the board and the two players in separate rooms each watching one feed. The cams should be positioned where the general of the army the watching player would be stationed in a real battle. Each player then has a helper who is the one actually moving the units and this helper acts as a runner and each turn the general has a set amount of time to give the runner instructions to carry out and the general players have to… Read more »
Good afternoon all,
The Iwo Jima Valor & Victory game is running today at 1PM EST / 6PM GMT.
We’ll be looking at “E” Company, 2/28th Marines, trying to scale the eastern slope of Mount Suribachi against elements of 312th Independent Infantry Battalion, 2nd Mixed Brigade, 109th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Check out the Sitrep Podcast Channel on YouTube or Twitch:
Sitrep YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrsewixu9dXUIMTQKJYPuEQ
Sitrep Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/
a great Iwo Jima podcast Jim.
Melbourne is misspelt, if that has an impact on the code.
It does have a minor impact, but you should be able to work out the destination anyway.
I also like the way that clash of spears handles the deployment using tokens on the battlefield to denote units with some decoy ones. If you had spies then it would give the opportunity to flip over a token and find out what that represented – whether it be a unit of heavy cavalry or a decoy. You’d need to think about when to play the spy – too late and there isn’t very much you can do about your deployment to adapt to the information.
happy Sunday folks.
the pangolin looks like a mobile fir cone?
is that not a school of arms? @warzan
a great XLBS show Guys.
Various observations- Roman Numerals: VIC = 94 DC = 600 only addition and subtraction. no multiplication Flanking: The smaller the unit, the more susceptible it is to flanking. Armys get surround. They have the manpower to face many directions at the same time. Smaller units do not. 2 boxes in the ring circle each other to get on their opponents flank… Rules: I know Warren doesn’t want to have a rule book. Cool. But, every week there are more and more note cards in his game. Perhaps he should bind them together, so they don’t get mixed up or lost…… Read more »