New book: Modern Crises Scenarios for Matrix Wargames

“In Matrix Games, knowledge, imagination, and persuasiveness dominate. Both the referee and the players find their greatest success by drawing on their storytelling skills. In many ways, Matrix Games boil down the art of gaming to its essence”. Peter Perla

Invented by Chris Engle, Matrix Games are an innovative way of wargaming situations and conflicts that traditional wargaming methods find hard to model. Since the book Matrix Games for Modern Wargaming was first published in 2014, they have made a massive impact on professional military education, operational analysis and training. 

This book was written in response to requests for a more comprehensive account of how the Matrix Game methodology has developed, plus more real examples of such games from the active edge of their professional application in the UK. 

This book includes six more scenarios to demonstrate different aspects of the method:

• Baltic Challenge: NATO / Russian Posturing in the Baltic Sea    
• Mare Nostrum: Russian/ NATO Posturing in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean
• The Nine-Dash Line: Incidents in the South China Sea
• Election in Centralia
• DPRK: Conflict on the Korean Peninsula
• De Valera's War: Irish Neutrality in WW2 by John Basset OBE

 This book is published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of its ongoing work to document current practise in wargaming. 

New professional wargaming book: The Confrontation Analysis Handbook, How to Resolve Confrontations by Eliminating Dilemmas

“This book makes an important contribution to the development of professional wargaming practise”

Dr Peter Perla

with the foreword by Dr Peter Perla.

 

   Confrontation Analysis, also called dilemma analysis or drama theory, was originally devised by Professor Nigel Howard in 1997 as a way of modelling crises. Although used by UK General Rupert Smith in his 2006 book The Utility of Force, the method fell into obscurity. After 10 years work in the defence sector, the method has been developed into a tool to model and help resolve international confrontations.

     This handbook aims to document the method and equip the reader to apply Confrontation Analysis as an operational analysis technique to structure, understand and think through multi-party interactions such as negotiations. It presents examples how to apply the method, with guidance on the steps to take. It is full of advice based on years of experience of the authors applying the method in the professional arena. All the case studies in this book have been used for real training and research. 

      

The chapters include examples ranging from the Iranian nuclear weapons crises 2010-15, to the Euro crisis of 2011. Each example is explained in detail to help the reader apply the method for themselves.

Two variants of the method are included; the first uses the example of the Libyan Civil War (2011) to show how to quantifies the dilemmas to help users make judgements. The second uses user generated cards to map out the conflict space. The latter is illustrated by a wargame based on near future cyber conflict around the South China Sea. 

This handbook is published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of its ongoing work to document current practise in wargaming. 

The Old West Skirmish Wargames rules now republished

Wargaming Western Gunfights

Steve Curtis, Mike Blake and Ian Colwill

   For conducting skirmishes in miniature    

of gunfights

and cavalry against hostiles

and many other frontier incidents

Embodying

The code of the West

As well as

The many myths created by film and story

Or

How to make

The Old West live again!

226 pages with much previously unpublished material