June 2024

Well we are in. Finally. Almost complete, but a game room exists with tables and shelves!

I’ve been writing a lot more narrative. Using solo games, RPGs and tactical scale games to generate stories as they happen. Im enjoying it a lot.

The Videos keep happening, Now that I have a real room and space to play. I hope to get some monsters up and return to live play.

 

November 2023

Wow. ANNNNNNDDDD….still building. The good news is I have adapted to playing a lot of smaller titles single map items and had a lot of fun doing it. This past 18 months has also shown me the challenges a lot of folks have with games that have more than one map or an excess of charts and tables. It al becomes a bit overwhelming and crowded. I no empathize more !!

With the reduced space and area comes a challenge in doing nay real live play stuff, just due to noise light conditions etc.  As such I’m leaning in AAR videos of the action as it progresses and attempting to where I have time and quiet to share about about the game play and mechanics. The major news is a I did create a substack, it is free and it will hold all my narrative content. I felt that splitting this off would allow me to be able to split my efforts more concretely. AARs, and opinions on the blog. Stories, narrative and such on the substack. With of course Youtube being for vid. I’ve been approached to do collaborative works, but I just do not have the bandwidth at the moment to dig into those types of things right now. The narrative stuff is now here: https://bigboard.substack.com/ 

Due to fees and subscription costs for apps on the blog, I have de linked Tumblr, and some other social pages. I repost all content to facebook at the moment, and will share some stuff on X aka Twitter every now and then, I find that to be a big time. Instagram if I get an urge to do some image edits and do ‘art shots’ they will show up there too. Onwards and upwards #rolldice

July 2022

So yeah busy days. 2021, went in a blur. The only big news is that we left Austin and moved the BigBoard to temp quarters in a barn in Kerrville while we build. It will be late 2023 before we settle into new digs. So small format gaming is the name of the game for the time being.

Otherwise its the same thing, AARs, video, narrative and the odd live stream.
#rolldice

July 2020

I wont even be so trite as to mention what we all know about what a dumpster fire 2020 has been so far. Wow. Lets just do a quick update and look forward to 2021.
1549 videos on youtube, 5,000+ subs here, and 4100+ on YT. Thanks guys and gals [the 2% of you subscribers who are female]. You can surf 40k images, continue to read narrative and scroll for my take on various games. I’m hoping to get games played vs owned up past the 50% mark this year
This year its been a pleasure to welcome guest posters and writers. The more the merrier! If you want to take a stab at writing or video, but dont want to commit to running your own channel, I’d love to host wargame content from just about anyone! Send me a message or an email! 
This year and the last half of 2019, I settled into primarily blog write ups and live streams. I also now have a consistent 10 point system for offering my impressions on a game, and using them as a guide post to providing my feedback. Facebook now has 2 additional groups – one for Africa themed wargames of all eras and one for the WW2 Pacific Theater.  I’ve created these to allow more focussed chat and information sharing, which wont be diluted by the constant posts on the primary bigboard page. I’ve closed the MMP-TheGamers page on facebook. Zero engagement from players and members there, so it goes in 12 days.

On the review copy front, I continue to receive some ‘free stuff’ and offers of review copies. So I’ve had to for a variety of reasons tweak my prior policy. See 2019’s conditions they still stand. But I cant commit when it will be reviewed and obviously no promises on what sort of content you get for it – shrink rip, play through, or multi video series. Your game quality will drive that volume of content.  I will always endeavour to make very clear that it is a review copy, and of course I always will try and buy at least something from the provider where possible. #rolldice

March 2019

Well darn! How time flies. with over 4000 articles, nearly 20k images and well over a 1,000 videos, you might find something of interest here I hope. Plus daily posts to social media related to our hobby. There are now three new special interest groups on Facebook – Modern Warfare, Great Battles of History [Ancients through to the ACW], and an Eastern Front Wargames group.
The latest offering for you that appears on the BigBoard has been a handful of voice recorded interviews with noted designers to explore the ‘how & why’ of how they design, and their creative process. I’ve enjoyed these immensely, as we avoid the tired tropes of ‘what was your first wargame played?’

For Publishers and Developers, of late I’ve received a lot of complimentary titles to review. To date, I’ve given my forthright opinion on them, then for the most part offered them as giveaway after play, or sell them and fund my review copies from publishers I have no connection with. Just note that I cannot promise a time when a game may play nor the outcome of my opinion.  The intent is still to purchase something from you so there is no obligation felt here, but funds are not unlimited.

The important thing for me is always the passion of the designer, the process they go thru and the fresh ideas that are coming from new publishers, and new designers. There is something magical about break out designs, the step around tried and true conventions and explore new ideas, new mechanics and new production methods.  Even if these games are not perfect we should honor the effort and the zeal these folks have with a few shekels so we can see how they evolve.

July 2017.

I’m still here. Looks like you are too! Welcome. Enjoy the content and let me know what you like and why or why you don’t.

I may not change, but I’ll keep your ideas in mind!

A recent new feature here is Live Play,[ link to sample]. Each live broadcast is tweeted  and posted to  Bigboard Facebook page and Twitter . By following either of those two spots you will receive notification of a pending live event. Usually there is not more than an hour or so notices as schedules are fungible at best.

