Nifty Stuff

First of all, I didn't create this. I noticed it being used by Bob McDonald (an old Booz, Allen and Hamilton colleague who lives in the area) at NOVAG's recent GAMECON one-day convention. So kudos to him for making such a streamlined and excellent concept. Bob was running Chain Reaction demos from Two Hour Wargames at the convention. (Chain Reaction reviewed here)

I am somewhat interested in Chain Reaction as it is the engine upon which ALL THINGS ZOMBIE is built, and having just received that (and having a lot of problems the reaction rules in that game), I was interested in learning the "guts" of Chain Reaction. First thing I noticed were these funky little paper kennels Bob M. had constructed, some of which with figures inside:



(click on the pictures to get a zoom in view)

Bob explained. He had created a very effective and simple hidden movement/activation system by keeping the REAL figures hidden (see the photo) from the view of the opposing side, and instead putting decoy tokens on the board. Bob's "theme" for this game (the demo was set in a Pulp-era urban setting) was "dogs and cats" from a dollar store.

Here are the tokens in action, showing hidden (or DECOY!) forces moving on the board, cats on one side and dogs on the other. Nobody is sure what is what and who is who.



Now, there's nothing new about using tokens for forces in wargames.. it's almost as old as the hills. Bob M. used a variant of this idea way back in the day when he was using little pieces of camoflauge nets (in scale) to represent hidden forces when he was teaching tactical lessons to army officers. In fact, if you think on it, those clever little metal soldiers are just that-- token representations of actual forces.. but this idea was cute and clever and elegant. I don't think I'll be using cats and dogs, per se, but I do think I'll adopt something like this for my Lilliput game, to bring hidden Lilliputian forces onto the battlefield.

Here's the battlefield with real figures on it: