OCS, OMG!

Soooooo..... I'm actually more of a collector than a wargamer. You see, I pretty much have almost every official ASL product, but have only played ASL Starter Kit 1. The same thing goes for Great Battles of History, Musket and Pike and the Operational Combat Series. The only games that I play with some consistency are ameritrash boardgames and then some Commands and Colours Ancients or Napoleonic.  Well, all this is about to change! My gaming resolution for 2015 was to play some OCS! Specifically DAK2. So what better way to begin than by playing Reluctant Enemies?!

Part of my games room with DAK2 & RE in all their glory

My two favourite theatres of WW2 are North Africa and the Pacific (probably because Australia was heavily involved in both). I have quite a number of games on the North African campaign, but the biggest is DAK2. This is touted as the Big Kahuna. It is also part of a rich series, which is constantly adding new titles. I hate learning new systems, so most of my games are part of a series or, failing that, different games by the same designer (I'm looking at you Zucker).  I have heard nothing but good things about OCS, so I decided to focus my efforts this year on learning the system and playing a few of the games in that series.

DAK2 in all its 5 map glory! Far in the distance you can just make out my shelf of North Africa games.

So why start with Reluctant Enemies? Well this is marketed as the "intro" game for OCS. It has a single map, 60 units, and comes with an example of play! I have finished my first read of the rulebook and pushed a few counters trying out concepts. Unfortunately I am working at the moment and am far away from my lovely gaming room (....and family), but come the weekend I hope to start playing through/with the example of play for Reluctant Enemies and then beginning pushing around counters for my self. Unfortunately this whole thing will be solo as my regular gaming mates aren't too keen on this type of thing. Fortunately, I'm quite happy to solo game and can do so without too much bias for one side or the other......although I suppose all bias is in some way self deluded. Wish me luck!

Reluctant Enemies partially set up. Also some dog toys (I share the room with our dog)

A New Beginning....

By way of introduction, I am a 30-something wargamer from Newcastle, NSW. I initially started gaming in the late 80's with all the usual suspects - D&D, Battletech, Car Wars, etc. My interests then shifted to the world of miniature wargaming. Like most 14 year olds who play miniature games, I was taken in by GW. We played the original Rogue Trader 40K rules and then 2nd edition. The change to 3rd edition 40K killed the hobby for me as I had to scrap my substantial Eldar Harlequin army.....which just ceased to exist!  I dabbled for a number of years with Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition, before a number of decisions by GW made me vow never to buy into another one of their systems (except 3rd Ed Space Hulk).

I tried Flames of War for a while and some 15mm Napoleonics using General de Brigade, but I was unable to commit to the "hobby" side due to serious time constraints imposed by work. So things stayed....until I discovered Boardgames and then, more specifically, Wargames in 2010.

Over the last four years I have accumulated a sizeable collection of board/war games and have a small cohort of regular gaming mates. Our interests as a group usually lie more with the "ameritrash" style boardgames (X-wing, Descent, Commands & Colours, Sails of Glory, etc).  My wargaming is exclusively solo. It includes, amongst others, ASL Starter Kit, Lock 'n Load, Great Battles of History and the Musket & Pike series by Ben Hull.  This year I plan to take on the Operational Combat Series by Dean Essig (specifically DAK2)!

This blog is mainly for my own consumption. I would never presuppose that anyone else on the internet would be the least bit interested in my ramblings, but my ramblings do help me organise my thoughts. The focus will be on any projects relating to gaming that I may have going on. The output will be sporadic and will be determined by my need to put something down in "writing".  I do welcome anyone else who is reading this to keep reading in the future, and we'll see where this goes.