July 4th 2014 Update

A quick summary of what you will find here:

• A place for narrative to arise from the cardboard chits and dice rolls exposed in #wargames.
• A place where we explore #MilitaryHistory from all eras.
• Comment about #games, game designs and my likes dislikes; usually raw and unvarnished.
• A place where the experiences of each title are captured in video, digital images and words, blended together in unique ways to capture the essence of the experience in the moment.
• Experimental image capture and story sharing
• The odd tutorial and lame attempts at geeky humour.

What does the Big Board cover?

Generally writing and posting is derivative of a loose set of Themes-

The Chronological Walk thru of WWII via the game library. Exploring every major conflict or battle and every major theatre with at least one title per element, then sharing that experience in a variety of formats.

Play by Poll (PbP)  where readers vote on what to do in an umpired experience of a given title. Always a rip roaring bit of fun, you do not need to know the rules, just provide your sage counsel via Poll!

Side by Side (SbS) Two titles from the same battle/theatre or conflict explored and compared. OR two copies of the same game played by a group of players.

Historical exploration ; looking at topics such as the Rise of Caesar as a General compared to and against Pompey, or the Battles of Caesar in Gaul.

Using Operational or strategic titles to create fresh conflicts in tactical titles where they translate.

Lots of news and Battle Reports from other writers, other players as well as third party reviews.

Other fun stuff too!

If you have a desire for a game design to be reviewed/previewed/captured pictorially or videoed, this can happen. Drop a note to bigboardgaming AT gmail DOT com etc… , no free games accepted but discounts appreciated ;). At the very least I promise to buy something from you, this keeps me guilt free.

Jan 2014 Update

Find Video@ my Youtube Channel  ,

See incremental stuff on Google+ and Facebook!

Well WTH, may as well have a Tumbler page too right! 😉

That is it….except twitter, but that is just a repost of this blog as is Tumblr. I do find pics look mighty good on the Tumblr format!

October 2013

Welcome to the new Big Board Gaming location! – www.bigboardgaming.com

All images are now locally hosted for faster loading, less broken links! Expect some new presentation modes as we gain even finer control over how content is present in this self hosted blog. I took the extra step and expense to do this so that I can more fully express the narrative and explore new means of sharing historical board gaming with you.

Enjoy the blog!

Update 2012.

After a wonderful 12 months of posting, lots of elements of the blog have evolved. We have more contributors, more people sharing content, a lot more imagery of in game situations and well as a little artistic image capture. The blog following has grown nicely for its unique content and style.

This site is really for people to share their in game play, and thoughts on the games they play. The Big Board’s intent in that regard is the same as always; explore history, the games and have some fun!

Inception:

For a start, I write terribly. Typically I write as a stream of consciousness and then go back and try and make it readable.  My writing tone can sometimes come across as abrasive or may straight forward…. Well that’s just how I write. I’m a pussy cat really in the #wargame world.

I’m starting this blogging  about wargames effort really to capture a few key things:

Firstly to capture my experiences in re creating famous and not so famous conflicts using military simulations  [wargames ]as a medium, and sometimes drawing a fictional narrative out of that.

This all started a long time ago in a land far away. In fact in Australia. Where I had a crush on Napoleon.  My mother bought me a board game from Avalon Hill called Waterloo.  As I read about that era  I would play the game as a 12 year old and imagine what happened, why it happened and what might have been. Never could get over those crazy high stacks though….

Furthermore and secondly how did the leaders make choices? What did the soldiers think? What were the smells, and sounds like? What was leadership, being a General all about anyway? What did courage look like? Who was afraid? Who were cowards? Why did men fight in such conditions?  Well as a 12 year thats what my adult brain now discerns that I wanted to be thinking about!;). Flash forward 30+ years.

My reading led me to re connect with conflict simulations , or board wargames. My young kids were studying ancient Greece, Roman and other ancient cultures. This leads me to my next reason for blogging.

As I had read much (ok some) of the classics in the past, but not with any purpose or insight. So I started over,  Herodotus,Thucydides, Livy,  Plato….. Got no where fast.

So I switched tacks and read books about the books. I had all the source material to reference so reading these other books allowed me to compare and contrast writers assumptions and opinions against my own. Blogging allows me to share some of that.

Now I was better armed to help the children, which is another reason for my interest in blogging here. My eldest, Davis then said to me that he was going to be Alexander the Great in a Grade 1 class presentation.  I made a short movie of the battle of Issus for him, for his presentation. A light bulb went off. I wonder if there are still simulations around for all this great history?

Well the rest is history as they say. I reconnected with the board game simulation and board games in general. So here I will add new content, links to my movies I make on www.youtube.com/user/hipshot0710/featured  ,  re post some of my articles or stories from BGG, and keep this as a hub.

The final reason for blogging here is that it becomes an archive of my experiences, with sims, with history, with my family etc.   We will just keep it fun and hopefully interesting to people with are already in the hobby or exploring the hobby today.

Finally my children are all starting to expand their horizons beyond Star Wars Lego play, into some of the simpler board games and I can see that sometimes it holds sway over that dam XBOX and Call of Duty (not a bad shooter but nothing like the old Operation Flashpoint). So there is hope yet!

Well that is likely too much information.

Welcome to The Big Board.