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We are currently between games! New players can sign up from next Monday, March 6th! Just under two years ago, LP powerhouse Grey Hunter had one of his many magnificent, ridiculous ideas: a massive re-enactment of the First World War using Great War: Spearhead tabletop gaming rules. The smallest chit size in that game is a company; so Grey, being Grey, decided to play it with Army-sized formations. This is how it ended up... It was magnificent, and ridiculous, and far too soon it fell over under its own weight. But the basic idea deserves another go-round. Leaner, meaner, faster, better. The System (This is based on you-know-who's excellent original OP.) Spearhead is an IGOUGO system, designed so it could be played with hidden movement and the fog of war concealing the battlefield. Individual commanders pass orders to an umpire, the umpire resolves them, and all the commanders get told is what their men can physically see happen, groping blindly for command and control. An excellent way of simulating the First World War, a war in which generals were forced to wait miles behind the lines, acting on information that was often out of date when they receieved it, sending back orders that usually bore no resemblance to the situation on the ground when they arrived. Can we do better than history? Or worse? Or about the same? The game is designed for play with corps and division-sized formations. Individual miniatures represent companies of cavalry and infantry, machine-guns, artillery batteries, and so on. Commanders produce a pre-battle plan, watch it all go horribly wrong, and then must succeed on a dice roll before they can put things right. The system also is flexible enough to cover the vast advances in technology and tactics; from a fast-moving open war of manouevre in 1914, through the worst of the trench slog in 1916, the rise of tanks and artillery, stormtroopers, defence in depth, to the eventual maturity of combined arms in 1918. Here is the map for the first round, somewhere in France. It doesn't represent anywhere in particular; we'll have no "aha, I know that in real life attacking such-and-such a place was a hideous failure" metagaming here. The Here is a French infantry brigade defending on a hillside as the Germans approach. This is what the French brigade commander sees; it all looks good for the men in red trousers. But, not so fast! That's what the German brigade commander sees. Suddenly it looks like curtains for the French; the German commander too is unaware of exactly what awaits, his vision blocked by the wood. And that's what the umpire and the schadenfreude-lovers in the observer thread see. Now it seems that it could go either way when the Germans advance! There will be two teams; Entente vs Germans, each playing in their own thread, preparing their troops, laying their plans, groping through the fog, and we'll fight a battle. And then we'll bury our dead, and the enemy will bury theirs; and then it'll start all over again. We'll be able to see the war ebb and flow over this little corner of France as the years go by; 1914, 1915, 1916, who knows? New technology will arrive; aircraft, gas, landships, armoured cars, and more. Everything anyone needs to know to play will be posted in the team threads once we've had a few signups; there's a big complicated rulebook, but we'll be making this as simple as possible, and I'm also introducing plenty of house rules and tweaks to spice things up a bit and hopefully solve the problems we ran into in Grey's game. We'll be playing at corps level, and what I'm hoping to do is get to a situation in which divisional and corps commanders have to build up a picture of the battle for themselves, based solely on interpreting reports from their brigadiers, who will be the ones at the sharp end ordering individual chits around. Timing Last time round we played one full battle, which lasted just over 24 hours of game time, but took about two months to play through. I'm hoping to streamline that to the point where we can get an entire battle done in about 7-14 days, with turns coming thick and fast and players given minimal time to react to changing events. Don't worry if all this seems overwhelming; it did to the real generals at the time. That's the challenge! Who can get there firstest with the mostest? Who can gently caress up the littlest and the leastest? Who'll get lucky, and who'll stand on the rake? Round 1: August 1914 has just concluded, taking about 2-3 weeks of real time! Round 2 will begin shortly! Entente Thread German Thread Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Mar 6, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 12:09 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 11:35 |
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Hello yes I am waxing my moustache and studying dreadful poetry in grim anticipation of getting the flower of Europe's youth blasted into quivering pieces of meat. Entente, s'il vous plaît. I want high level command. thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 12:19 |
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A return of this delightful idea with the big WW1 guy himself at its head? I'm in. I would gladly fight under the marvelous mustaches and spiked helmets of the glorious German Empire Ikasuhito fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 12:25 |
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Yes I loved reading this last time, but I'm just going to observe again. Good luck goons!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 13:04 |
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Volunteering for THE KAISER (Germans)
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 13:16 |
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Excellent, this war shall be an easily accomplished and, yes, refreshing shower of steel! (Just observing.)
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 13:30 |
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In as the Tommies.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 13:34 |
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thatbastardken posted:Hello yes I am waxing my moustache and studying dreadful poetry in grim anticipation of getting the flower of Europe's youth blasted into quivering pieces of meat. central powers assemble! i would like the lowest rank possible plz
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 13:42 |
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HEY GAIL posted:same, but reading goethe and sighing about young werther and his deathwish You're the tross piss boy (also, answer my questions about tross in the milhist thread )
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 14:00 |
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Germans
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 14:03 |
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RESERVES! let's go kaiser
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 14:09 |
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Very much interested in this, but as a complete virgin to this sort of thing what sort of level of participation is needed? We talking a few posts per day or sitting at my desk pummelling F5 like it's Verdun and my finger is German artillery?
