COW2025

COW2025 (this year's Conference of Wargamers) will be taking place next weekend. The programme is as follows:

• APOCALYPSE DILEMMAS – THE PLENARY GAME: This session is based on SPI's 1973 game. It will:
• Include a background to WW3 as a game in its 1970s.
• A detailed look at how the game rates the chance of a nuclear apocalypse.
• Present carefully curated illustrations and associated information to rapidly put participants in the nuclear hot-seat.
• Test player's skill under pressure.
• Resolve in game terms the level of risk accepted by players.
• After the above, allow discussion on the relevance to 21st Century problems.
• IT’S A FAIR KOP: A Boer War game using 54mm toy soldiers and matchstick-firing cannon.
• YEAR ZERO: A matrix game about the tragedy of Cambodia in the 1970s.
• SEA STRIKE REVISITED: Another look at Sea Strike, the innovative 1974 game about then-contemporary naval warfare.
• TAKE THAT LITTLE BIT OF AACHEN (OR NOT QUITE ASL): German v US Infantry Combat ASL using Starter Set#1 Scenario S3.
• GRUNT – SPI 1971: The game was subtitled 'The Game of Tactical Level Combat in Vietnam', and was a tactical level board wargame published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1971, and set in the Vietnam War. This session will start with a collective playing of the game in it's original solitaire form, move on to a more complex scenario, and end with a discussion on the game and it's successors.
• IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY: A wargame about The Battle of Oriskany (6 th August 1777).
• OPERATION BATTLEAXE WITH MEGABLITZ: A refight of Wavell's desert offensive in June 1941 as 8th Army tries to break through Rommel's defences along the Egyptian frontier using Tim Gow's Megablitz rules.
• A BRIDGE TOO FAR IN 1/300 SCALE: A ten minute solo participation game about Operation Market Garden.
• TRISQUE, THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONFLICT: INTRODUCTION: This is an introduction to a game that uses RISK© as its basis but that also includes a game about the people affected by such a worldwide conflict and a game that features manufacturers and traders plying their trade, running is parallel with one another.
• TRISQUE, THE FULL GAME: A session devoted to playing a game of Trisque.
• BRITISH OFFICERS DON'T DUCK: A playtest of a game that explores friction and platoon command on the World War Two battlefield.
• THE DRAGON, THE BEAR, AND THE STEPPE: A matrix game (of sorts) that examines the ambitions of China to develop the Belt and Road Initiative to include Central Asia.
• NARCONOMICS: THE BOARDGAME: A board game (of sorts) that is currently under development and that looks at the economics of the worldwide drugs trade.
• MIXED REALITY WARGAMING TASTER: A short session where participants can experience the physical world through a headset, but that also includes 3D virtual objects. For example, using this system an empty physical table can have a 3D (or 2D) manual wargame placed on top of it, and can then be played with players anywhere in the world.
• ESTONIA 2029: A campaign-level modern wargame, which aims to look at how urban fighting relates to a wider campaign taking place across the whole of Estonia. It also includes operational-level logistics.
• JOHVI 2029: An an urban warfare game that builds upon the game 'Brick by Bloody Brick' that took place at COW2024.
• AD FONTES (ANYTIME): A discussion about Paddy Griffith’s Cardboard Simulators and how to recover his immersive approach to wargame design.
• VICTORY SINGALONG - DON'T LET’S BE BEASTLY TO THE GERMANS: A singalong from the end of the Second World War.
• FOLLOW YOUR NOSE: WARSAW RISING:  A double blind skirmish game of sewer fighting during the Warsaw Rising.
• THE INSURGENCY ROLLS ON: A dice rolling game of insurgency and counterinsurgency that has been developed since its appearance at COW2024.
• BAFFLED BY BOARDGAMES – SPI QUAD GAMES: A brief journey through the world of hex and counter boardgames, culminating with the chance to play one of two small SPI games from their ‘Quad’ series.
• A BALANCED FLEET: A Royal Navy medium term capability audit and procurement game where participants work out what new equipment will need to be fitted to the Royal Navy's ships over the next 10 years ...and then procure them!
• BEIRUT, CRUMBLING STONE BY STONE: An RPG that looks at how the Royal Navy could evacuate British nationals from Lebanon. Roles include the British Ambassador, the Embassy Security contractor, the Beirut government protection force, the Rebels, and a representative of the FCDO ... backed up by the Royal Marines and HMS Devonshire.
