Virtual Gaming Attempt 2: Some Conclusions are Emerging

 Last Monday, I put on my second attempt with virtual gaming for the club.  Overall it went better than the first attempt but that was more due to the smaller scale in terms of units and the rules.

I re-ran the same battle as last time (Tashinchiao from the Russo-Japanese War) but used Greg's Alter of Freedom rules, which move the scale up from Battalions to Regiments.  That cut the number of unit bases in half and reduced the table top from 6x4 to 4x4 in  size. 

I made some changes to Alter of Freedom to include indirect artillery fire and machine guns but tried to keep the tinkering to a minimum.  I may have failed but I did try...

The Japanese were able to stage an effective attack and the outcome of the game was still in doubt after we called a stop.  I had four players (2 for each side) and we managed to get in 5 turns of a planned 12 during a 3 hour game session.  Had we all been playing in person, I am convinced we would have gotten all the turns in.  As for the outcome I think it was a toss up.  One Japanese division was chewed up at the cost of 2.5 for the Russian formations.  The game could have gone either way.

To me this is the biggest issue with staging a miniature game with lots of bases - it's just inefficient as one person me has to move all the pieces, roll the dice.  It's also frustrating for players as they try to communicate where to position units for maximum effect and I often misunderstood their instructions and needed to constantly tinker with placement.  There were some comical moments with exasperate players constantly telling me to move unit "over-there" or "where I'm pointing" only for me to remind them I cant see them.

 Because I was so busy running the game, I couldn't take any pictures during play so have posted some end of gaming session pictures.

The Japanese (Greg and Josh) elected to attack the center- left flank of the Russians where they saw a gap in the defensive setup.

The attack pushed the Russians off the hill but reinforcements moved in to stem the Japanese tide.  Both sides launched attacks and counterattacks - its was a swirling battle and was really fun to watch.

The Japanese left flank saw no action during the game but that may have changed had we gotten more than five turns in

Indirect artillery was an important factor in the game but it wasn't over-powering.  I still need to tweak the rules to make it more streamlined its use in the game.

While Zoom is a good platform, we still experienced some issues with players have a hard time keeping the map camera they wanted pined (visible on the main screen).  This could have been my fault as the host, Im just not sure.  Given my general level of technical ineptitude, it probably was but there will always be issues with people using different types of bandwidth and devices.

So what have learned after putting on 2 "virtual games" and playing in two others.

1) Game Type Matters
Games with lots of bases and free form movement are very difficult to stage.  It's exhausting for the GM and frustrating for the players as they just don't have the same control over unit placement.  Games that have movement grids (squares or hexes) will be a lot easier to put on as unit placement options are limited.  I'm hoping we can try "Rommel" or something like "Too the Strongest" in a future game to see if the gridded movement speeds things up.

Naval games where a player commands one or two ships also should work well - again you need rules that have gridded movement like "Fire as She Bears" (octagons) or "Hammering Iron" - ACW ironclads (hexes).

The next game I try to put on will likely be a Napoleonic naval game using Fire as She Bears.

2) Games with lots of Bases / and lots of different unit types/capabilities are hard to stage.
Camera resolution and your players bandwidth can limit the visibility of units and often results in players mistaking unit x of superior infantry for unit y of conscripts.  I tried to manage this by color coding unit labels and keeping all the units of a formation the same quality but there still were points of confusion.

3) Multiple Cameras are a must and you need at least one "mobile" camera to zoom in on key spots.  I had two cameras up and running - a mid-level logitech webcam and my I-phone on a tripod.  The I-phone provided far superior image quality and about halfway through the game I started placing it on the table to zoom in and that worked well.  One I-phone tip I learned is the camera on the back of the phone is superior to the one on the front.

4) Is it worth the trouble - Hell Yes.  Despite all of the technical and gameplay issues being able to spend time with my gaming club is more than worth the effort to stage a game.  Trying to keep some semblance of out Monday night traditions is important and something I'll continue to be working towards.

Battle of Tashihchiao: July, 1904 - A Remote Gaming Experiment - The Outcome

I hosted my first ever tabletop "remote" (or virtual) gaming event last night.  All in all, I thought it went very well.  Still there are aspects that can be improved.  The game itself was a battle from the Russo Japanese War and it ended in a Russian victory after a few rounds are very accurate artillery fire and then a spoiling attack which evaporated the Japanese left flank.  The game was closer than it looks.  Running a game as the host with 4 remote players was an all consuming task so I didn't take any pictures in game.  The three pictures show the Japanese left,

center, and

right flanks at the end of the game.

Historically,, aside from the counter attack the game played out to the same outcome - the Japanese attacks on July 24th were rebuffed with heavy losses.  The Russians were later dislodged via a night attack on the early morning hours of the 25th.

The casualty for both sides (Russians on the left and Japanese on the right).  Most of the Japanese casualties came in the last 2 turns.

