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66-526: Amarillo Design Bureau is a company which specializes in tactical and strategic board wargames . The company is a successor to Task Force Games , and is owned and operated by Steve and Leanna Cole, with partner Steve Petrick, and based in Amarillo , Texas . The company created and developed the series of games set in the Star Trek -based Star Fleet Universe , under license from Paramount Pictures , which includes

132-443: A Stormcast Eternals army) with an option to include a limited number of allies from related factions within the alliance (e.g. a Stormcast Eternals army with 200 points of Seraphon allies). An army consisting of Factions usually synergise best with their own units, and faction-specific armies receive bonuses and additional rules that are not available to mixed Grand Alliance armies. Grand alliance Chaos The Grand Alliance of Chaos

198-409: A competitive context. Recreational wargames can cover a wide variety of subjects, from pre-historic to modern – even fantasy or sci-fi combat. Games which do not include modern armaments and tactics are of limited interest to the military, though wargames covering famous historical battles can interest military historians . As professional wargames are used to prepare officers for actual warfare, there

264-411: A fantasy theme heavily inspired by the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien and Michael Moorcock . Players' armies fight with medieval-era weaponry and cast magical spells, and the warriors are a mixture of humans and fantasy creatures such as elves , dwarves , and orks . Age of Sigmar is the sequel to the game Warhammer (specifically Warhammer Fantasy Battle ). Due to this, the game contains many of

330-418: A fixed scenario. A wargame's level of war determines to the scope of the scenario, the basic unit of command, and the degree to which lower level processes are abstracted. At the tactical level , the scenario is a single battle. The basic unit of command is an individual soldier or small group of soldiers. The time span of the scenario is in the order of minutes. At this level, the specific capabilities of

396-814: A highly abstracted model of warfare which represents troop positioning and composition. Stones in Go have no properties, behaviours, or state on their own, and only potentially represent, relative to other stones, elements of a larger board position, providing an extremely abstract strategic model in which the determinant of victory is a generalisation of territorial control and influence projection. Contrarily, in wargames counters typically represent decidedly more concrete and internally quite complex entities (companies, battalions, etc.), with detailed interior state (stat blocks and tables of troop numbers, equipment, operational readiness, artillery charts, etc.), often with convoluted rules governing how they operate and interact, and furthermore

462-449: A modern JVM , while the other three are Microsoft Windows programs. Wargames were played remotely through the mail, with players sending lists of moves, or orders, to each other through the mail. In some early PBM systems, six sided dice rolling was simulated by designating a specific stock and a future date and once that date passed, the players would determine an action's outcome using the sales in hundreds value for specific stocks on

528-612: A player to find opponents with a computer game: a computer game can use artificial intelligence to provide a virtual opponent, or connect him to another human player over the Internet. For these reasons, computers are now the dominant medium for wargaming. In the recent years, programs have been developed for computer-assisted gaming as regards to wargaming. Two different categories can be distinguished: local computer assisted wargames and remote computer assisted wargames. Local computer assisted wargames are mostly not designed toward recreating

594-418: A range of actions with their models: moving, charging, shooting ranged weapons, fighting, and casting magical spells; the outcomes of which are generally determined by dice rolls. Besides the game itself, a large part of Age of Sigmar is dedicated to the hobby of collecting, assembling and painting the miniature figurines from the game. Whereas some wargames recreate historical warfare , Age of Sigmar has

660-433: A simple computation. At the strategic level , the scenario is an entire war. The player addresses higher-level concerns such as economics, research, and diplomacy. The time span of the game is in the order of months or years. A wargame must simulate warfare to a reasonable degree of realism, though what counts as sufficient realism depends on the players. Military wargames need to be highly realistic because their purpose

726-547: A specific date and then dividing the NYSE published sales in hundreds by six, using the remainder as the dice result. Nuclear Destruction , by the Flying Buffalo , was an early PBM game in 1970. Origins Award Hall-of-Fame member Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail is still active today. Reality Simulations, Inc. still runs a number of PBM games, such as Duel2 (formerly known as Duelmasters), Hyborian War , and Forgotten Realms: War of