• WARFIGHTER: A multi-domain game of preparations for war ... and possibly actual war. Set in West Sepia, a democratic eastern European country that is split by external pressures and ethnic divisions. The more populous North is facing breakaway pressures from the South, which has precious minerals resources. Western peacekeepers seem to be siding with the South, and the North has hired Wagner mercenaries. Player roles include Supreme Commanders, Naval, Air, Drones and Land Forces.
• MISSION COMMAND: NORMANDY, PANTHERS IN THE MIST: A game about a German counter-attack during Operation Market Garden.
• PIGS IN SPAAACE: A game about an invasion of a whole planet, from SPAAACE ... with Pigs. 
• RECCE II:  A game about a Cold War UK armoured recce platoon that has to find and engage the Russian recce platoon.
• THE TONY BATH ANCIENT WARGAME: The Tony Bath wargame was the first ancient wargame and this session will feature his rules, Don Featherstone’s flats, and original scenery.
• TINKERING WITH IRON: A square-based naval wargame that is a development of Peter Pig rules for ACW riverine warfare that have been adapted to make them suitable for the sea going European Ironclads of the 1860s to 1870s.
• THE ANGLO-HANSEATIC WAR 1468 – 1474: A lecture and discussion session about the war between the English and the Hanseatic League.
• INTO THE MOONLIGHT: A game about a Commando raid in WW2 using rules have been further developed since they first appeared at COW a couple of years ago.
• PASSING IT ON: A wargame about escorting a supply convoy in the Middle East during the 1930s.
• THE EARTH PREPARES; A game that covers the six-month period between an extra-terrestrial warning from a dying alien race that a hostile alien civilisation is about to attack Earth. Players will need to plan a suitable counter to this alien attack.
• TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF WARGAMING PROJECT: A talk about the pioneers of modern wargaming ... including spies, tax evasion, Nazis, back stabbing and madness!
• GOUGH IN CHINA: A wargame about General Sir Hugh Gough's campaign to teach the Chinese a severe lesson after they dared to interfer with the Honourable East India Company's trade in opium in China.
• THE PRATZEN, AUSTERLITZ 1805: A session that features Peter Perla’s Napoleonic Micro-Tactical Game of Infinite Gestation, 'The Pratzen, Austerlitz 1805'. This session will examine the very interesting design concepts that the rules include and that may well deserve wider dissemination.
• ALEXANDER THE BRIEF: A short toy soldier game covering Alexander the Great's campaign against Persia and featuring the battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela.
• LA SEPTIEME WILAYA: A dark game about a real-life incident in the Algerian war against France. Participants will represent French security commanders attempting to deal with a new and challenging threat.
• TACTICAL WARGAMES FOR PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION: A tow-part session that will include a presentation comparing the features of current military tactical games from around the world, followed by a demonstration of the British Army's new tactical game, 'Battlegroup Wargame System'.
• LATE OF LITTLE BUGGINGTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL ...: A game about the selection and development of the British junior temporary infantry officer, 1914-1918.
• THROWN UNDER BUS: A potentially dark game about intelligence analysis in a time of crisis ... and even during a conflict.
• PADDY’S PUB: A committee-style game set in a pub and that involves members of the Provisional IRA.
• STRIKE FROM SPACE!: Thus session will be a playtest of a simple(ish) educational game on the space domain, counterspace operations, and their effect on terrestrial operations.
• FIRST, SEEK THE HELP OF THE GODS: A playtest of an experimental set of simple hoplite tabletop rules that focuses on unit cohesion, morale, the limited abilities of generalship, and omens.
• TEXAS TOWER OF TERROR: A storytelling/RPG about a short-lived period in Cold War paranoia. Set on the offshore Texas Towers air defence radar facility.

It looks as if there are going to be some great sessions at this year's COW (Conference of Wargamers) ... and choosing which to go to is not going to be an easy task!