Wargames To Go

Join the Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx I'm taking the win. For a while now I've been wishing I could do these episodes more often, study more topics, play more wargames, read more books, see more movies… This time, it worked. I didn't play that many games, but I played a few while digging into a new topic: the American entry into WW2's ETO through Operation Torch. The combined American-British amphibious invasion of the western half of North Africa was something I knew a little about, but—as always happens with me—I learn a lot more through this experience. I learn some more details about what happened, and a lot more context. That's the part of history that I find most fascinating. In this case, the wider context had a lot to do with Vichy France and its colonies. The formation of this new, odd government, who was responsible, how it operated, and America's complicated, troublesome relationship to it. One book really brought that home, but it showed up in everything, including podcasts, movies, and the games themselves (at least somewhat). Films • Patton • The Big Red One • Casablanca Books • When France Fell (Neiberg) • Patton: A Biography (Axelrod) • An Army at Dawn (Atkinson) • No Ordinary Time (Goodwin) Travel No, I didn't make it to Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia to see this places in-person. That would be amazing. I'd love to see the Atlas Mountains and sunset from there that Churchill insisted that FDR see during their famous conference. The closest I've come is getting to see the US Army Desert Training Center that Patton himself picked out from his knowledge of the American Southwest, and trained troops that would later be part of Operation Torch. To be honest, it's now a pretty run-down place. Clearly the modern army trains elsewhere. Yet it's still an interesting part of history, and what wargamer doesn't enjoy seeing some tired, old tanks? -Mark Charlemagne will be my next topic. I'm not sure how many games there are about him and this period, but it ties in to my trip to Aachen, I'd like to learn more, and want to take a break from WW2. Here's a geeklist with my preliminary ideas about it.

Join the Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx Ok, let's see how my attempt to tackle smaller topics more often actually goes. Can I get out one show/topic per quarter? That's my personal goal for the rest of 2025. Then I'll re-evaluate. Which brings me to Norway. Literally. In a week's time I'll be vacationing there, and that was a great reason to focus my next wargame podcast on this location. Instead of ALL of Norway's history (like I did for Scotland back in 2023, covering games & movies from the Roman era to the Jacobite Rebellion), I'm focusing just on WW2. In fact, I'm mostly focusing on the events of about a couple months in 1940, when Norway was invaded by Germany. I knew that had happened, but few of the details. Now I understand that Norway defended herself on the battlefield (hampered by late mobilization), the Western allies were fighting there, too, but ultimately the Germans were victorious. Norway was under Nazi occupation for the rest of the entire war. Be sure to check out the Geeklist of games for this topic. But there's more to it than that. The invasion itself was a complex operation of combined arms and logistical planning. The German navy was practically expended in this operation, and the Luftwaffe demonstrated again the new military technology of air superiority. Nevertheless, the strategic prize of the port of Narvik was retaken by the Norwegians and their Allies, Hitler's first significant setback in WW2. However, events back on the continent (the Invasion of France, the Evacuation at Dunkirk) drained the allies away from Norway, allowing the Germans to retake Narvik. There have been games about this strategic battlefield since some early days in the hobby, though not the earliest. At least since Frank Chadwick and GDW's treatment in The Europa Series, the Norwegian setting published in 1974. Over the years other titles have appeared, but this has always remained a lesser-gamed topic, with fewer titles. Fortunately, there are several smaller wargames, as I try to concentrate on for this podcast. There almost always are. Now I've played a few of them, watched some movies, read some articles, and soon will be visiting the actual location. This isn't a military history trip--it's a vacation for my wife & I. That means I won't see everything, but I'll see enough. I always appreciate being in the actual locations where things happened. It just adds to the experience. -Mark Films • The King's Choice • Kampen om Narvik • Nr. 24 • Atlantic Crossing Other • The YouTube channel Historigraph has an outstanding series of animated maps with voiceover narration about the Invasion of Norway

Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx Once multiple games about conquistadors in the new world had landed in my collection, I had a dilemma. On the one hand, the 15th-16th century contact between the two halves of our world was one of its most pivotal events. That cannot be denied. On the other hand, the depiction of those events--in history, in entertainment, in culture--has been one-sided and morally suspect (or worse) for the longest time. Could wargaming be any better on this topic? How could that be possible? Be sure to check out the Geeklist of games for this topic. For a few years, I just avoided the topic. However, I know that I have a lot to learn, and this could be my opportunity to do so. Once I read a couple recommended books and had wargame youtuber Joe Byer agree to partner with me, that was enough to dive into the topic. A key modification was my attempt to shift the focus to "first contact" between the Old World and the New. As early as it was, that's not really what's happening in any games about Cortes or Pizarro. In fact, almost ALL of the games in my episode geeklist are actually depicting armed conflict that occurred several years or even a full human generation after first contact. Oh well, that's the limitation of the hobby, at least as it currently stands. Some of the books (and a couple of the movies) do a better job with "first contact." Bluesky link YouTube playlist However, like everything in history, it's all connected. Learning about what happened with the conquistadors or King Philip's War in New England inevitably requires you to back up in order to understand the context. That can back the story up to first contact. It does in the literature...can wargames (or more properly history games) be far behind? I'm seeing new designers, publishers, and perspectives enter the hobby, giving me some hope about that. Also check out Joe Byer's YouTube show, What Does That Piece Do? where he & I discussed this topic. As well as a Teach & Play video I did with Fred Serval for one of these games on his Homo Ludens youtube channel. In this introductory episode, I explain why I'm interested in the topic, what game titles I've found so far, and something about the books and movies that are relevant. As you'll see (and hear), I'm willing to really stretch the definitions of First Contact in order to bring in some movies. After all, this podcast has always been a "multi-media" exploration. I wouldn't have been brave enough to include the science fiction film Prey on my list, but after talking with some Native American friends at work I'm emboldened to channel their own enthusiasm for a wider depiction of their culture and topics in films. So why not? What's next for this podcast? Well, I'm going to take a delicate dive into the challenging topic of anthropological "first contact" in history games. As much as possible, I want to explore what happened when Europeans & the indigenous people of the New World first encountered each other. I don't really mean the Indian Wars of the plains. Instead, I'm after what happened when the first ships arrived and people "discovered" each other. This is an area where history games and wargames have not made much progress, but that's also why the subject is interesting. -Mark

Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx As always happens, a subject that attracts me for wargaming and this podcast proves to be deeper and richer than expected. Once I knew I would get a chance to visit Scotland on vacation last summer/fall, it was my opportunity to dive into "wars of Scotland" in a general sense. What did I think that was? From Braveheart and Hammer the Scots I knew about the first War of Scottish Independence, at least a bit. I'd heard of the Jacobite Rebellion and The '45. And I figured there was some Roman history somehow, what with Hadrian's Wall up there. Of course, there's much more. Not only did I confirm the Roman-Caledonian history and learn more about Robert the Bruce or Bonnie Prince Charlie, I naturally uncovered a lot more detail in those conflicts...plus many others that fill the centuries between the parts I knew. Not all of them are depicted extensively in wargaming, but often at least a scenario in Ancient Battles Deluxe, as well as informative YouTube animations. In this episode I give some general impressions & observations about some of the game systems I played, notably Men of Iron, Ancients/Ancient Battles Deluxe, Commands & Colors, plus a standalone game about Bannockburn/Stirling/Falkirk. There are movies worth mentioning, and a few more games or scenarios to try. This is all expected to wrap up fairly quickly. Later this week I'm going to GMT's Weekend at the Warehouse, and there I'll get in a game or two to be discussed on the next podcast...along with a general report on the GMT event. -Mark

