One of the results of retiral, is that I now have more free time. And I have used part of that time to revisit some of the many (unfinished) gaming ideas I have had. One trigger was me finally getting around to acquiring a 6′ x 4′ table for my games room that I considered was big enough to host some figure gaming if I wanted. The challenge, of course, was deciding what type of game.

I have always been a sucker for tactical level boardgames. By ‘tactical’, I mean games where the basic unit is an individual soldier, or games where the basic unit is a squad (section), a platoon, or a company. However, my most commonly played tactical games are at the squad level. So, that’s what I’m going to do: create my own tactical, squad-level, wargame. It will start as a boardgame, but hopefully will convert to a miniatures format.

Of course, it’s going to be a long project and there’s no guarantee I will finish it. But the journey is part of the pleasure.

This time, instead of going straight to one of my old design ideas, it struck me that it would be helpful to do a bit more analysis of the reason for the project.

Given that I play and enjoy games at this level, why do I want to create my own?

Part of the answer is that each of the games I play and enjoy — to varying degrees — has something missing, or does something wrong, or has several things missing, or has several things wrong. In this context ‘missing’ and ‘wrong’ are used according to my understanding and perspective.

So, instead of kicking things off with an idea for a game turn sequence or combat resolution or morale or fatigue, I plan on doing a series of short articles about tactical level games focusing on what I don’t like about them.

If I am able to realize the plan, I’ll update this post with links to each of the games covered.