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 14:24 |
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Camrath posted:Very much interested in this, but as a complete virgin to this sort of thing what sort of level of participation is needed? We talking a few posts per day or sitting at my desk pummelling F5 like it's Verdun and my finger is German artillery? Definitely more the former than the latter; think of a lot of people building a big long line of falling dominoes. Everyone needs to put in a little effort to put the thing up, but then once it starts, you can't do too much but watch and give it an occasional push if your bit falls the wrong way.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 14:40 |
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edit: Switching to Entente, since nobody seems to want to play as them. Applying for the position of the supreme commander.
my dad fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:01 |
Germans. We'll be in Paris by Christmas!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:15 |
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I am surprisingly not going to object to this, but will be Entente provided that I can secretly really fight for L'Internationale
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:23 |
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Trin Tragula posted:Definitely more the former than the latter; think of a lot of people building a big long line of falling dominoes. Everyone needs to put in a little effort to put the thing up, but then once it starts, you can't do too much but watch and give it an occasional push if your bit falls the wrong way. In that case, I'll switch to the Central Powers, requesting a company. Long leben die Vierbund, soldaten heil! Tias fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:26 |
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Entente could use more players!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:34 |
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Volunteering for the German side. Not that it matters too much, we'll all be home by Christmas anyways.
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:33 |
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Low ranking entente
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:45 |
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Cool! Low ranking Brit then please!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:46 |
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All I remember about this game from a PDF of the manual that circulated behind the scenes is a bunch of nebulous rules interpreted seemingly at random, so this should be fun.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:47 |
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steinrokkan posted:All I remember about this game from a PDF of the manual that circulated behind the scenes is a bunch of nebulous rules interpreted seemingly at random, so this should be fun. And in the spirit of the Great War! As it should be!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:48 |
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I want to be in the Hon Hon Hontente (Give me some random french command, I want to be DLC content)
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:56 |
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Coming in for that Entente there, eh?
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 15:59 |
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How specific can our requests be? I'd like our forces to include the 18th Division, so I can command elements of the 86th Füsilier Regiment
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 16:03 |
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I am committing my rabbit fur to the German Empire!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 16:39 |
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Observer last time, but I think I can do better than that lunatic Frenchman from last time. En avant, for France!
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 16:41 |
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This seems fun. I'd like a mid-level sort of command where I can use my incompetence to mangle the flow of information from the bottom to the top and vice versa in cruel and unusual ways. By my rough count sides are equal in size right now so I'll join the Germans as General von Lauslecker. Under my command, suicide shall be the only way to avoid an Iron Cross.
aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Feb 8, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 16:42 |
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sullat posted:En avant, for France! This! Maybe this time I'll actually finish the battle with less than 90% casualties.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 17:41 |
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It is time for all true Brits to stand up for king and country so Entente for me.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 17:45 |
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Comrade Koba posted:This! French already suffering from low fighting spirit, excellent
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 18:38 |
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I will join the German Empire. I have great experience with WW1, I must have watched oh what a jolly good war countless times.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 18:40 |
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Les boches ne passeront pas! Sign me up for Entente
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 18:54 |
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Give me a low-level command under the Germans.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 19:20 |
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Ah hell, count me in for the Central Powers! Ideally some nice low-level position, so that I can develop a deep and meaningful bond with the soldiers under my command before inadvertently ordering them right into an MG crossfire.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 19:22 |
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Time for me to get cracking on some team threads already, I guess! Still plenty of spots available for those who want them! Players who aren't sure about jumping into command can also join the game as staff officers, playing observers who don't command any units but who stick to one side and offer their advice to the commanders; this also ensures we have a pool of ready replacements in case of player drop-out, who haven't been reading both sides of the battle. For obvious reasons, once we have those threads up and start talking tactics, I'll post a big obvious message; anyone who wants to play in the first battle must then pick their side and stay out of this thread and the other team's. Oh yeah, and that map needs some names, people.
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 19:50 |
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I understand you don't have the details worked out, but what are the dimensions of that map, and how large forces are we talking about?
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 20:01 |
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Assuming we can fiat in elements of the 18th Division, I would like to be Col. Mattias Heinold, in command of a regiment of Jute peasants of some sort or other
Tias fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Feb 10, 2017 |
# ? Feb 8, 2017 20:06 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 11:35 |
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The big wood should definitely be Boulangier Bois, no doubt soon to be renamed Boolanges Wood
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# ? Feb 8, 2017 20:16 |