I'm going to separate my comments into 3 sections 1) technology, 2) gameplay and 3) things to improve

Technology:
We used the video conferencing service ZOOM as the platform and, overall it worked very well.  There are other platforms available that may be better but I've learned how to use ZOOM over the past few weeks so went with what I was comfortable with.   Video of the game table was provided by two cameras set up at each far end of the table.  One camera was linked to my laptop which I used to dial into the Zoom service on my account which allowed me to control the meeting.  The second camera was just my i-Phone which I mounted on a tripod and dialed in as a general user for the call (not using my zoom account).  The cameras didn't have the best resolution but worked "good enough".  Several times I had to take one of the cameras in hand and zoom into a spot so a player could give me some specific movement instructions.   The zoom service worked great for player communication and chit chat.  I set up different message streams in Facebook messenger for each side to communicate amongst themselves or to send me order changes.  That worked "OK" (see the areas for improvement below).  I tried color coding the unit labels to make them easier to pick out.  That didn't work as the labels were too small to see

Gameplay: The rules we used were Great War Spearhead II, which have a fairly rigid order structure and order of shooting (closest first) and those aspects made them suitable for remote gaming as there isn't a lot of nuanced movement or figure placing and formations need to act as a cohesive group.  GWS2 is a ruleset that favors defense (the author indicates attackers should have 3:1 local force superiority).  It's been the club experience that defenders almost always win and that's how last night played out.  I hindsight, the attacking Japanese probably should have used some form of pre attack bombardment rather than just jumping off in the first turn.  I also used the suggested stats for the Russo-Japanese war  from GWS2 but in hindsight may have made the Russians a bit too strong/flexible.    There will need to be some tweaking but hopefully not so much nerfing as it makes the Russians no fun to play.  I'm not ready to give up on GWS2 but need to really think about some revisions before running it again.  If any reader has some thoughts about a grand tactical set of WW1 rules, I'm all ears.

Things to Improve
1) Better Cameras - the visual aspect of gaming is probably the most important one people enjoy and seeing it over the internet degrades that experience.  Internet video cameras are fairly cheap so investing in a couple better ones is well worth the effort.

2) Syncing pregaming prep materials with the camera angles used to broadcast.  In my pregame prep materials, I took pictures for each side from different angles than the ones broadcasting cameras displayed.  That proved very confusing to some players.  In a "real" game it'san easy to fix as one can walk around the table to reorient oneself but in a remote game thats not possible.  Making sure there are some pictures that match the broadcast camera angles in the prep materials will greatly improve player comprehension,

3) Overhead camera - finding a way to have a came directly overhead would be very useful and might eliminate the need for multiple camera angles.  To be honest, I think a single camera isn't the best as I do like trying to simulate the players view from the side of the table they are on.  Player perspective is an important aspect in tabletop gaming

4) Unit Labeling - my labels would have worked great for an in person game but were just too small to be useful on a video stream.  The unit bases were 40 x 40mm with the labels being roughly 5x40mm along the rear.  Next game I'll make the labels 20x40mm and the colors more vibrant.

5) Player GM "Secret" Communication:  Our club does most of its internal communications on Facebook and the its messenger app for projects and gaming planning  It works fine for what we need and has the benefit that the interface is easy to use and its free (well, free except for the cost of our privacy....).  Using different platforms (Zoom and messenger) during a remote gaming session proved to be hard on the poor GM and I often ignored the messenger channel as I was running around moving units and rolling dice.  I'm sure there is a better way to do this and need to think about it.

While there was a lot that can be improved on, I was still very pleased with how the gaming session went and am looking forward to staging another game in a few weeks.  I am also very grateful to all the players and video participants who agreed to be my test subjects.

It felt great to get a little of our Monday night club meetings back.

Battle of Tashihchiao: July, 1904 - A Virtual Gaming Experiment

I will be hosting a tabletop game tonight - re-staging the battle of Tashihchiao from the Russo-Japanese war.  Now before any of you have a fit, I'll be alone in my basement but playing the game over the internet via the zoom conference calling package.

This will be the first outing on the table for my 6mm Russo-Japanese armies.  The battle was a prelude to Liaoyang and was smallish in size with roughly 65K men per side.  The Japanese 2nd Army, which consisted of 4 divisions plus some support units attacked through the hills with the objective of seizing the rail junction located at battles namesake town.  Opposing them are two Siberian Infantry corps.  Historically, the Russians gave a good account of themselves during this battle and withdrew in good order.

 The battle will be played on a 6x4 table.  It could have been bigger but I was worried about the camera being able to "see" the total field.  The Russians are in the upper left half of the board and are defending the ling ridge in the middle.

Units are individual battalions.

A view from the Russian side of the table. The Russians have an advantage in cavalry and the Japanese have advantages in heavier artillery brigades.

The Japanese corner.  The terrain's a bit suspect - I made the railway and villages on powerpoint and then used whatever hills I had to simulate the rough ground.

I'll be using the WW1 ruleset "Great War Spearhead II" - why?  I've played them a few times during Josh's epic Gallipoli games and like them.  The employ an order concept for formations such as  "Attack point X", "Move to Y", Defend Z".  Once an order is set the details of how a unit moves or who it can target are pretty specific.  Both of those concepts should lend themselves to remote play where players can give orders but cant really manipulate the bases in a precise manner.

All of the unit formations are color coded to make them easier for players to see.  Video resolution will be an issue but that's also a form of fog of war - at least that's my current story.

To be honest, I am a little nervous about pulling this off.  On the other hand, I really miss the Monday night game sessions at the club and just don't want to give into the negative side effects of enforced isolation without trying different options.  Don't get me wrong - I fully support the concept of social distancing and know that we all are savings lives by complying.  That said, if I can figure out a way to make them a little less dreary then that's a good thing too.

Lastly, I have checked the odds in 'Vegas and the overwhelming favorite for the outcome of tonight's game is:

Well, tonights game may be a disaster, but at least I know it can't be as bad as the slow US response to this Virus - thanks Donny for being my Mississippi.
!

(here in the US, Mississippi almost always ranks 50th in any measure of a positive aspect, so the other states that also rank lower are very appreciative that Mississippi always prevents them from being last.)