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792-440: A take-it-or-leave-it approach. Professional wargames, by contrast, are typically commissioned by the military that plans to use them. If a wargame is commissioned by several clients, then the designer will have to juggle their competing demands. This can lead to great complexity, high development costs, and a compromised product that satisfies nobody. Commercial wargames are under more pressure to deliver an enjoyable experience for

858-408: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Wargaming There is ambiguity as to whether or not activities where participants physically perform mock combat actions (e.g. friendly warships firing dummy rounds at each other) are considered wargames. It is common terminology for a military's field training exercises to be referred to as "live wargames", but certain institutions such as

924-488: Is a look at the constant design and development of new types of tanks during World War II. The most successful card wargame (as a card game and as a wargame) would almost certainly be Up Front , a card game about tactical combat in World War II published by Avalon Hill in 1983. The abstractness is harnessed in the game by having the deck produce random terrain, and chances to fire, and the like, simulating uncertainty as to

990-403: Is longer than a sub-machine gun, due to the differing ammunitions) and thus preserve some verisimilitude, all the while compressing the battle to fit the confines of the table. Additionally, the ranges are multiples of 6, which makes them easier to remember. In real warfare, commanders have incomplete information about their enemy and the battlespace. A wargame that conceals some information from

1056-454: Is longer than most game tables. If model soldiers could shoot each other from opposite ends of the table, without the need to maneuver, the game would be very monotonous. For example, the miniature wargame Bolt Action solves this problem by reducing a rifle's range to 24 inches, a sub-machine gun's range to 12 inches, and a pistol's range to 6 inches. Even if these ranges are not realistic, their proportions make intuitive sense (a rifle's range

1122-533: Is made up of factions that embrace the corrupting influence of the Chaos Gods. These factions revel in destruction, bloodshed, and the pursuit of power, often vying for dominance over one another. Death This Grand Alliance encompasses the forces of the undead and other beings that thrive in death. The factions within Death seek to expand their influence over the living and manipulate the cycles of life and death. They serve

1188-486: Is naturally a strong emphasis on realism and current events. Military organizations are typically secretive about their current wargames, and this makes designing a professional wargame a challenge. The data the designers require, such as the performance characteristics of weapons or the locations of military bases, are often classified, which makes it difficult for the designers to verify that their models are accurate. Secrecy also makes it harder to disseminate corrections if

1254-400: Is proven to be realistic. For historical wargames, this usually means being able to accurately recreate a certain historical battle. Validating military wargames is sometimes tricky as they are typically used to simulate hypothetical future scenarios. Whereas the rules of chess are relatively simple, and those of Go even simpler, with the complexity of these games an emergent property of

1320-502: Is that the referee must be very knowledgeable in warfare and impartial, else they may issue unrealistic or unfair rulings. Another way to address complexity is to use a computer to automate some or all of the routine procedures. Video games can be both sophisticated and easy to learn, which is why computer wargames are more popular than tabletop wargames. Every wargame must have a sense of scale , so that it may realistically simulate how topography, distance, and time affect warfare. Scale

1386-431: Is to keep the learning curve small. Recreational wargamers tend to have a lot of wargaming experience (it is usually considered a hardcore hobby), so learning a complicated new wargame is easy if it is similar enough to ones they've already played. By contrast, military officers typically have little or no wargaming experience. A second reason is that the technical data required to design an accurate and precise model, such as

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1452-449: Is to prepare officers for real warfare. Recreational wargames only need to be as realistic as it pleases the players, so in most recreational wargames the emphasis is on verisimilitude, i.e. the satisfactory appearance of realism. In any case, no wargame can be perfectly realistic. A wargame's design must make trade-offs between realism, playability, and fun, and function within the constraints of its medium. Fantasy wargames arguably stretch

