Who doesn’t love a good slave revolt? All hail Spartacus. War by other means; addressing the other 7 M’s of waging war...

Was watching the most recent two episodes of Game of Thrones (DAMM good, almost as good as The Wire …and has the potential to equal The Wire, it if it (GoT) doesn’t go stupid - which, is always a possibility for a series) and I think the fog finally began to clear.

Khaleesi {Daenerys Targaryen}  (waring: spoiler alert) is on the move. She frees the most recent slave city by launching barrels of slave chains over the city walls. That, gets the slaves inside to a thinkin. And, puts into the city a fifth column. The rest is predictable – masters heads on pikes and what not. Khaleesi utilizes war by other means to take the city.

Back to war by other means. Why the three guests on GDB Episode XX? The combo of the three guests answers the question:

Herman: because he has the best ever strategic will model our hobby has produced with For the People

Train: he knows something about modeling unconventional conflict

Doughan: knows gaming, knows history, knows arbitraging risk.

Strategic will, unconventional conflict and arbritraging risk (and uncertainty) are at the heart of war by other means - and hybrid wars.

Something Mr.Herman and I discussed this week: winning the peace - something most of our games do not cover (other than the "They make a desert and call it peace approach" of our friends the Roman vis a vis Carthage) . Mark has a new game coming out sooner than later called Churchill which begins in 1943 (when Doughan said most WWII ETO games are already decided – the Germans only trying to manage the date when the bunker will fall … maybe push it by a month or two). Mark’s game is only about that – winning the peace; the combat is highly abstracted (similar to how the other 7 M’s of waging war is usually abstracted in our wargames). Churchill focusses more on the other 7 M's of combat (messge, media, mercs, money, mayhem, Mi5/Mi6 and Metterich (in this case). 

It will be interesting to see if other designers pick up on this – more war by other means, less emphasis on combat. I do think it is a way to make wargames more accessible and broaden the audience. Time will tell.

Of course, I still love playing the pure combat beasts (very recent example: It Never Snows), but always would rather play a one part  war by other means/one part combat (ex: Empires in Arms) beast. Many of Berg's designs come to mind. We'll continue to dive into this topic over the next few Guns, Dice, Butter episodes.

Related, I would also recommend Hybrid Warfare (by Williamson Murray and Peter Manoor). I've read two sections of the book so far - one on Rome's conquest of Germania (which caused me to pick up an old S&T game by the same name) and one on the American Revolutionary War. Very interesting coverage of each topic and a great peak into the other components of conflict that should be reflected in our strategic level wargames.

Currently, I'm working on getting GDB Episode XXI put together. Have the three segments sorted. Will preview the episode when I've recorded each segment. Shooting for mid May publish date. And, even have a great designer lined up for episode XXII.

So much for taking a break.