Wargames To Go
42 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 months ago - ★★★★★ - 39 ratingsMark Johnson's irregular podcast about small wargames.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Wargames To Go 25.2 - SDHistCon 2023
November 14, 2023 03:42 - 1 hour - 55.1 MBCome join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx One week ago I was at my first SDHistCon. I had a good time, would like to share that experience via this audio convention report...and still there manages to be a slender but worthwhile connection to my Wars of Scotland subject. For anyone who only found me for the convention report, I start with a brief overview of me & my podcast(s). Then I get into the convention itself, some of the gre...
Wargames To Go 25.1 - Wars of Scotland (Intro)
October 31, 2023 11:06 - 51 minutes - 33.1 MBEpisode geeklist Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx Guess what? This little podcast is now ten years old. I'd been doing my other one about euro boardgames even longer, and in 2013 I decided to branch off this other show about wargaming. I'd started in this hobby as a kid wargamer in 1979. I never completely left it, but my hobby in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s shifted more to roleplaying, Magic: the Gathering, and then...
Wargames To Go 24 - Operation Market Garden
August 30, 2023 15:00 - 2 hours - 89.9 MBEpisode geeklist Come join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.gg/vxEG9bMPdx Times are approximate Introduction (0:30) Operation Market Garden overview (12:00) Nils Johansson transcribed/read interview (16:30) David Thompson & Michael Tiller interview (37:00) Mark's travels, movies, books, games about Market Garden (1:29:00) I'd been saving the famous battles of Operation Market Garden for when I expected to live nearby in the Netherlands. ...
Wargames To Go 23.2 - Spanish-American War (part 2, with Jason Perez)
November 07, 2022 04:09 - 2 hours - 78 MBCome join the new Wargames To Go (and Boardgames To Go) discord server https://discord.io/BoardgamesToGo For a couple reasons, this episode has been my white whale, almost taking me down. I would certainly understand if any of my listeners gave up on me along the way, thinking the podcast had faded away entirely, or that I wasn't interested in wargaming any more. Not true! Listeners of my other podcast--the longstanding BoardgamesToGo about family strategy boardgames--know that I've still ...
Wargames To Go 23.1 - Spanish American War (part 1, with Joe Schmidt)
March 18, 2022 23:22 - 1 hour - 48.2 MBEpisode geeklist Joe Schmidt (corsairjoe) Now I've gone back to my usual format where I explore a single topic in games, books, films, and whatever else I can find. The Spanish-American War is similar to a lot of topics I've dived into--it's something I felt like I knew something about, but not too much. Also matching the pattern, it's been a subject I thought would be rather small and self-contained...only to find out it has larger implications and resonances to today's world. I swea...
Wargames To Go 22.2 - Summer 2021 Magazine Games (C3i and Panzerschreck)
November 28, 2021 05:11 - 1 hour - 40.9 MBEpisode geeklist Isn't it tiresome when a podcaster starts by apologizing it's been so long since their last episode? So I won't do that. Here's the next one. My plans to spend the summer (now months past!) playing contemporary magazine wargames sort of worked, just more slowly and less completely than I'd originally planned. Whatever--I'm doing this for fun! The truth is, after vaccinations we were able to see some family and do some traveling that had been unavailable during the firs...
Wargames To Go 22.1 - Summer 2021 Magazine Games (1914 Eastern Front)
May 23, 2021 00:45 - 27 minutes - 16.1 MBEpisode geeklist As mentioned in my last episode, I've decided to do something different this summer. Breaking from my usual pattern of tackling a single subject with multiple games, movies, books, etc., now I'm giving myself a break. I'm just going to have fun playing some of the recent backlog of magazine wargames. I'm sure I'll read Wikipedia articles and such to give myself some historic education about the subjects, but I'm not going to get so deep. Where there are easy info sources ...
Wargames To Go 21.2 - Vietnam Battle of Hue
April 06, 2021 00:15 - 51 minutes - 31.8 MBEpisode geeklist Turns out Vietnam is just too big of a subject for a pair of podcast episodes. I decided to limit part 2 to just the Battle of Huế, saving more games & history for a future exploration. There are several reasons this battle is so well-represented in wargaming. In some ways it's the Bulge/Waterloo/Gettysburg of Vietnam. By reading Bowden's book on the subject and rewatching Full Metal Jacket, I felt I had a decent understanding of the history as-examined by four smaller ga...
Wargames To Go 21.1 - Vietnam War (part 1)
January 17, 2021 19:24 - 58 minutes - 47.1 MBEpisode geeklist My next exploration through smaller wargames is about the Vietnam War. This is something that was almost contemporary when I first started wargaming (1979), so that was too close. I stayed away for years, just as I'm not ready to play simulations about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now. I need some historical distance in order to process & understand what's going on. Unlike some other topics I've tackled, there are a LOT of books, games, and movies about this subjec...