1518-414: Is usually expressed as a ratio, e.g. a scale of 1:1000 indicates that 1 cm on the game map represents 10 m (1,000 cm). In miniature wargaming, scale is more often expressed as the height of a model of a human measured from the base of its feet up to the eyes or top of the head (e.g. 28mm). Military wargames typically aim to model time and space as realistically as is feasible, so everything in

1584-638: The Fog of War is built into the game by representing units with upright wooden blocks that are marked on only one face, which is oriented towards the player who owns the block. The opponent cannot see the markings from his position. The first such block wargame was Quebec 1759 by Columbia Games (previously named Gamma Two Games), depicting the campaign surrounding the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Because of their nature, cards are well suited for abstract games, as opposed to

1650-471: The Franco-Prussian War , wargaming was widely adopted by military officers in other countries. Civilian enthusiasts also played wargames for fun, but this was a niche hobby until the development of consumer electronic wargames in the 1990s. A professional wargame is a wargame that is used by a military as a serious tool for training or research. A recreational wargame is one played for fun, often in

1716-498: The Avatars. Warhammer Age of Sigmar Warhammer Age of Sigmar is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop that simulates battles between armies by using miniature figurines. Games are typically played on a relatively flat surface such as a dining table, bespoke gaming table, or an area of floor. The playing area is often decorated with models and materials representing buildings and terrain. Players take turns taking

1782-774: The Battalion system, objectives, and the introduction of a new Path to Glory narrative campaign. Age of Sigmar is set in a universe known as the Mortal Realms, a collection of diverse realms each characterized by the eights winds of magic. The Mortal Realms were formed from the remnants of the "World That Was," which was destroyed during the End Times of the Warhammer Fantasy universe. The realms are interconnected by magical portals known as Realmgates, allowing for travel and conflict between them. Realms: Age of Sigmar emphasises

1848-482: The Mortal Realms. The forces of Order strive to counteract the chaos and destruction wrought by their enemies. Soon to be removed faction: Warhammer Age of Sigmar was widely criticised by the fanbase upon release for replacing the setting and gameplay of its predecessor, Warhammer Fantasy Battle . With the advent of the game's Second Edition, reception towards the game has improved, with it being cited by PC Gamer as being "close to its former glory". Realm War

1914-542: The Reiksguard: Helborg’s skill is as legendary as his moustache is magnificent. You can re-roll any failed hit rolls when attacking with the Runefang so long as you have a bigger and more impressive moustache than your opponent. Escapist Magazine noted that such ridiculous rules could easily be exploited since nothing in the rules said the moustache had to be real and suggested players buy novelty moustaches to satisfy

1980-692: The US Navy do not accept this. Likewise, activities like paintball and airsoft are often classified as combat sports . In contrast however the War Olympics also calls itself “the international army games” and often is referred to as wargaming colloquially. Modern wargaming was invented in Prussia in the early 19th-century, and eventually the Prussian military adopted wargaming as a tool for training their officers and developing doctrine. After Prussia defeated France in

2046-410: The agenda of other factions. In early periods of Age of Sigmar - specifically First Edition - armies could be built from multiple factions within the same Alliance (e.g. Stormcast Eternals, Seraphon, and Sylvaneth), with an allegiance corresponding to that particular Grand Alliance but not to any of the individual factions. In more recent editions, armies are built mostly from individual factions (e.g.

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2112-617: The battlefield are represented by miniature models, as opposed to abstract pieces such as wooden blocks or plastic counters. Likewise, the battlefield itself is represented by model terrain, as opposed to a flat board or map; naval wargames are often played on a floor because they tend to require more space than a tabletop. Most miniature wargaming is recreational because issues of scale get in the way of realism. Miniature wargaming can be more expensive and time-consuming than other forms of wargaming. Furthermore, most manufacturers do not sell ready-to-play models, they sell boxes of model parts, which

