TauNoyen

Vertical Urban Wargame

 

The Vertical Urban Wargame (VUW) was inspired by a (misremembered) comment of veteran wargame designer Paddy Griffith that most of the wargames we play are horizontal – we are looking down at a flat map or tabletop, whereas they should be vertical – looking along at the tall trees and buildings in the view of the soldier on the ground.

VUW was created for the Wargame Development group’s Virtual Conference of Wargamers in Feb 2023. Since the conference is run purely on-line it was a good excuse to try the idea out.

Each player is in command of a recce vehicle, tank, or platoon group. However, the only  view they have is that from a smartphone placed at AFV height on the  tabletop height (see photos - the graininess adds to the realism!). Over a voice net (which like the video is provided by a consumer video conferencing service such as Jitsi or Zoom) they tell the umpire where they want to move, and the umpire moves the model and smartphone accordingly. If they see a potential target they can ask to fire and the umpire rolls the dice and determines any hits. A company commander has only the voice net and has to co-ordinate the activities of their sub-units to achieve the mission goal.

The enemy was under umpire control but conceivably this could be played as an oppositional game with enough phones and bandwidth. Although the rules were ostensibly developed from the Dropzone Commander hobby game (who also crucially make the pre-printed card buildings – only £70 for all in the photos), in practice the game was played in a fairly free-kriegsspiel style to keep up the tempo and to let players focus on challenges of urban navigation, situational awareness, target identification and command and control. For added complications the streets also had civilians who could easily be mistaken for enemy troops in the less than ideal conditions!

The game takes about 2 hours to play, including a recce phase to get players used to the environment, and then the combat phase. So far I've run it with 2 Blue teams of 2 people each (Pl Comd and Tk Comd) and a Coy Comdr and run Red myself as umpire. Next year (2026) I might be tempted to play 2 Blue vs 2 Red, but not sure if the house wifi will hold up! If you'd like to be considered for playing in a future game, or would like me to help you set up your own just get in touch.