Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group

CLWG Conference 2024 – 5 & 6 October

We’re fast approaching the traditional CLWG Conference weekend, and there are a small number of sessions on offer. Now would be a great time to sign up if you can make either day. Here’s the link to the dynamic version of the programme on Google Drive https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E-AO8rPAJAgFAPCiDbCj9msUgl-fitxmTJxBPQjocu8/edit?usp=drivesdk Note that many of the sessions will be […]

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Lit By Another Sun Playtest/Design

Lit By Another Sun is the working title for a megagame that I intend to run in Scotland in 2025. It’s based on an early draft of a novel (titled Duke of Piraxis) and then worked up a bit with some mechanics based on ordinary playing cards. I’ve had one playtest with some of the […]

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September 2024 Meeting – Welcome to Serconea

Today’s meeting at Anerley Methodist Church saw four attendees. Unfortunately only one of the two sessions could go ahead due to a short-notice absence on the part of Jim Wallman. This session was a design session where I presented the basic concept for my in-development megagame of democratic transition, Welcome to Serconea. This game tells […]

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Deeply Unhistorical – but maybe in a good way

A Very Personal View of Bernie Ganley’s The World Will Hold its Breath, Barbarossa Megagame on 3rd August 2024 by Andy Grainger Back in February Bernie Ganley asked me if I might help out as a Control Umpire at his The World Will Hold its Breath (WWHIB) Megagame slated for 3rd August at Anerley. Although […]

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A Line Between Disorder & Order

by Jim Wallman Rollbahn “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…” Sun Tsu Sunday 7 July saw a playtest of a game I’m working on that is for an icebreaker game for the Connections UK conference later this year. This is a fast-play simple logistics-themed wargame It is designed to be pick up […]

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Water Water Everywhere – game design session

I helped run this session as part of the CLWG design conference. Well, mainly I took notes while my co-designer, Terry Martin, asked the questions. An idea for the game “Water Water Everywhere” emerged out of the last design mini-conference by run Stone Paper Scissors. The game is based on the forthcoming rise in sea […]

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Bombing of Darwin Day (19 February)

Today (19 February) officially commemorates a significant event in Australia’s history – the first time since European settlement that Australia came under attack – the largest ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia. Many will know of the 7 December 1941 attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor during World War II. I suspect […]

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The Bastard Comes Design session – the race for the Crown

I ran this at the October Conference, the latest in a very long line of design sessions for my much-delayed megagame of the events following the battle of Hastings in 1066. As many of you will have now done once or more, I cast the players as the heads of the Anglo-Saxon noble families meeting […]

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Artificial Incompetence

Or How To Build An Idiot Commander When Humans Just Won’t Do Like most of the readership here, I’ve spent many decades of gaming building rule systems at the tactical and operational levels which have tried to model unit and sub-commander skills, often referred-to as CE or ‘Combat Efficiency’ in the modern era. In many […]

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“Birds of Prey, Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers and the Holocaust in Poland” ibidem Verlag, Stuttgart 2021.

By Andy Grainger NOTE I know the author of this book and have read both it and his previous book as cited below. The subject matter, the implementation of German racial and occupation policies in the East, is uncomfortable, to put it at its mildest. By concentrating on a small area this book provides real […]

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