Sometimes the lure of technology is simply too great to resist.
No, no. I’m not blogging today about how my best wargaming intentions have once again been hijacked by another bout of Fallout 3 or about how sooner or later my will to resist buying Dawn of War 2 is going to collapse in a whimpering heap.
Nope. Today the great evil of digital technology is actually going to help me dive into a ‘real’ wargame – in this case, GMT’s Fields of Fire.
Snappy screenshots!
Strangely enough, even though I’m a fairly savvy ‘digital’ guy, I’ve never been a heavy user of any of the computer-based gaming aid systems that are available. I’ve used a number of them over the years, but I’ve never stuck to just one and I’ve never used any of them as much as you’d think the average space-limited wargamer might.
That’s probably because when I’m sitting at a computer, I tend to drift into games written for the computer (as opposed to tools used to play electronic versions of board games). I seldom have the patience for play-by-email and I like the instant gratification of smashing an AI into flinders with by brilliance and native military genius. There’s also the issue of the tactile experience of board wargaming. I like all of the fiddly bits. I like looking at the whole game spread out on a table. I like fumbling around with counters and clackity-clacking around with blocks and wondering how the hell I managed to bend the weapons on that many miniatures.
Regardless, sometimes I still poke at the digital stuff. I suppose I did play games with ADC/ADC2 quite a bit when that program was fairly new – even when the Big Table was really big, it hardly had room for some of the larger OCS games and a few of the other monsters I had in the closet.
I went through a Cyberboard phase a few years back. I have more ‘gameboxes’ than I can count – more than a few of them fairly crude and home-made (by me) for games that didn’t receive any digital love from their publishers. I probably have even more gameboxes left in various phases of construction after my ambition waned. Cyberboard still gets the occasional workout, mind you – but I’m not a maniac about it.
Remember when VASSAL was used exclusively by ASL gamers? Yeah, I went that route for a little while. Now it’s been expanded and adapted to a broad range of games. Including, for the purposes of this blog, GMT’s Fields of Fire.
I’ve decided to use VASSAL this time for several reasons. First, I’ve just barely made a dent in getting the game’s counters ready to go. Next, scuttlebutt is that the VASSAL module for FoF is pretty good. I thought the module for Combat Commander was pretty handy, so I’ll give it a try. It also facilitates making clean, easy-to-view screen caps (as opposed to blurry digisnaps from the tabletop). Finally, if I play FoF using VASSAL, I can get something else equally interesting setup on the Big Table – so when my famously short attention span acts up I can easily distract myself with something entirely different for a little while without taking down FoF.
Oh yeah. I also think that using VASSAL will help to confirm my status as a complete gaming twit. I manage to reclaim the Big Table and what’s the first thing I do? Start a new game on my computer. Rock on!
Now, if I can just get the lawn mowed and the garage cleaned out this weekend – while dodging the predicted 98-degree heat – I’ll have some time to get things started.
When I broke out Silent War I was told how nice the VASSAL module was, but with rare exceptions solo gaming is the only chance I get to get out the maps and counters, so I went with table top again, though I could see myself using it’s VASSAL module if I didn’t have table space.
I’ve managed to project the idea that the gaming table is not really available for anything else, so that I haven’t had to worry about that stuff.