Episode geeklist Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx Guess what? This little podcast is now ten years old. I'd been doing my other one about euro boardgames even longer, and in 2013 I decided to branch off this other show about wargaming. I'd started in this hobby as a kid wargamer in 1979. I never completely left it, but my hobby in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s shifted more to roleplaying, Magic: the Gathering, and then euro boardgaming. It wasn't until around 2010 or so that I finally realized what countless wargamers before me did--that I could enjoy wargaming as a (mostly) solitaire hobby, getting more games to the table. I started acquiring more titles, especially magazine games, and became interested in specific topics to explore via multiple game treatments. Then I added my love of travel and movies to make my own contribution to wargame podcasts, Wargames To Go. Thanks for listening! I had plans to go see Scotland back in 2016, but those had to be cancelled. Then it was put off for a few years, a worldwide pandemic happened, yadda-yadda-yadda...and finally I got to visit this country in 2023. My wife & I enjoyed two weeks there--the first in the cities of Ediburgh & Glasgow, followed by a second week in the countryside (Strathspey and up to Orkneys). There was much to see & enjoy, from stone age settlements to whisky distilleries. And there were sites of military history. I really enjoy visiting battlefields to get a feel for the location. Sometimes the accompanying museums are good--other times not. Best of all is when there is a good guide available. Even if not, though, these days it's easy to read so much information online, to watch battlefield animation videos, and more to get a fuller sense of the historic event. On this trip we visited the sites of Bannockburn, Culloden, and from Stirling Castle I could look out over the Stirling Bridge area. I don't think anyone really knows where the Roman battle of Mons Graupius took place, but I probably drove near it. As you can tell, the topics here are not limited to one battle, one war, or even one era. I decided to dabble in all areas of Scottish military history that I could, at least as far as wars actually in Scotland. The big three eras are Roman contact, the Wars of Scottish Independence (Wallace/Bruce/Longshanks), and the Jacobite Uprising. Other periods such as the Battle of Flodden Field or the Border Reiver period are mentioned, but we'll see if I get to any of those games. This episode is a intentionally shorter than some previous ones. I'd rather post a couple smaller episodes that wait longer for a gargantuan one. I figure it's easier for listeners to follow along this way, too. As a result, I haven't yet seen all of the films nor played all of the games that I intend to. It's an introduction to the topic, and I'll return later with a conclusion. Films • Braveheart • Culloden • Rob Roy • Outlaw King Books • A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain, by Marc Morris -Mark P.S. I'll be at SDHistCon in just a few days. Look me up and say hi if you enjoy the podcast, thanks!

Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.io/BoardgamesToGo For a couple reasons, this episode has been my white whale, almost taking me down. I would certainly understand if any of my listeners gave up on me along the way, thinking the podcast had faded away entirely, or that I wasn't interested in wargaming any more. Not true! Listeners of my other podcast--the longstanding BoardgamesToGo about family strategy boardgames--know that I've still been active. I've even kept the flame of wargaming alive, playing a title here & there, reading history, watching films, and dabbling in online communities like Twitter and Discord. I even spent a weekend with wargame designer David Thompson where he beat me in a hex & counter wargame (not normally his thing, but mine!), showed me the brand-new Resist! game, and I also visited the nearby National Museum of the USAF. So what was it? What has kept me from closing out this wargame topic for so many months? The first is the topic itself. What started out as a little exploration of a lesser-known, short war with Teddy Roosevelt and his charge up San Juan Hill ballooned into a wider study of America's pivot to overseas colonialism and empire. It involves US national policy, ethical debates over the nature of democracy, a technological leap in naval power, islands in multiple oceans, and millions of other peoples who were fighting for their own American-style independence from foreign empires. That's a BIG topic, and it was the inspiration for my featured interview contained in this episode. The second reason was simply personal. I've spent most of the last year thinking I was going to be making a big change in my life, relocating overseas to Europe. I put a lot of things "on hold" while I worked on that, but it has ultimately not panned out. Ok, time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. Except that it's not really "starting all over," because I've still got my good family, home, job...and wargame podcast. To a large extent, I simply need to get this episode behind me, which will close out this topic and let me move on to the next. The nature and history of American imperialism is such an enormous topic that I'll never do it justice. It has been fascinating and important for me to learn more about this subject--one of the great joys of my wargaming hobby is how it repeatedly opens up new understandings of history. I'm just going to do the best I can to wrap this up and then get energized all over again by the next topic. Books • The War Lovers, by Evan Thomas • The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century, by Clay Risen • Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, by Stephen Kinzer • How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, by Daniel Immerwahr Films • Rough Riders • Heneral Luna • Crucible of Empire: The Spanish American War Jason Perez (Popesixtus) In addition to my closing comments about the games, books, and films I encountered for this episode, I was motivated to reach out to Jason "Shelf Stories" Perez for a featured interview. Over the summer, as I was thinking about the breadth of this topic, Jason popped onto my radar screen for his work with the thoughtful retheming of the classic eurogame Puerto Rico for its 20th anniversary into Puerto Rico 1897, which keeps the award-winning gameplay but fixes the cultural ignorance of the original. Though obviously not a wargame, it IS more aware of this history into which it is set, something eurogames have not usually done well. Picking the year 1897 reveals a significance to the Sp-Am War that was just around the corner, too. Then I noticed Jason had posted some other interesting videos about the cultural awareness (or not) of wargames. I knew I wanted to interview him for this episode. As you'll hear, Jason does consider himself a wargamer, but he does call himself a fan of "history games." He's passionate about history, especially the history of peoples, and proudly identifies himself with historian/political scientist Howard Zinn and his People's History of the United States. I suspect that point-of-view isn't for everybody, but it's exactly what I wanted to hear about for this podcast. Think about it and make up your own mind. -Mark P.S. I'm not 100% certain what my next topic will be, but I think it has to be a revisit of Gettysburg...since I literally revisited the battlefield this summer with a friend and listener of this podcast! Tom took me to Gettysburg which we'd both seen before, and later I started listening to Stephen Sears' book about the campaign. I'm thinking an interesting angle is to focus on the cavalry actions of Gettysburg campaign, from Brandy Station to the screened army marches to the cav-vs-cav skirmish east of the town itself. Hmmm...

