When the enemy airforce buries their planes or flies them to other countries to be interned, while your airforce is the best in the world, it’s difficult to game the war. When you have the greatest navy in the world, and you see the enemy row into your sights, it’s difficult to game the war. It’s even difficult to game the war on the ground, where our forces move with the inevitability of a steam-roller.

The question is obvious: how does one set up a game or a scenario that gives the players on the 3rd World side—Iraquis, Iranians, Afghans, etc.—a chance of winning. The answer lies not in national victory, but in small unit actions, where the good guys—that’s us—face insuperable odds locally. You could have a light recon unit, far out in front, stumble into an ambush, or a vertical insertion—no, not that kind—far behind enemy lines to secure an airfield or a bridge.

A further consideration is how you arrange your victory conditions. The loss of a good guy—American—might be worth the same as the elimination of…say…25 of the enemy, due to political considerations. And while yes, you could allow the good guys to call in fire support, or even air strikes, the more they do that the more it would subtract from their victory points. All of this is just an idea, of course.

For further ideas for daring scenarios, pitting a few…a precious few good guys against hordes of the other fellows, just check out what the Victorian English got up to on a regular basis in the 19th century. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia. In the 20th century he stood out as a unique aberration. In the 19th century, he would have been just one of the lads.