Wargames To Go 20 - Strategic Air Command
August 31, 2020 01:40 - 54 minutes - 45.4 MBEpisode geeklist It's been a long pandemic, hasn't it? We've got a ways to go, too. During this strange time I've been working from home, wearing a mask outside, and playing some solo wargames. My regular euro-style boardgaming has dried up almost completely, albeit temporarily. Sure, I play some online versions at BoardgameArena, Yucata, special apps, and others, but it's only enough to keep connections going with my friends. I've enjoyed play-by-web and other computerized versions of bo...
Wargames To Go 19.2 - Operation Barbarossa, part 2 (with Carl Paradis)
May 07, 2020 04:43 - 1 hour - 31.4 MBEpisode geeklist Carl Paradis Designer Carl Paradis is featured in this episode. Of course I asked him onto the podcast to discuss his landmark Eastern Front game, No Retreat: The Russian Front. Beyond that, Carl has explored this topic in his development of Gary Graber's The Barbarossa Campaign and his own forthcoming Absolute War. That would make him an interesting designer for most wargamers--what makes him special for me is his penchant for small wargames. Even if boxed, with a la...
Wargames To Go 19.1 - Operation Barbarossa (part 1), with Bruce Geryk
December 23, 2019 00:15 - 1 hour - 56.8 MBAt long last I'm posting my podcast about the Eastern Front in WW2. Except that it's not exactly that, it's Operation Barbarossa. When I started this as a subject, I really didn't know how to parse it, or what my focus would be. Over the past six months I learned to separate Stalingrad, Typhoon, the Soviet counter-invasion, and everything else that is part of so vast a topic. I learned to focus just on Barbarossa. That's a deep enough subject on its own, and I have time in my wargaming fut...
Wargames To Go 18 - Doolittle, Pavlov, and Sledgehammer
June 02, 2019 22:16 - 1 hour - 35.3 MBNo episode geeklist this time, just the three games below I'll be attending Origins Game Fair this year (June 2019) in Columbus. I've been there before, but only in the 80s & 90s, so I'm sure it's substantially different now. I'll be there Thursday-Sunday, including participating on a panel of wargame podcasters/YouTubers/bloggers Sunday morning. That's listed in the program as shown below. I think it's free, and I hope any WGTG listeners still around that morning will stop by. I don't hav...
Wargames To Go 17 - Long Range Desert Group (with David Thompson)
February 16, 2019 04:46 - 1 hour - 47 MBEpisode geeklist Here's something I haven't done in a while: a one-off podcast. In other words, this isn't the start of a multi-episode, multi-month exploration of one battle/war. Instead, this is a single episode about (mostly) a single topic, WW2's Long Range Desert Group. I vaguely remembered hearing something about history, then earlier this year the French wargaming magazine Vae Victis featured the LRDG in their issue game. It was a small, solitaire design, and I tweeted about how I ...
Wargames To Go 16.3 - D-Day (Conclusion)
November 20, 2018 06:13 - 1 hour - 30.9 MBAt long last, the interview with author and game designer, Joe Balkoski. He's been on my podcast before, when we talked about The Korean War. At that time we made plans for his return when I dove into D-Day games. Besides designing some notable games on the subject, Joe has had an entire second career (his main career, really) of writing books on the subject. It's no exaggeration to say he is the definitive expert on US 29th Infantry Division and it's actions on Omaha Beach and beyond into N...
Wargames To Go 16.2 D-Day (Continued)
August 15, 2018 00:20 - 1 hour - 22.1 MBA solo episode this time. That interview with author and designer Joe Balkoski is still coming, but not quite yet. He's got the little matter of his own retirement and a well-deserved vacation to deal with first. Ok, no problem, I just recorded this episode to record more thoughts about a variety of D-Day games I've played. Then I get to share my own travelogue from my visit to Normandy in 2014. Playing those games, it got me thinking about smaller wargames, in general. Every so often the...
Wargames To Go 16.1 - D-Day (Introduction)
May 31, 2018 19:10 - 1 hour - 21.8 MBAt long last I’m getting to the D-Day episodes. It may seem long to you because I skipped last month (April). But it’s a lot longer than that. I visited the Normandy beaches on vacation back in 2014. I figured I’d record a podcast about that and play some related games soon after. Then when I went to live in France from 2016-2017, I brought a number of Normandy games with me, again thinking I’d get to them. In both cases, other things took their place, and my D-Day podcast was pushed back & ...
