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Sunday 3 May 2009

A pleasant interruption

Over the years I have written numerous sets of wargames rules, some of which have been more successful than others. Many of these are available via the Internet, and as a result I sometimes get asked for clarifications about what a rules means or requests for scenarios. Whilst it is flattering to get such requests, they sometimes come at inconvenient times and can take several hours to answer.

Yesterday I was asked if I could write some additional rules for RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED so that they covered airborne operations. Because the request came from a friend, I was only too happy to do so then and there.

The first thing that I did was to read through the rules as they stood to see if there were any problems with modifying the existing mechanisms to accommodate the inclusion of airborne operations … and there were none. This read through also gave me ideas as to how modify some of the existing rule mechanisms so that I could incorporate the use of both gliders and paratroops.

I jotted down my ideas, and then set up a short scenario to test the mechanisms I was considering using. Because it was a very hurried play-test, I used the terrain board, figures and vehicles from my copy of MEMOIR ’44 rather than setting up some Hexon II terrain and getting out some World War II figures. This accounts for the absence of pictures to illustrate this blog entry. I ran the scenario several times to see if the mechanisms worked … and they did. I then word processed some additional sections to the end of RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED and fired them off to a very satisfied friend.

Although this meant that I ‘lost’ some time that I had intended to use yesterday to continue developing my operational-level wargames rules, it was a very pleasant interruption and the results were very worthwhile.

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