2178-413: The battlefield inside computer memory, but employing the computer to play the role of game master by storing game rules and unit characteristics, tracking unit status and positions or distances, animating the game with sounds and voice and resolving combat. Flow of play is simple: each turn, the units come up in a random order. Therefore, the more units an opponent has, the more chance he will be selected for

2244-410: The combatants fight in a familiar and credible way. For instance, Warhammer Age of Sigmar has wizards and dragons, but the combat is mostly based on medieval warfare (spearmen, archers, knights, etc.). Some are also set in a hypothetical future or counterfactual past, to simulate, for example, a "World War Three" or rebellion of colonists on Mars. A wargame's scenario describes the circumstances of

2310-459: The combatants may wield and the environment they fight in. A historical setting accurately depicts a real historical era of warfare. Among recreational wargamers, the most popular historical era is World War 2. Professional military wargamers prefer the modern era. A fantasy setting depicts a fictional world in which the combatants wield fictional or anachronistic armaments, but it should be similar enough to some historical era of warfare such that

2376-530: The complexity also makes wargames difficult to enjoy, but some players enjoy high realism, so finding a balance between realism and simplicity is tricky when it comes to recreational wargames. One way to solve the problem of complexity is to use a referee who has the discretion to arbitrate events, using whatever tools and knowledge they deem fit. This solution is popular with military instructors because it allows them to apply their own expertise when they use wargames to instruct students. The drawback of this approach

2442-498: The concept of play-by-email gaming, however the presentation and actual capabilities are completely different. They have been designed to replicate the look and feel of existing board or miniatures wargames on the computer. The map and counters are presented to the user who can then manipulate these, more-or-less as if he were playing the physical game, and send a saved file off to his opponent, who can review what has been done without having to duplicate everything on his physical set-up of

2508-426: The condition. Other such rules included re-rolls for players pretending to ride and talk to an imaginary horse, screaming a guttural warcry, and keeping a straight face when their opponent tries to make them laugh. Some contemporary reviews were highly critical of such rules saying that while they may have been intended as jokes to encourage roleplaying, they opened up players to ridicule. The second edition of AoS

2574-472: The deck is merely one of the most important elements of the game. The term "wargame" is rarely used in the video gaming hobby; the term "strategy game" is preferred. "Computer wargame" distinguishes a game from a "tabletop wargame". Computer wargames have many advantages over traditional wargames. In a computer game, all the routine procedures and calculations are automated. The player needs only to make strategic and tactical decisions. The learning curve for

2640-406: The definition of wargaming by representing fictional or anachronistic armaments, but they may still be called wargames if they resemble real warfare to the satisfaction of the players. For example, Warhammer Fantasy Battle has wizards and dragons, but the bulk of the armaments are taken from medieval warfare (spearmen, knights, archers, etc.). Validation is the process by which a given wargame

2706-489: The evolving strategic state of the board, wargames contrarily tend to have very sophisticated rules as a matter of their commitment to representing the concrete realities of (various kinds of) warfare. Generally speaking, the more realistic a wargame seeks to be, the more complicated its rules are. For example, chess pieces only have a few rules determining their behaviour, such as how and when they are allowed to move or capture based on their type and board location, providing

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2772-716: The game lies in understanding how your units work together and exploiting synergies to use them as a cohesive army. The rules and Warscrolls are free, and can be downloaded from the Games Workshop website or viewed in the Age of Sigmar app. Each faction in Age of Sigmar is a part of one of four super-factions, called Grand Alliances. In the lore, factions within a Grand Alliance are generally united by common goals and aims. Conflict still occurs within Grand Alliances, however, as each faction will often have its own agenda that clashes with

2838-429: The game, and respond. Some allow for both players to get on-line and see each other's moves in real-time. These systems are generally set up so that while one can play the game, the program has no knowledge of the rules, and cannot enforce them. The human players must have a knowledge of the rules themselves. The idea is to promote the playing of the games (by making play against a remote opponent easier), while supporting