Wargames To Go 15.3 - Korean War (Conclusion)
March 31, 2018 20:05 - 39 minutes - 13.5 MBTo wrap up my series on the Korean War, I've got a shorter episode featuring just me talking about the games I played. I never get to as many as I'd like--my geeklists are aspirational and for reference rather than predictive!--and the same is true of movies. Nonetheless, my exploration of this subject has been a satisfying one. I went into it not knowing much about the conflict that inaugurated the Cold War, and the defining historical event of my father's generation. Between games, books, ...
Wargames To Go 15.2 - The Korean War (Joe Balkoski interview)
February 28, 2018 17:41 - 1 hour - 25.3 MBThis quarter I finally get to tackle a subject that's been on my to-do list for years: the Korean War. I wanted to this topic because of a connection to my father, and because I previously knew so little about it. Several years ago, when I was just getting back into wargaming after a long hiatus, the military history book club run by Hungadunga here on BGG read The Coldest Winter, by David Halberstam. I was blown away by the story. As the nickname goes, the Korean War was kind of The Forgott...
Wargames To Go 15.1 - Korean War (Introduction)
January 31, 2018 19:25 - 29 minutes - 10.2 MBIntro show about the latest topic for WGTG - the Korean War
Wargames To Go 14.3 - French & Indian War (Martin Wallace interview)
December 31, 2017 18:00 - 1 hour - 29.4 MBThis month's episode brings my French & Indian War topic to a close. As always, it's been very rewarding to dig a bit deeper into a piece of history I thought I knew something about...only to find more layers and connections to the past & present. Even though my time living in Paris is six months behind me, I knew that picking this topic would be a great transition from my somewhat deliberate French-focused outlook of 2016-2017 into the broader world again. That's exactly how it worked. In...
Wargames To Go 14.2 - French & Indian War (Volko Ruhnke interview)
November 30, 2017 04:18 - 57 minutes - 19.8 MBTwo months in and I'm really liking this new schedule of a quarter per topic. Those 90 days feel like enough time to dig into a subject, but also to keep moving so that I get to explore several throughout the year. I'll stick with this for the foreseeable future, and in this episode I share what some of my future topics will likely be. Plan of Fort Carillon in 1758 The main feature of this episode is another interview with designer Volko Ruhnke. I say "another" because he was on my podca...
Wargames To Go 14.1 - French & Indian War (Introduction)
October 26, 2017 03:03 - 31 minutes - 11 MBIn the final quarter of 2017 I'm concentrating on the French & Indian War. This first episode is an introduction, giving me a chance to take my listeners along for this ride in history. Perhaps you'll jump onboard and experience some of these games or movies with me. Hand-drawn map by George Washington, accompanying a printing of the journal he kept of his 1753 expedition into the Ohio Country. I realize that what I'm calling the French & Indian War is really the North American theater o...
Wargames To Go 13.2 - Franco-Prussian War (Conclusion, with Charles Vasey)
September 30, 2017 22:33 - 1 hour - 39.5 MBIt's been an interesting couple months, delving into the Franco-Prussian War, including the events the led to it, and the after effects. It definitely feels like a historical pivot that transformed the Europe of Napoleon's time into the European political landscape that we still know today...and one that had such tragedy awaiting it in the 20th century. However, it wasn't a World War. It wasn't even a war that engulfed most of Europe as the Napoleonic ones had. This was contained, with neu...
Wargames To Go 13.1 - Franco-Prussian War (Introduction)
August 17, 2017 02:39 - 37 minutes - 12.9 MBNow that I'm back for good and getting a handle on things, I want to try returning to an earlier "format" I had for the podcast. That is, a small series of shorter episodes on each topic while I'm exploring it. That way, I don't excite my listeners about a topic just as I'm leaving it behind (the way it happens with those longer, mega-episodes). I did this a few times before, and I'm trying it again. I'd appreciate feedback on this approach. My one "leftover" topic from my time living in F...
Wargames To Go 12 - Hundred Years War
July 18, 2017 12:58 - 2 hours - 42.5 MBWhile living & working in France I tried to do a couple things with this podcast. One was to focus on topics that were most relevant to my new surroundings. The other was to post smaller shows every month. Well, I succeeded at one of those goals. This episode is long overdue, but it's most assuredly about a French topic: the Hundred Years War fought across much of the country against the Kingdom of England during the years 1337-1453. Over two months ago my assignment in France came to an...
