Wargaming at Iserlohn

Over the holiday season I've had some time to organize a couple of playtests of the game to see if the core mechanics work well.  Playtesting is always very interesting because it immediately highlights any glaring issue that in your mind isn't even an issue. Even just explaining the rules to someone can often trigger an immediate realization that something just does not work. It is important though to decide what is a core part of the design that you are not willing to change (even if the playtesters do not like it) because that is what makes it interesting to you. In my case I cannot compromise on the random activation done by drawing cards as that is one of the main differentiators and interesting points (for me) of the system. I also cannot compromise on the size of the units and the amount of units in an overall fleet as I have to work with the Fleet File collection models. For the playtest I needed to choose a scenario. I wanted a small battle which wasn't too long in...

Building a community  I'm writing a short update to mention that I created a small discord channel to discuss the game I am working on and organize any playtesting. The first scenario that I set up will take between 2 and 3 hours. I have created a Tabletop Simulator Mod and will be running players through the rules and answering any questions. Anyone is welcome to join. For now, while the rules are still quite simple and rough I'm going to be setting up each playtest but once they are a bit more polished and the rulebook is easier to understand I will be setting up TTS mods that can be downloaded to play the scenarios with your friends. The link to the server is:  https://discord.gg/YkfpxwSWYC

  As mentioned in my last post I've been preparing to do a quick playtest game to see if the base mechanics made sense. To do this I had to finish writing some basic rules for fighters and how to resolve hits on ships as well as rules on how to build battle groups. The rules I'm currently working with are somewhat rough and have spelling and formatting errors so I will not link them just yet. I did spend some time making a mockup of the front page as a distraction from all the rule thinking. I also had to choose a battle for my playtest and I chose the Battle of Lugen between the Black Lancers and the 10th Fleet. This battle is smaller than many of the more famous ones and it involves just one fleet from either side. Lastly I made some assets and set up the whole thing in tabletop simulator. The Game This is the setup for the game, the FPA has three battlegroups of 2 ships while the empire has 2 battlegroups with one of them having 3 ships. The Empire's fleet has several fa...