Several good ideas have appeared lately on running games at wargame conventions. These are some additional tips I use.

Laying out terrain: One of the biggest problems I have is laying out terrain features at the correct locations: hills, roads, woods, etc. It seems like a battle always looks different every time I lay it out. I'm worried about how different terrain locations impact the game. This is what I do.

My current game that I'm running is the battle of Poltava, fought during the Great Northern War. It is bordered by woods. In between, the Russians built redoubts and had their camp above the woods. There has to be enough room between the redoubts for the Swedes to pass through if they wish. Starting with the Osprey book on the battle, I determined the critical part of the battle for my 6' X 4' table.

I then placed the redoubts fooling around with their locations. I set up a suitable camp using terrain pieces being sure it could contain all of the Russian force. Then I laid out the roads and the woods using flex terrain roads and felt pieces for woods.

I then used adhesive labels bought from an office supply store to mark the locations of terrain features. For roads, one label stuck to the Geohex grass mat I use marks the end of each piece. I did the same thing for the walls of the Russian camp and the roads. By using a code and drawing a sketch map, the terrain can easily be set up.

Labeling Miniature Figure Units: One of the problems I have is remembering what units you control during a game. Also, what is your unit's morale and strength? What I like to do is use adhesive label dots in various colors purchased from office supply stores. One color can be used per group of units: the commander, the infantry, cavalry and artillery.

I use Volley and Bayonet rules for the Great Northern War. The rules suggest using a roster to record the strength of the unit but I write it on a dot with another one for the unit's morale. While the fog of war is lost, it's a lot easier than tracking a roster. I use casualty caps to mark hits.

Typed up scenario background, order of battle and rules I used to print up rule summaries and charts by hand. With computers, there is no excuse not to type up rules. I type up a scenario sheet with background describing events leading up to the battle along with an order of battle for each side plus vague victory conditions. I type up a referee sheet with special rules and a turn number track I can mark off for myself. I summarize all game charts and rules on a sheet of paper (one or both sides). Having background information and vague victory conditions greatly enhance a scenario. Game charts for each person allows the players to run the game themselves.

Have Good Looking Terrain: The level of wargame terrain has come up over the years. If you have good looking figures, don't they deserve good looking terrain? I'm not talking about custom built sculpted terrain made out of Styrofoam. A Geohex grass mat or a nice piece of felt that's been flocked works well.

Having good looking terrain helps attracts people to your games. Even though people don't know much about the Great Northern War, I've had hordes of people looking at my games wanting to be in them. I've invested $300 in my terrain but the results have been worth it. Plus, I can use it for other periods.

If you don't have the skills or the time, try Tactical Conflict Systems, Inc. (545 Newport Ave., Suite #155, Pawtucket, RI 02861, $1 for catalog) for terrain pieces like redoubts, fortified walls and river systems. They are a great buy and don't cost that much more than building from scratch.

The Gamemaster as Coach: How many times have you been in a convention game where nobody's doing anything and you're wondering what part of the turn sequence you're on? Should you be moving or resolving combat? I don't care for games like that.

As a gamemaster, you have to be coach. Call out each phase of the turn like "Russian Movement". Then wait a few minutes and ask if it's been completed. Do every phase the same way. If someone forgot to move a unit and now it's combat time, it's too late. This helps so much to keep the game moving. People are in convention games to move units and roll some dice, right?

Combat rules should be simple Another problem is how many games have you been in where the gamemaster resolves each combat one by one and everybody waits around? No one likes this and it gets boring after a while. The rules should be simple enough so the players can resolve combat on their own with you in the background checking if it's being resolved correctly answering any questions. If the rules are more complex, two or three gamemasters is a good idea, even for big games. Frank Chadwick and Greg Novak did this for the Waterloo game at HISTORICON and it worked great.

Conclusion: I hope some of you find these tips useful. If you have any other ones, why don't you write about them?

Related Article
Some Thoughts on Running Games at Conventions

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