Episode geeklist Isn't it tiresome when a podcaster starts by apologizing it's been so long since their last episode? So I won't do that. Here's the next one. My plans to spend the summer (now months past!) playing contemporary magazine wargames sort of worked, just more slowly and less completely than I'd originally planned. Whatever--I'm doing this for fun! The truth is, after vaccinations we were able to see some family and do some traveling that had been unavailable during the first year of the pandemic. Wargaming took a bit of a back seat, though I still got some done. Including ON a traveling vacation. (I played two of the three Panzerschreck titles on evenings while visiting Yellowstone National Park!) This episode features me talking about multiple games in recent issues of C3i and Panzerschreck magazines. The latter is a typically obscure, niche product and series of games that most listeners probably won't know. The former, however, is almost new territory for my podcast: a contemporary release that other people are already excited about, many of them own, and a bunch will have already played. Relevance! What a concept... I'm not really too concerned about how niche-within-a-niche my hobby is. By now you should realize that about me. Just the same, it was a nice change of pace to be playing and talking about a game, designers, and publisher that others are, too. Thinking back, I don't know how much I talked about the games themselves. Definitely I don't do a full review. Instead, I talk about my experience and reaction to the game. Especially when I move on to the other titles in this episode, it got me thinking about the nature of these games, what makes some work for me, others not. The final game, most of all, prompts some deep thoughts about what is being simulated in a game, what the role of the player in it, and is it ok? I'm inclined to think almost anything is viable in a simulation game since we are learning more about important history through this medium, but The Fall of Röhm tested the limits of my conviction about that. Ok. Although I'm tying this series off before getting to a couple remaining games mentioned earlier, I still plan to work in Battles Magazine and its Storm over Madrid title sometime in my future. Whenever that happens (no promises about schedule), I'll shove it into whatever my next podcast episode is about, regardless of topic. Because Battles Magazine is really incredible and all wargamers should take notice of it. You know, there's a good hook between that game and my expected next wargame topic. The "contemporary magazines" topic was fun, but I found that I missed the chance to dig into a single historic topic over multiple games & media, as I've done before. I'm going back to that traditional WGTG format for the next episode, at least. The subject is going to the Spanish-American War, and I've already started a geeklist for it. Reference Material • Eastern Front of WWII animated: 1943/44 Fantastic animations of the OOB, deployments, and annotated movements of the WW2 eastern front, covering the period and scale very closely matched to the C3i game • Episode 31 of the Our Fake History podcast Great milhist summary of the Charge of the Light Brigade • Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 film) Recommended! • Tombstone (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1956) Three different Hollywood depictions of the famous gunfight -Mark A couple mistakes/omissions when I talked about the Charge of the Light Brigade topic. Embarrassingly, I think I mentioned the Turkey on the opposing side to the Anglo-French allies. That's exactly WRONG and I should've known it. The Anglo-French were there to help Turkey oppose the Russian Empire. Second, I should've pointed out that the 1968 film I enjoyed on this topic featured some inter-scene animations in the style (drawn from?) Punch magazine. So clever!

