At last back to wargaming, forget about all this Artificial Intelligence (AI) lark (it is all more hype than substance if you ask me [I would not be surprised if a fourth AI Winter beckons in Blackadder fashion sooner rather than later]). It is also not my hobby, nor is it a good form of entertainment, unlike Attic Greek and Latin remakes of pop songs. By contrast, for pure gaming enjoyment and relentless wargaming fun, the Conference of Wargamers (CoW) 2025 from Wargames Developments (WD) had it all, and in buckets. It even included the formation of an Elite Space Marine Force tasked with defending us all the from an insidious Alien Invasion. Thank gawd for Space Battleship Yamato. Yes, Space Marines get everywhere, but these were not just any old Space Marines, these were WD Space Marines. (Hands up, yes I am grossly guilty of plagiarising the Christmas M&S food adverts moving on.)
By my calculations CoW 2025 was my seventh face-to-face CoW in total and in my estimation, the "best yet", it was simply .. superb .. the best fun you can have while keeping tour clothes on.
The CoW 2025 Programme:
In a quick scan of the board I counted some 46 games all told, and that is excluding the four games that had to be cancelled because unforeseen circumstances - which included a bad back (ow, now that is painful), poignant as it was inflicted/incurred while "bending over a wargame table moving toys in final preparation for his CoW game"! Eeek, bad karma? Glasses was raised to those absent WD'ers, by definition also friends.
My Itinerary: Friday Night ...
Plenary Game: Apocalypse Dilemmas
Thankfully the world (Earth) was "saved" in the opening CoW 2025 Plenary Game, through deft "cool headedness" and application of appropriate conventional military force - wisdom in international affairs (which included back channel diplomatic communication between East and West) and pragmatic avoidance of nuclear confrontation. The game was based on SPI's World War III, with seven scenarios where the two sides were placed with nuclear or non-nuclear options. Players were split East and West. Myself as a NATO North Hemisphere Naval Commander, nuclear escalation seemed quite unnecessary as we had the conventional tools to hand to get the job done over the Soviets. I thought the Soviets might, just might have been tempted for an all-out first strike gambit backed up with conventional forces in Western Europe, but [thankfully] their eyes were fixed on winning a conventional war in Europe - they were tank men at hearts and mistrusted the Oppenheimers. If there was to be war, it was not of the nuclear kind (atom bomb pushers to the Gulags). All told it was still a very tense and very sobering game to live through as the slightest miscalculation could have lead to escalatory madness (Dr Strangelove was kept out of the War Room).
Moving on to ..
The Texas Tower of Terror: Continuation of the Cthulhu themed horror of "a small place called Lynchville" (well known setting from previous CoWs 2024 and CoW 2023). Set in the 1960's, this time on a remote US Early Warning Station (think oil rig without the oil and health and safety checks) looking at Cuba. Facing a rising tide of psychological terror within the facility, the crew and the Texas Tower started to fall apart (literally, with large metal bits dropping off into the sea). As the howling storm rages outside, inside a traitor reeks havoc inside the installation. Spoiler alert we all died and the Texas Tower "mysteriously" disappeared into the deep. Gulp, no trace was ever found of the crew and everything was settled "out of court" with substantial family endowments (though NDAs were attached)! I think you could call this one, a Dark Game that didn't help you sleep, especially in windy weather!
Saturday morning ...
