VCOW 2025 - session list as at 12/12/24

 

Michael D’Alessandro

WAKE ISLAND – THE ALAMO OF THE PACIFIC

Tbc                                                                                                                                          any

The VCOW virtual battlefield tour!

 

Jim Roche

NE OBLIVISCARIS

2 hours                                                                                                                                    any

Ne Obliviscaris is the motto of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It translates as Never Forget. A good name for an Obituary Game.  The game explores the experience of young officers in the Regiment during the Second World War. Players will develop their own story, using a pack of playing cards to find what happens to them as well as a six-monthly history track. You may find yourself in Palestine or Sicily; in Normandy or a PoW camp, according to your choices. You may gain awards or ignominy, death or promotion. The final output is your Obituary. Did you merit the London Times, or merely the Oban Times?

Equipment required includes a few printed pages, a pencil/pen, a pack of playing cards and a D6. A paper cut-out glengarry will be sent to participants, but is optional.

 

John Bassett

PARIS, MAY 1968

2 hours                                                                                                                                    4-6

A matrix game on the 1968 événements that almost toppled President de Gaulle.  La Beauté est dans la rue!  Is Prime Minister Pompidou the loyal deputy he seems to be?  What's Mitterand's game?  When will Marchais punch Cohn-Bendit?  And will General Massu order the French Army to save de Gaulle, a man he despises utterly?

All set in the Gauloises-tinged Paris of Françoise Hardy and Simone de Beauvoir.

 

Lewis Griffin

WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE MAD

90 minutes                                                                                                                   9-18

A narrative game to explore the future of AI.  Players, taking the roles of a pantheon of planetary influences, will propose headlines charting an unfolding narrative of AI development and impact. Jurors will assess headline plausibility (conditioned on previously accepted headlines) and random determination will gate which gets added to the timeline. Players compete for points based on headlines which push plausibility, are well aligned to their planetary area of concern and are well written.

 

John Curry

An introduction to cyberwarfare

1 hour                                                                                                                                      any

A lecture which will discuss historical case studies, current practise, and the future of cyberwarfare.

 

David Burden

Vertical Urban Wargame

2 hours                                                                                                                                    2-5

This will be a rerun of my 2023 session. It is an urban wargame in 10mm, with big multi-storey buildings and limited sight lines, and all you get to see is what your street-level view (delivered by mobile phone camera) tells you. The platoon commanders interact by Zoom voice channel with the company commander, who gets to see nothing! I'd like to do some data capture for the PhD so participants will be asked to sign participation forms and provide recorded feedback during and after the game.

 

David Burden

Matrix Game Simulation

2 hours                                                                                                                                    any

Computer simulations let us run military scenarios without players, whilst wargames are, of course, scenarios with players. This session will explore whether recent and expected advances in Large Language Models can provide the equivalent "simulation" for matrix type games. As well as discussing the how's and (especially) why's, participants will be invited to submit a matrix game prior to the session, and as many of these as possible will be run by the AI (without player participation) during the session, and the results discussed.

 

John Buckley

MIDWAY

1 hour                                                                                                                                      any

Midway in context - Carrier Operations and Tactics – an illustrated talk.

 

Ian Robinson

CASUALTY CLEARING STATION / MEDEVAC

90 minutes                                                                                                                               2-3

This will be an exploration of the treatment of battlefield casualties. Each turn, a number of casualties are incurred on the battlefield; the location of their wounds are determined, and a triage level is assigned. Treatment begins after transportation to a Unit Aid Post, at which a select number in need of urgent care are Medevac'd to a Casualty Clearing Station. This is staffed by surgical teams, each working in a dedicated operating theatre, with the current most critically wounded taken through to surgery. The duration of surgery depends on the location and nature of the wounds, but a random time element is also included, which models the potential for complications of surgical procedures. After surgery, the recovering wounded are given a hospital bed. The aim is to treat as many casualties as possible during the game and prevent them from reaching T4 status aka He's Dead, Jim.  1D10 and 1D6 are needed (although Google dice does the job  https://g.co/kgs/M7csi6E). The game will run off Google Drive and a Slide pack which I'll provide.