Simon Miller on the 20 sided Gamified Podcast

A brief intermission while I work on the next post about the 1813 in Spain Campaign in a Day...

Recoded late this Spring, I shot the breeze with Simon Miller (author of To the Strongest!, For King and Parliament, and the upcoming early18th century rules, Lust for Glory.  and my friend and 20 sided gamified podcast host, Jared Fishman. The episode was just released today. You can follow the link to the pod on Apple play, or search for the podcast on almost any site hosting same. I had a lot of fun doing the episode.  From the episode introduction:

Episode #111: Simon Miller- Innovator, Designer, and Wargamer!

Podcast Listeners- this episode was definitely a bucket list interview! For the next 90 minutes, enjoy our conversation with wargames author Simon Miller. Most well known for "To the Strongest", Simon is an experienced gamer and rules designer who, in my humble opinion, has done a lot for the world of ancient, medieval, and renaissance miniature wargaming. While TTS can be played in a competitive environment, it's one of those systems that lends itself to narrative games, and feels more like an ancient battle compared with the more geometric games of the 80s and 90s. Simon is a prolific collector and has massive armies, and is a consistent presenter and game master at wargaming conventions across the UK. Also- you'll get to relive my trauma of playing DBA (which don't get me wrong, I do like!) as a child in the early 90s! Enjoy the episode!!! Huge thanks to Peter Anderson, who co-hosted the episode, and introduced me to TTS roughly 10 years ago.

The rules that started it all...

30 free lists, can be downloaded directly

200+ lists in electronic format; buy once and all updates thereafter are free. 

The same for Medieval era

The rules that got my ECW armies on the table

Scotland, Ireland, and the like

Reports of many battles fought from this scenario e-book have been chronicled here on the blog; this book resulted in my Scots Covenanter Army!

I have this one, too; need to get ECW back on the tabletop!

and this one, too!

and this one as well!

Simon sells all of these in electronic and most in print format on his e-store:

https://bigredbatshop.co.uk/

Other products include many gridded and non gridded gaming mats, chits for his rules systems, various coins for use as victory medals, chits to replace cards in the game for those who prefer them, and a lot more. 

I regularly listen to the 20 sided gamified podcast while painting. Some other episodes that might be of particular interest to readers of this blog ( alittle shameless self promtion) include:

Episode 97: My Favorite Napoleonic Campaign System: Russ Lockwood, Peter Anderson, and the Joy of the Game

Listeners- if you like Napoleonic wargaming, or continue to search for that campaign system that actually WORKS- you're in luck! Check out our latest episode with author Russ Lockwood, who designed the wonderful set of wargames rules, Snappy Nappy! He's been featured all over the place, including on the incomparable Little Wars TV, and his games are played all over the place both domestically and internationally. More than anything- Snappy Nappy, which I've both played and run myself, gives a feel for a Napoleonic campaign better than any other game I know of. Played across numerous tables, armies literally march across the room quickly, and players need to use a map to keep track of where they are which objectives they're heading towards! Also featured on this episode is my dear friend and wargaming confidant Peter Anderson, who is a multi-time award winning GM at HMGS cons, and simply put, one of the best GMs I know. He is warm, kind, and a living encyclopedia for anything related to the Napoleonic age. Each year, Peter runs or helps run a Snappy Nappy campaign in a day at the Portal, an awesome gaming store in Manchester CT, about 45mins from 20SG HQ. Peter is also an author himself, having wrote several rulesets/supplements for Piquet and Piquet related systems.

Episode #2: The Antidote to IGO-UGO- Brent Oman and the Field of Battle Series

On today's pod, Brent Oman, author of the tremendous Field of Battle series of miniature wargames, and most recently, Battle Command, comes on to discuss his theories on gaming, game design, and the rewards of rules' authoring. It was a fun conversation and covered everything from Brent's earliest forays into gaming, as well as the plans he has for future publications. If you've never played Piquet or any of Brent's Field of Battle games, this podcast will give you great insight into why you should head immediately to https://www.piquetwargames.com/ and poke around! Please enjoy the show!

Snappy Nappy comes to the 20 Sided Gamified Podcast (and Aspen-Essling with BBB)

 

My good freind, Jared Fishman, is the host of the 20 sided gamified podcast, which now has almost 100 recorded episodes.  I often times listen to his episodes while I am painting, which has had a positive effect on productivity! Last month, Jared did an episode with Russ Lockwood, author of the Snappy Nappy rules, and released the  podcast a few days ago. I fed my narcissism by listening to it while painting some largely nekkid ancient Libyans, and found it fairly entertaining despite having been there, LOL. It largely concerns SN and our campaigns in a day events,  which regular readers will be aware are all chronicled on the appropriate page of this blog.  So if you are so inclined, check it out!

By the way, literally the second episode Jared produced was his interview with Brent Oman, author of the Field of Battle rules, You can find that episode here. Brent just released his Battle Command : Ancients to Medieval, which I have to get onto the table later this Spring. 

 

 In the interim Jared, who now also lives in Litchfield county Connecticut, and I were discussing the game he recently ran using the Napoleonic Scenario book for Chris Pringle's Bloody Big Battles, namely Aspern-Essling, 1809. Following are some pictures he sent of the game, using his 15 mm Napoleonics. 

 

The red stars are objectives, to right being the village of Aspern and the Gemende Au, and to the far left (stone walls, signifying the formidable granary there).Note the many markers on the Austrians; Jared tells me the French rolled a lot of boxcars for combat on the first turn (BBB uses 2 d6, with a 12 being the best possible roll - 1 chance in 36!). 

Fierce combat at Aspern!

Essling was no neglected, either!

Run away! The colored pins denote which Corps the troops belong to. 

Grenadiers, Angriff!

French Reinforcements!

Austrians press the attack on Aspern and the Gemende Au, threatening Napoleon's bridgehead over the Danube! 

An island of blue in a sea of white!

The battle for Aspern rages on!

The Kaiserlicks seem to have lost interest in Essling.

The French retain conrol of Asopern!

Spent, the Austrians withdraw to lick their wounds. Napoleon has prevailed at Aspern-Essling! Kaiser Franz remains obstinate about negotiating for peace, however.