Mission Command Normandy - Panthers in the Mist: Having already purchased a copy of the rules from CoW 2018, it was a natural choice for me [a WW2 buff] to refresh my knowledge of the game mechanics (some five years plus old now). Also. Who could resist the opportunity to drive a Panther tank at the American Airborne Infantry and British Tankers in Operation Market Garden (no fear from a Cromwell but keep watching out for sign of a Sherman Firefly). It certainly felt like 1944 (as a German), where ever you looked there was more of them (US and British tanks and/or infantry) than us. The Germans were a mix of regular and green, as well as the cobbled together ersatz "paratroopers" which were paratroopers (FJ) "only in name". The Allies hung onto the road convincingly and I was left with only one working Panther by the end of the day. The attack had been stymied, true to history. It was hugely enjoyable though (see below, Alan Paull started proceedings off by telling us the trade secrets of his bespoke terrain making, which involved "ironing fabric for rivers" to make it go in the direction you want it to go - an impressive set-up and laudable Boy Scouting skills):
The game started with everything was "off table" until it was "spotted". Like the Panthers who opened up on some advancing Shermans and Cromwells, which was a bit of a nasty surprise for the Allied tankers (see below, carefully, very carefully the Allied tanks probed forwards - hoping nothing was there):
But the Panthers were laying in wait (see below, first blood of the day and the first ball of black cotton wool covers an Allied tank - there was more of that to come! It came as areal shock to find German armour so far forward, perhaps in hindsight too far forward for their long-term good. However the Panthers are constrained to a single crossing point over the river which stops them breaking out in Guderian Blitzkrieg style and are flanked by a horrible canal that makes an aqueduct crossing a deadly "choke point" that needs to be cleared by infantry):
It was not going to be one way traffic as there was a Firefly to deal with, plus some sneaky US Airborne Infantry who "appeared" out of nowhere (see below, unfortunately the Panther crews like the FJ paratroopers were a bit new to all this combat lark, as they only been in their tanks a week and were still learning the ropes [What does that button do?]. They "skill-lessly" traded blows losing a Panther [Note: Light blue material river/stream, while light grey is canal]):
Meanwhile over to the Panther's left th German "paratroopers", FJ of sorts, met their Allied (real) counterparts in a "recon by contact" (see below, this got to be rather bloody for both sets of infantry very quickly):
Trading blows, the German combined arms Armoured and Infantry Forces deptach some of the Airborne Bazooka AT (see below, but we sensed the majority of the enemy were hidden over the crest, on the other side of the canal. Drat the plan is kaput already!):
More US Airborne with Bazookas appeared on our flank, they were breeding like rabbits (see below, the Panthers could not advance and cut the road to Arnhem - Hell's Highway, because as previously mentioned they had to pass over a narrow culvert that would expose them to an infantry ambush - a destroyed Panther on this was game over for the German counterattack [an impassable obstacle]. The area had to be secured by infantry first, but there were American Paratroopers in the way - Catch 22. At least the Panthers had removed the Allied armour covering the culvert):
As the German Panzer Grenadiers deployed we caught sight of the two US Paratrooper Companies we were actually fighting (see below, nobody was going anywhere fast as these two sides faced off in a infantry slug-fest. The Germans brought artillery down on the now exposed US forces which certainly stung them badly):
Disaster of the German left flank. The attack is kaput on the left flank too!The German FJ battalion was caught in the open by Allied AFVs without any friendly AT support (see below, the British Armour certainly charged in with bugles blaring and guns blazing):
The "vigorous" Allied Armour attack devastated the "trainee" German FJ and it was all over bar the fat lady singing (see below, and although a Sherman was taken out by German defensive fire, the FJ were overrun, aka "gone"):
One FJ company was destroyed and another retired (ok it was more like a rout) into cover (see below, the left hand side of the German assault was now "over" [as they were either dead, wounded or PoW]):
The last defiant act from the German Panthers was a long range snipe of a Sherman in the open (see below, pass the black cotton wool please, but it is also time to call the attack off and retire before the Jabos come and start hounding us):
