A morning off … well, sort of …

I don’t usually work on Friday mornings, although recently I have been called in on more than one occasion to do a few extra bits and pieces related to individual student’s coursework. This morning, however, I have an hour or two to relax and do a few things that I want – rather than have – to do.

The first of these was to have a quick look at two books that were delivered whilst I was away. They are:

• ORDER OF BATTLE – GERMAN LUFTWAFFE IN WWII by Chris McNab
• ORDER OF BATTLE – GERMAN KRIEGSMARINE IN WWII by Chris McNab

They both seem to follow a similar layout to ORDER OF BATTLE – GERMAN PANZERS IN WWII and ORDER OF BATTLE – GERMAN INFANTRY IN WWII, which were both written by Chris Bishop, and which I already own. Whilst they do not contain highly detailed ORBATs, they do cover the general history and development of these sections of the German armed forces up to and during the Second World War, and are good basic primers.

The second thing that I have managed to do is to read Paul Leniston’s Napoleonic Wargaming rules right the way through several times. They have given me much food for thought, and the methodology behind their design is very similar to my own ideas on wargames design. That is not to say that we think exactly the same way about the mechanisms that we might use to resolve – for example – combat, but that the game architectures we both use have many similarities.