2904-447: The global state of the game is often governed by extensive non-local rules representing exigencies like seasonal weather or supply lines. This makes wargames difficult to learn, as it can be difficult to simply begin playing without already understanding a great deal about how to do so. Even experienced wargamers usually play with their rulebook on hand, because the rules for most wargames are too complex to fully memorize. For many people,

2970-517: The industry (and reducing copyright issues) by ensuring that the players have access to the actual physical game. The four main programs that can be used to play a number of games each are Aide de Camp , Cyberboard , Vassal and ZunTzu . Aide de Camp is available for purchase, while the other three are offered free. Vassal is in turn an outgrowth of the VASL (Virtual ASL ) project, and uses Java , making it accessible to any computer that can run

3036-485: The information he judges the players should know. Some recreational wargames use a referee too, often referring to them as "the GameMaster" (e.g. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader ). The fog of war is easy to simulate in a computer wargame, as a virtual environment is free of the physical constraints of a tabletop game. The computer itself can serve as the referee. Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming where units on

3102-429: The local conditions (nature of the terrain, etc.). Dan Verssen Games is a specialist designer and publisher of card games for several genres, including air combat and World War II and modern land combat. Also, card driven games (CDGs), first introduced in 1993, use a deck of (custom) cards to drive most elements of the game, such as unit movement (activation) and random events. These are, however, distinctly board games,

3168-428: The narrative aspect of the wargaming experience, encouraging the play of story-driven scenarios, recreation of battles from lore, and player-created stories. The ruleset is designed to make the game easy to learn but hard to master. Basic rules of play are simple and quick to understand, but more advanced mechanics can be found in unit-specific "Warscrolls" that detail more rules and stats of the individual unit. The art of

3234-448: The next turn. When a unit comes up, the commander specifies an order and if offensive action is being taken, a target, along with details about distance. The results of the order, base move distance and effect to target, are reported, and the unit is moved on the tabletop. All distance relationships are tracked on the tabletop. All record-keeping is tracked by the computer. Remote computer assisted wargames can be considered as extensions to

3300-417: The performance characteristics of a fighter jet, is often classified. The exact definition of "wargame" varies from one writer to the next and one organization to the next. To prevent confusion, this section will establish the general definition employed by this article. A wargame must have a setting that is based on some historical era of warfare so as to establish what armaments, unit types, and doctrines

3366-423: The player is called a closed game. An open wargame has no secret information. Most recreational wargames are open wargames. A closed wargame can simulate the espionage and reconnaissance aspects of war. Military wargames often use referees to manage secret information. The players may be forced to sit in separate rooms, and communicate their orders with the referee in the game room, who in turn reports back only

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3432-434: The player is smaller, as the game can be played without mastering all its mechanics. The gameplay is faster, as a computer can process calculations much faster than a human. Computer wargames often have more sophisticated mechanics than traditional wargames thanks to automation. Computer games tend to be cheaper than traditional wargames because, being software, they can be copied and distributed very efficiently. It's easier for

3498-503: The players are expected to assemble and paint themselves. This requires skill, time, and money, but many players like the opportunity to show off their artistic skills. Miniature wargaming is often as much about artistry as it is about play. A board wargame is played on a board that has a more-or-less fixed layout and is supplied by the game's manufacturer. This is in contrast to customizable playing fields made with modular components, such as in miniature wargaming . In block wargaming ,

3564-552: The players, who expect a user-friendly interface, a reasonable learning curve, exciting gameplay, and so forth. By contrast, military organizations tend to see wargaming as a tool and a chore, and players are often bluntly obliged to use whatever is provided to them. Professional wargames that are arbitrated by an umpire or the players themselves (manual wargames) tend to have simple models and computations compared to recreational wargames. Umpires may even be allowed to make arbitrary decisions using their own expertise. One reason for this

3630-539: The same characters, themes, and models as its predecessor. The first edition of Age of Sigmar in 2015 replaced Warhammer Fantasy Battle . Another set released for the first edition was Spire of Dawn , which reused the High Elf and Skaven models from the Isle of Blood ( Warhammer 8th edition starter set). The initial release of AoS did not include point values for individual units—these were added later—and instead imbalance

