Private Wars

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I've been wargaming as a hobby a long long time now. This section is intended as support for my interest in the hobby. I participate as a member of a local club, and do a fair amount of support for play by email activities when possible. I commonly attend Origins in Columbus, and can be found at the club meetings with camera in hand in support of the CABS effort to draw in new gamers. 

Where possible, these pages provide support in those contexts. One exception to that is that I feel it necessary to point out that wargaming is not about being devoted to war, the killing of war, or the glorification of war. At the same time, I do want to honor those who have served for my country. Only some  wars are righteous for any side involved, but soldiers do not set policy and they deserve recognition regardless of the outcome. 

Interests:
Columbus Area Boardgaming Society
Where to find Cyberboard Current and beta versions
Cyberboard Gameboxes
Cyberboard Documentation
Game Play Aids
My personal gaming preferences
Desk Top Publishing Support Some stuff to help with doing your own counters and so on.
Some video from Brogfest (89 meg) provided by Walter Clayton

Specific Game Support:
Ardennes '44  
Iron Tide: Panzers in the Ardennes  
Maps From Ward McBurney Very large pdf (~230meg) with maps for Panzerblitz & PanzerLeader, very long download time even with high speed connection.

Game Collection
My list at BoardGameGeek  

 
Get Adobe Reader Documents on these pages are either in Microsoft Word or PDF format. You can download a copy of the Acrobat Reader for free at the Adobe site by clicking on the link logo to the left.

Play By eMail related material

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Click the above logo to go to Dale's site for downloading the current version of Cyberboard.

Cyberboard Gameboxes I've designed:

Ardennes Offensive SPI  
Barbarossa SPI test series version  
Breakout & Pursuit SPI  
Korea: The Mobile War 1950-51 SPI Korea (SPI 1971) errata date of last update: 4/10/04 (pdf) 
Sinai SPI  
Strategy I (SPI) -this gamebox is incomplete only because the scenarios remain to be created.  

Documents for Cyberboard

Creating the Strategy I Gamebox

(contains a how-to for designing CB gameboxes, PDF format only)
CB Play Manual (how-to use Cyberboard to play games... written by Chris Fawcett, MS Word format)
CB Play Manual (in PDF format)
Drive on Metz (referenced from  Yankee Air Pirates, not hosted locally at this site) gamebox used as example in Chris Fawcett's CB Play Manual, based on James Dunnigan's free game in his book The Complete Wargames Handbook

PLAY AIDS

Operation Olympic Charts After recently playing this SPI classic with a handful of rules sheets that had become separated, I decided it was necessary to have the critical info at hand on one sheet to look at while playing. Most of this stuff should become second nature if you play enough, but heck, if you don't play it for 3 months, you need reference info. Print two sided on card stock and you have a modern play aid for Operation Olympic (SPI).

Face to Face Club Activities

I participate semi-actively in the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society, also known as CABS. We hold meetings every 1st, 3rd and 5th Friday of the month. Usually we start between 4 PM and 6PM (sometimes much earlier) and run until the wee hours often as late as 3 AM Saturday! So if you want to join us, please just show up. CABS attendance is now running up around 98 participants average per meeting, and whether you are a Wargamer, a Eurogamer, or any other kind of Boardgamer, we'll do our best to make you feel welcome.

Because we've grown so large, we've had to rent more expensive space, so we now ask that if you attend, either you pay dues as a member, or pay a $3/person a night cover charge to help us defray the rent. Considering how much any other form of entertainment costs, and how much you can gain by finding new friends and opponents who enjoy the same games you do, this is well worth the visit. I personally have found close to 3 dozen wargamers with similar interests who are local to myself this way, and know we have a couple dozen more easily who come to CABS. 

Here's a map to where we meet: MAP

CABS Also runs a Convention every  year in the Fall to bring people together from all over who are willing to join the regular CABBIES in playing their favorite games! You can find the Flyer for 2007 at the CABS site.

This Week (local Columbus neighborhood papers) did an article about CABS. You can read the generous article by Kevin Parks (staff reporter) HERE (posted with permission, in PDF format).

Personal Gaming Preferences

Tanks! Airplanes. At the least Gunpowder! My son is into Naval WWI wargames. But my preferences start with WWII and what is described as contemporary era (anything since WWII). So those preferences look a bit like..

Historical Era:

  1. World War II European Theater

  2. World War II any front

  3. Modern Warfare - This includes any of a number of conflicts, Korea, Vietnam, the Arab/Israeli wars... and so on. It also includes a few fantasy games based on real world warfare such as Avalon Hill's classic Blitzkrieg.

  4. American Civil War

  5. Napoleonic Era

  6. Ancients (if all else fails)

Level of combat:

  1. Operational (by battle)

  2. Operational (by theater)

  3. Strategic (Theater)

  4. Strategic (Absolute- including economics)

  5. Tactical (unit tactical)

  6. Tactical (man to man)

As a personal favorite, I enjoy Battle of the Bulge games most. I have at least 24 different games based on the battle and while I've not played them all, I have poked at them a lot. The history of the actual battle is best written up in two books I own copies of: THE ARDENNES: BATTLE OF THE BULGE by Hugh Cole, which is available on the web at the link attached to the book's title, the other book being A TIME FOR TRUMPETS: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge by Charles B Macdonald. The Cole book is detailed and scholarly, with a great deal of research accomplished immediately after the war, and the Macdonald book is an intense read that is gripping history with a lot of detail also.

when mailing me, just remove the words NOSPAM from the email address