Sea-Strike Revisited: This session goes to the heart of the pure joy and beauty of attending CoW. Rare wargames from the past are shown off, in this case a relatively sophisticated "modern" (if we can still call 1970's modern) naval one. Seastrike is a game that I did not know anything about, but it was brought back to life before my very eyes (by some "old men" rediscovering their "youth"). Seastrike is a beautifully crafted game that was simply lost to antiquity (though you may find them floating around on eBay in various conditions). Conjectured to be the brainchild of a Vosper naval architect, it was published twice - once by Arial and once by WRG (back in the day when they did games) before disappearing into the mists of time (and wargamer's lofts and cupboards). Combat was resolved using an ingenious card deck. One feature of the deck I discovered was, "System Failure" which unfortunately left my ship wide open for destruction (twice). My advice is to personally shuffle the card deck yourself and take ownership of your fate! The card deck driven combat in itself was a unique game mechanic [one playing card could represent five look-up effects] that has seen a renaissance in skirmish game rules as of late. I would like to thank my fellow Red Admiral WD's own Bob Cordery of Wargaming Miscellany fame who fished me out of the sea (twice) after I lost all my ships (see below, it looks "the business" just from the box-lid art alone):
The Pratzen Austerlitz 1805: Again similar to Sea-Strike an experience unique, at least as I know it, only to CoW the opportunity to view a rare Kickstarter game. This was a piece of wargaming history, albeit a new game fresh off the presses. This was the late Dr Peter Perla's last published wargame, the one he had been seemingly designing seemingly all his life (his words). I did see this originally as a kickstarter. but I had thought better about backing it, veering away from at the last moment which was naturally something I later regretted. Fortunately Alan Paull (of Mission Command: Panthers in the Mist fame) has not been so short sighted as myself and backed it and held the (heavy) coveted boxed game in his hands. It was a true magnum opus in that sense (I said it was a heavy box), but with a certain familiar feel back to a game called Grenadier from SPI. Battalion level horse and musket tactics. It was not intuitive, I would say it is not an easy to understand game but when it was played through it did seem to work - a bit slow with cross referencing of various tables (based on infamous Livermore's and Kriegspiel's calculations I believe). Although taxing even the mighty Alan Paull's mind at times but he did a great job of bringing the game to life before our eyes! (see below, the French are socking it to the Austrians, as the game says, on the mighty Pratzen - just a few counters but a hell of lot of explaining, talking and "avid discussion" - I will look forward to where Alan Paull goes this game. It did have quite an evocative feel to it):
Take That Little Bit of Aachen, Not Quite Advanced Squad Leader - Background: OK, I have a love-hate relationship with Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). Partly out of frustration, of it simply being "hard" to play and a sense of betrayal. I was an Avalon Hill Squad Leader (SL) junkie, a collector and proudly boasted all four boxed games (Squad Leader, Cross of Iron, Crescendo of Doom, Yanks). I was fascinated to hear about rumours of a fifth Pacific expansion set too. Then Avalon Hill then went and blew up my reality up circa 1990 by producing ASL instead, which overnight (like the Dreadnought revolution) made basic Squad Leader redundant (and I had not even got to play most of the scenarios I had yet). Er, what am I supposed to do? Throw all the SL stuff away and start again? No thanks! I tried briefly to learn the system with a friend who went into ASL "heavily" - but to be honest he "bought a lot of ASL" rather than "read the rules". There seemed to be a hell of a lot to read to get even a simple scenario under our belts and we faded away to playing Command XTR games. Any ASL games we tried were never anywhere near remotely finished (I can still hear the frantic flicking of rule book pages in my mind). At the heart of it all I never really understood what Avalon Hill were trying to achieve and why the "big restructure" was needed - it was a totally new game for the same original purpose? They seemed to be suggesting that all those incremental changes they had lovingly brought into the game had broken the system somehow. Well that was careless! Apparently there was too many backdoor unrealisms (like the ability to swamp MGs by "cunning unrealistic movement" tactics). I never really saw the depths of that, but then again I never played the horrors of "Competition Wargames at Conventions". I gracefully ducked out only to comeback in some twenty years later. Avalon Hill were no more but Multi man Publishing (MMP) produced a new starter set (ASL SK#1) and I sat sight of this through the Connections UK Professional Wargaming Conference (2014). It came as a game recommendation of Major Ivor Gardiner (British Army Battalion Commander) who used it for training his subalterns - so I got interested again. I bought it, but hell it was "sticky and tricky" to get into! Yet ASL still has a cult following/ How? Why? The killer hate for me was absurd 8+:1 game tine versus historical time event. A twenty minute historical combat takes over three hours of play, nine times as long as the "real-thing". That is simply insane! So at CoW I decided to do a 1:1 figure (20mm) representation of ASL SK#1 Scenario #3 "A Simple Equation" on tabletop. I know that on itself is as insane, but it is "fun insane" and I had the figures to do it. Instead of 8:1 playing to historical time ratio, I aimed to be at least half that time, or even better, but trying to keep true to the "fire and movement" principles ASL