Episode geeklist Turns out Vietnam is just too big of a subject for a pair of podcast episodes. I decided to limit part 2 to just the Battle of Huế, saving more games & history for a future exploration. There are several reasons this battle is so well-represented in wargaming. In some ways it's the Bulge/Waterloo/Gettysburg of Vietnam. By reading Bowden's book on the subject and rewatching Full Metal Jacket, I felt I had a decent understanding of the history as-examined by four smaller games. Then I came across a wonderful "then & now" YouTube doc that also helped bring everything to life. I've never had the opportunity to visit Vietnam myself, but this looks like an amazing city. As usual, no sooner did I finish recording that I realized a few mistakes and omissions. First of all, I glossed over the fighting that happened within the city of Paris. How could I do that? One of my favorite places in the world? Well, it certainly wasn't leveled or suffered too many horrors of house-to-house fighting, not like other cities in other wars. But there definitely were tanks and soldiers exchanging fire, as described in the book & film, Is Paris Burning? Next, I neglected to mention a couple more films about Vietnam that I watched. Sort of. I mean, I definitely watched them...they're just 'sort of' about Vietnam. I couldn't bring myself to watch Apocalypse Now again, so I watched the highly respected documentary about its creation, Hearts of Darkness. Honestly, it drove me kind of crazy. I'm a cinephile and enjoy so many challenging & creative films, but the self-importance behind this film & filmmaker gets in my way. Perhaps if it didn't relate to a vital bit of military and national history (of at least two nations), I could forgive its excesses. But I can't. And then there's The Deer Hunter. Oof, more of that self-importance, combined with even less respect for the historical setting. I know it isn't ABOUT the Vietnam War, but neither is it inconsequential to the story. It's a deliberate falsification to tell an excruciating myth. I really hated this one. This year (2021) I love the films Nomadland and The Sound of Metal, both nominated for Oscar's Best Picture. So I've got no issue with tough stories of human existentialism. But spare me The Deer Hunter, ugh. One experience that was better was reading The Sympathizer. This is a completely fictional book about the Vietnam War, one that won the Pulitzer just a few years ago. It tells the story of three Vietnamese friends who grew up in that country, one who became an ardent fighter for the South, another who became a devout agent of the Communists, and one in the middle, a mole for the communists operating within the ARVN. The unnamed protagonist and source of the book's title is the third person. The story has a lot to say about America's confusion with this country and period, too. Not military story, but an amazing human lens through which to examine our shared history. Guess it won that literary award for a reason, huh? Finally, when I talked about the magazine games I was looking forward to tackling next, I thought the Vae Victis game was about Algeria. Nope, it's Angola. Very different setting and conflict. I've got it now. Remember, these French wargame magazines have English translations of the rules, and all of their recent issues have a standardized small format of 108 diecut counters and an A3 (about 11x17") map size. Perfect for me! Lately I've been using Google Translate to read the accompanying historical article for the issue game. That's not necessary, of course--you can do just as well to read a Wikipedia article--but I like the opportunity to learn/struggle-through some French language. -Mark P.S. Here are a couple twitter videos I did for some of the Hue games I played. https://twitter.com/WargamesToGo/status/1363608161488236544 https://twitter.com/WargamesToGo/status/1355247281696477184 Books • Hue 1968 • The Sympathizer Movies • Full Metal Jacket • Battle of Huế Then & Now youtube series (there are 6 parts) -Mark