3696-451: The simulation aspects of wargames. Traditional card games are not considered wargames even when nominally about the same subject (such as the game War ). An early card wargame was Nuclear War , a 'tongue-in-cheek game of the end of the world', first published in 1966 and still published today by Flying Buffalo . It does not simulate how any actual nuclear exchange would happen, but it is still structured unlike most card games because of

3762-463: The simulation conforms to a single scale. Recreational wargame designers, by contrast, tend to use abstract scaling techniques to make their wargames easier to learn and play. Tabletop miniature wargames , for instance, cannot realistically model the range of modern firearms, because miniature wargaming models are typically built to a scale between 1:64 and 1:120. At those scales, riflemen should be able to shoot each other from several meters away, which

3828-441: The soldiers and their armaments are described in detail. An example of a tactical-level games is Flames of War , in which players use miniature figurines to represent individual soldiers, and move them around on a scale model of the battlefield. At the operational level , the scenario is a military campaign, and the basic unit of command is a large group of soldiers. At this level, the outcomes of battles are usually determined by

3894-449: The specific conflict being simulated, from the layout of the terrain to the exact composition of the fighting forces to the victory conditions of the players. Historical wargames often re-enact historical battles. Alternatively, the game may provide fictional "what-if" scenarios. One challenge in the design of historical wargames is that the scenarios may be inherently unbalanced and present one side with an unwinnable situation. In such cases,

3960-475: The tactical combat games Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander , the strategic-level game Federation and Empire , the card-based tactical game Star Fleet Battle Force and the role-playing game Prime Directive . They also produce a large series of miniatures under the Starline 2400 and Starline 2500 label, as well as the biannual Captain's Log magazine. This wargame -related article

4026-421: The victory conditions may be adjusted for the disadvantaged side so that they can win simply by doing better than what happened historically. Some games simply concede that the scenario is imbalanced and urge players to switch sides and play again to compare their performance. It is easier to design a balanced scenario where all players have a fair chance of winning if it is fictionalized. Board wargames usually have

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4092-500: The wargame has already been delivered to the clients. Then there is the small player base. Whereas a commercial wargame might have thousands or even millions of players, professional wargames tend to have small player bases, which makes it harder for the designers to acquire feedback. Consequently, errors in professional wargame models tend to persist. Although commercial wargame designers study consumer trends and listen to player feedback, their products are usually designed and sold with

4158-414: The way it deals with its subject. In the late 1970s Battleline Publications (a board wargame company) produced two card games, Naval War and Armor Supremacy . The first was fairly popular in wargaming circles, and is a light system of naval combat, though again not depicting any 'real' situation (players may operate ships from opposing navies side-by-side). Armor Supremacy was not as successful, but

4224-551: The will of Nagash, the god of death. Destruction The Grand Alliance of Destruction consists of factions that embrace savagery and anarchy, often prioritizing violence and mayhem. The forces of Destruction are characterized by their primal instincts and their desire to reclaim the realms through brute force and unrelenting aggression. In one way or another they all worship Gorkamorka, the twin-headed god of destruction and savagery Order This Grand Alliance comprises factions dedicated to maintaining peace, stability, and civilization in

4290-612: Was released in 2018 following the Malign Portents event. It brought multiple significant changes to the rules, notably an overhaul of the summoning system, the elimination of reinforcement points , and the introduction of endless spells . The third edition of AoS was released in June 2021, following the Broken Realms campaign series - in which the status quo of the setting was drastically altered. The new edition featured an overhaul of

4356-419: Was to be mitigated by number of models. If one side started the game with one-third more models than the other, the smaller side could choose a "sudden death" win condition for itself. Summoning new units used the same mechanics as spellcasting and required the dedication of reinforcement points for each summonable unit. The initial release is notable for having included many absurd rules such as: Pride of

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