had. In Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader I liked the bits that worked, particularly the morale rules, so I pushed the game along keeping the tempo of play up. Where I could I looked up "pre-rolled outcomes" (my magic chart) to avoid lots of multiple dice rolls that horribly slowed play down. Overall the game worked well, but it has to be said in true WD CoW fashion, it worked in slightly different ways than I expected (which is what CoW is all about .. experimenting and coming away with new ideas). It was great fun to see the mix of terrain and figures working together, particularly the moments when figures surged across the tabletop form cover to cover under covering fire. I played the static German defenders and four players the US Company, an overall Company C-in-C and the three platoon commanders. I am delighted to say it played well, the US winning in under an hour of play which is about a third of what it typically plays in ASL from my experience (see below, I am delivering "The Briefing" to the players, green blaize of the battlefield in front of me, player aids to the left and right):
Virtual Reality Wargame Taster: David Burden (Bath Spa University Wargaming PhD) allowed me to play with some of his toys, his virtual reality kit and thankfully (unlike some previous Oculus experiences) I was not caught in the motion sickness vomit comet! The technology was slick and smooth. I particularly liked its potential for urban combat considerations (visualisation of 3D terrain), it is a great way of exploring around a lot of otherwise bewildering buildings in urban terrain. The naval scenario (a submarine under the water and ASW frigate above) was almost conceptual art and I loved it. The WWI dogfight set-up likewise was brilliant. Not too sure about in a multi-player environment if everything moves at once, that could be chaotic, but as an immersive "you are a Titan walking through a battlespace" meme, it was brilliant. I look forward to see where David Burden takes this, the system currently has visualisation but no rule based gameplay engine, yet. The potential is tremendous.
The Siege of Syracuse [my pop-up game]: This is typical of another CoW mem, the pop-up session phenomenon, a board game or miniature figures game appears (sometimes added to the timetable, sometimes really spontaneous) which soon gathers a small interested crowd of participants and onlookers. With this in mind I packed the Siege of Syracuse game "just in case somebody wanted to play it" and had an opportunity to set it up in the late-bar bar (beer mats and empty glasses pushed to the side). It played to a successful Athenian conclusion (albeit on the easy setting) as chilled conversation flowed (as did the drinks) alongside and around it. Being a solitaire (or even a "three man committee" coming to one decision) I felt game in was a quiet accompaniment to relacked drinking (see below, I can recommend it, though not cheap, it is historically enlightening. Did I mention it goes well with a drink?):
Sunday morning ..
Passing It On: Last session. I had a choice. I could listen to a talk or play a game. Hmm. To do the latter I had to scramble around Missenden to find where the game was, for the former I just had to sit in place (tempting, I am sure I would have enjoyed the talk but the urge to have one more roll of the dice won it for me). I thought about it, then jumped up and joined a last minute repeat of an earlier session, yipee! Of course I opted to play the game, it's CoW and to me that means playing games. Other may differ and I respect that, but I would have to catch up with John Curry's fireside chat from the Early Days of Wargaming and the History of Wargame project later on. Instead I found Mike Elliot's Colonial Insurgency/Ambush game. In a remote backwater of the British Empire, a convoy of five trucks, guarded by two armoured cars and "a platoon or so of dismounts" that had to traverse a road dominated by hills infested with revolting insurgents (me, I was one of these). This was a great little scenario but also a demonstrated how you could introduce a "fade away" (shoot and scoot) mechanism into existing game systems quite easily, a classic feature of COIN and asymmetrical environments. This stops "firepower point" counting games becoming little more than pheasant shooting competitions (what the US thought they could do in Vietnam and could not). Simple rules, but they certainly have wings to fly great distances, well done Mike Elliot, thanks for sharing this! (see below, the snaking convoy is assailed by the irregulars):
Thoughts and conclusions: CoW 2025 was brilliant, for me the "Best Ever" CoW (my seventh since 2018) and I am already looking forward to the 2026 event. Yes, I think I am repeating myself from earlier on, but so what, praise where praise is due.
Summary: Bring on CoW 2026, to me nothing else in the wargaming calendar, recreational or professional (IMHO), compares or even comes close to it! It is a full on "muck-in my hearties" experience. Many thanks to the WD CoW Committee for organising it. Great job! Next year, due to circumstances beyond WD's control (the university that owns Missenden needs the money and is selling it as a going concern) WD are moving CoW 2026 to Cranwell instead. Therefore colourful campaign saga or road tour that is CoW is now heading ever so slightly north!