Episode geeklist It's been a long pandemic, hasn't it? We've got a ways to go, too. During this strange time I've been working from home, wearing a mask outside, and playing some solo wargames. My regular euro-style boardgaming has dried up almost completely, albeit temporarily. Sure, I play some online versions at BoardgameArena, Yucata, special apps, and others, but it's only enough to keep connections going with my friends. I've enjoyed play-by-web and other computerized versions of boardgames for years, but that's when they were a way to get in extra games during the week. Now that they're the only boardgaming I can do, they just remind me of how much I miss sitting across from my friends on a regular game night. Wargames are different for me. Though once in a while I'll play a 2-player game across a (real) tabletop, normally I enjoy my wargames solo. Purpose-designed solitaire games generally take a backseat to traditional 2-player games where I just play both sides. Which means that there shouldn't be anything slowing me down now for my wargaming during the pandemic. "Shouldn't be." And yet, it's still been a bit sluggish. Because everything is kind of a drag now, at least for me. To be sure--lots of people have it a whole lot worse that me, so I cannot complain. My job is still going fine via remote work from home, my family is doing ok now, no one is sick... So you'd better believe I'm not seriously whining about my wargaming hobby. I'm not. It's just a little slow, that's all I can muster right now, and I expect that to continue until there's a good vaccine deployment. It'll happen eventually. One thing I have managed to do during all of this is get my collection a little more organized. That meant going through all of my wargames, sorting the magazines by type, and setting aside a few mini-collections on topics I want to get into. For this episode it was the Strategic Air Command (next time will be Vietnam). As I've mentioned before on my podcast, my dad served in the USAF from 1953-57, during the heady days of the Strategic Air Command. My dad passed in 2018, and though we talked often, now that he's gone I find things I wish we'd talked more about. Like his military service, and that part of his life. I know he was a J47 engine technician for the B-47 Stratojet. He served primarily at March AFB in Riverside, California (not too far from me now--we visited it together), but once deployed to Upper Heyford AFB in the UK. The most important part for me was that plane, his beloved B-47. Sandwiched between the behemoth B-36 Peacemaker and the famous B-52 Stratofortress/BUFF, I wondered if any wargames would include the B-47. Yes, there are some! I think I've now played most of them. This is an interesting period for wargaming, because it's all alt-hist for a nuclear WW3 that thankfully never happened. I don't normally explore alt-hist, either, but for SAC, the B-47, and Dad I'd happily make an exception. There are several good movies about this period, too. Probably everyone knows Dr. Strangelove, which I've seen before and was happy to see again. But I found several other good ones, and the aptly named Strategic Air Command movie with Jimmy Stewart even featured the B-47! All in all it's been an enjoyable exploration, for the games, the military history, and a way to reconnect with my dad. Movies & Video • Strategic Air Command • Dr. Strangelove • Fail Safe • The Arrow • Cold War aviation films (per Wikipedia) Books • Bomber: The Formation and Early Years of Strategic Air Command , by Phillip Meilinger If you're not a Twitter user, but still want to see my photos and short videos about some wargames, just go to http://www.twitter.com/WargamesToGo. Feedback here or there is always welcome. -Mark

At long last I'm posting my podcast about the Eastern Front in WW2. Except that it's not exactly that, it's Operation Barbarossa. When I started this as a subject, I really didn't know how to parse it, or what my focus would be. Over the past six months I learned to separate Stalingrad, Typhoon, the Soviet counter-invasion, and everything else that is part of so vast a topic. I learned to focus just on Barbarossa. That's a deep enough subject on its own, and I have time in my wargaming future to explore the other aspects. The centerpiece of this episode is an interview with Bruce Geryk. You know him from his Wild Weasel podcast, and you may also know him from the wargame analyses at his own website, from his Dien Bien Phu video series, or from his other podcast appearances on Three Moves Ahead and Quarter to Three. Bruce is a wargamer from way back, and he thinks deeply about the history and our hobby. With a subject as monumental as the Russian Front, I particularly wanted Bruce to fill in the blanks of my experience with wargame titles that make up "the canon" for the topic, and especially some of the larger games. As well as being an avid tabletop wargamer, Bruce knows computer wargames as well, and fills us in on that part of the hobby, too. Movies & Video • ThirEastern Front of WWII animated: 1941 • The Great Patriotic War. Operation Barbarossa. Episode 1 Books • Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East, by David Stahel • The First Day on the Eastern Front: Germany Invades the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941, by Craig W.H. Luther • Blitzkrieg: From the Ground Up, by Niklas Zetterling • Barbarossa: Germany's Assault on the Soviet Union, 1941-1942, by John Burtt If you're not a Twitter user (or don't follow me), but still want to see my photos and short videos about some wargames, just go to http://www.twitter.com/WargamesToGo. Feedback here or there is always welcome. -Mark

Episode geeklist Here's something I haven't done in a while: a one-off podcast. In other words, this isn't the start of a multi-episode, multi-month exploration of one battle/war. Instead, this is a single episode about (mostly) a single topic, WW2's Long Range Desert Group. I vaguely remembered hearing something about history, then earlier this year the French wargaming magazine Vae Victis featured the LRDG in their issue game. It was a small, solitaire design, and I tweeted about how I was intrigued. A friend recommended a book to read about it, and soon I discovered another solitaire game on it. That was enough for me--it sounded like the makings of a podcast episode. This episode also features an interview with wargame designer David Thompson. He created Pavlov's House and has Castle Itter coming up next, both published by DVG. As you'll hear, he's got some other games on the way from other publishers, too. In fact, his interview is primarily about what it's like to get a wargame published, particularly the part about pitching a project to a publisher. He's researching the LRDG himself for a project, so the interview was perfect timing. Movies & Video • Sea of Sand • Lost in Libya: In Search of the LRDG • Battlestorm Lite - LRDG (3 parts including Moore's March) Books • Sand , Wind, and War, by Ralph Alger Bagnold • Incident at Jebel Sherif, by Kuno Gross, Roberto Chiarvetto, Brendan O'Carroll • Killing Rommel, by Steven Pressfield Discussions • Long Range Desert Group versus aircraft Next I'm going to start playing some WW2 East Front games. It's an enormous topic, one of the centerpieces of our hobby. My knowledge about it is fairly limited, but I'm learning a bunch already. Also, I've naturally got quite a number of wargames on the topic already. With a subject this large, there are several smaller options out there, just like I prefer. I'm starting with Frank Chadwick's introductory classic, Battle for Moscow. I've started a geeklist about with these games, too. If you're not a Twitter user (or don't follow me), but still want to see my photos and short videos about some wargames, just go to http://www.twitter.com/WargamesToGo. Feedback here or there is always welcome.

A solo episode this time. That interview with author and designer Joe Balkoski is still coming, but not quite yet. He's got the little matter of his own retirement and a well-deserved vacation to deal with first. Ok, no problem, I just recorded this episode to record more thoughts about a variety of D-Day games I've played. Then I get to share my own travelogue from my visit to Normandy in 2014. Playing those games, it got me thinking about smaller wargames, in general. Every so often there's a discussion posted online (here on BGG, perhaps in the wargaming twitterspace, or something else) where a gamer asks if there are any good, shorter wargames out there. YES! There are LOTS of them. These are the games I seek out. However, they often are less well known, because for many years the hobby has focused on the beefier end of the spectrum when it comes to wargames. It's easier to find monster wargames (see? they even have a term for it) than shorter ones. Yet the shorter ones are out there. New wargamers tiptoeing into the hobby may ask for them, but just as often it's an experienced wargamer who still wants to enjoy the hobby but cannot host weekend-long setups any longer. Weeknight Wargames is what I tried to call them. Ones you can play in 1-3 hours. Whatever they're called, they can be found. One of these days I need to make my own geeklist with suggestions. When I do, I'll link to it here. If you're not a Twitter user (or don't follow me), but still want to see my photos and short videos about some wargames, just go to http://www.twitter.com/WargamesToGo. -Mark Remember to follow along & chime in on my geeklist/discussion) for all of my Korean War explorations. If you're a wargamer on social media, follow me on Twitter (@WargamesToGo). Feedback is always welcome.

To wrap up my series on the Korean War, I've got a shorter episode featuring just me talking about the games I played. I never get to as many as I'd like--my geeklists are aspirational and for reference rather than predictive!--and the same is true of movies. Nonetheless, my exploration of this subject has been a satisfying one. I went into it not knowing much about the conflict that inaugurated the Cold War, and the defining historical event of my father's generation. Between games, books, movies, magazines, and other podcasts, I now understand considerably more. What I enjoy most of all is that I feel like I "get" the overall narrative arc of this piece of history. There's the war itself, with its milestone events (invasion, retreat, Pusan perimeter defense, amphibious invasion to the rear at Inchon, reversal of the invasion, Chinese intervention, retreat from the Yalu and escape from Chosin...). There's also the political machinations going on from the end of WW2 to this episode. Once again, I'm struck by how much I enjoy the old/traditional style of wargaming, with its hexmaps, ZOCs, OOBs, and reinforcement schedules. Even plain, old IGO-UGO rules systems. I recognize those systems have their limitations, but they really help me learn more about a subject. In a related way, I confirmed for myself that I don't really care for tactical systems. When they include the things that are necessary at that scale (LOS, opportunity fire, etc.), I just find that the game rules get in the way of my appreciation of the game and its depictions. [ -Mark Remember to follow along & chime in on my geeklist/discussion) for all of my Korean War explorations. If you're a wargamer on social media, follow me on Twitter (@WargamesToGo). Feedback is always welcome. And if you want to anticipate my next podcast series on D-Day, check out its own geeklist.