Wargames To Go 11 - Spanish Civil War (with Javier Romero & David Gómez Relloso)
February 21, 2017 11:50 - 2 hours - 44.4 MBEpisode geeklist Javier Romero David Gómez Relloso I've been trying to get these episodes out every month, knowing that it's a bit too much for me. Finally the dam burst in January, making this episode a bit late. I'm still going to keep pushing, in order to fit in as many topics as I can while temporarily living in France. But this may happen again. Originally the topic for January was going to be something else, a location I thought I'd visit around the Christmas holidays. Tha...
Wargames To Go 10 - Battle of the Bulge (John Butterfield interview)
December 22, 2016 20:43 - 1 hour - 40.2 MBM10 Tank Destroyer at Bastogne's Mardasson Memorial John Butterfield When it comes to this podcast, December means two things: a desire to replay the Bulge, and holiday busy-ness. It happens every year. This time, in 2016, I'm just as busy as ever, but the podcast commitment meant I pushed forward to play some Bulge games. Not as many as I would've liked, but enough for the episode. Besides, you've heard how the real focus of my podcasts nowadays are the interviews. I'm learning that th...
Wargames To Go 9 - Alesia
November 29, 2016 17:04 - 1 hour - 40.1 MBAnother month, another podcast! More important, another famous subject of military history. I'm planning to get through one topic per month to maximize my subjects to study & visit during my year in Europe. I have to say, though--this month illustrated that it doesn't me dive in as deeply as I'd like. As with most of you, I don't have a ton of time to get wargames on the table, especially during the week. Even with my focus on the small titles, they still take time. Especially if they requ...
Wargames To Go 8 - Dunkirk (with Hermann Luttmann)
October 26, 2016 13:17 - 1 hour - 28.6 MBHermann Luttman Mark at Dunkirk I'm sticking to my guns, getting a single-episode podcast out within a month. No more topics that span multiple months and several episodes, at least not while I'm living in Europe. I very much want to work in MORE topics in my remaining months. As someone once said, quantity has a quality all its own... Dunkirk is a more limited topic than most or all of my previous episodes. I decided to cover it--despite my desire to get away from WW2--because it...
Wargames To Go 7.3 - Battle of Britain (The Hardest Day, with Lee Brimmicombe Wood and James Crate)
September 30, 2016 08:02 - 2 hours - 52.7 MBLee Brimmicombe-Wood As much as I've enjoyed diving in deeply to the Battle of Britain as a topic--and I certainly have--I need to wrap it up and move on. This episode closes the series out with a bang, featuring two great interviews and my final thoughts about some games & films. Lee Brimmicombe-Wood is probably the top wargame designer today who focuses on air combat games, and you'd better believe he's thought about the Battle of Britain. We talk about his Burning Blue, Wing Leader, a...
Wargames To Go 7.2 - Battle of Britain (Ben Knight interview)
August 12, 2016 00:04 - 1 hour - 40.5 MBI'm not sure why I called this episode Adlertag. I guess it's to bookend my discussion & exploration of the Battle of Britain. Last time was just the intro, but by now I've started. Hence, the Eagle Day reference. You can bet that episode 7.3 will be The Hardest Day, and that will be that. It took me so long to get to this one because I've been distracted. I played games, read books, watched movies, and recorded two great interviews that you'll hear. (Plus a third interview I'm saving for 7....
Wargames To Go 7.1 - Battle of Britain (Introduction)
April 19, 2016 23:29 - 1 hour - 22.7 MBTime for a new series! I've already started into several games, movies, and books about the Battle of Britain, and this intro podcast will catch you up with my plans. It's an audio version of the discussion thread and geeklist detailing the explorations I'm doing with this topic. Also, up front I wanted to point out that I'll be heading to GMT's warehouse weekend event in a few days. If you'll also be there and listen to my podcast, look me up! At least say high and get yourself a podcast l...
Wargames To Go 6.4 - A Month of Infamy (Philippines, Wake, and Singapore)
February 29, 2016 16:20 - 1 hour - 33.4 MBWith this episode, I'm wrapping up my exploration of the opening of WW2 in the Pacific. What started with Pearl Harbor and a vacation to Hawaii expanded into an education via games, films, and books about the many offensives launched by Imperial Japan on that fateful day. It opens with my interview of friend & wargame designer/developer, Steve Carey. Steve won the Charles S. Roberts award for We Must Tell The Emperor, his small-format solo game about the entire Pacific war--which I discusse...
Wargames To Go 6.3 - A Month of Infamy (Pearl Harbor)
December 09, 2015 05:29 - 1 hour - 21.7 MBEven though this podcast series is covering ALL the offensives Imperial Japan launched in December 1941, most of first think of the raid on Pearl Harbor. It was the impetus for me to start learning about all of these other offensives, too. In this "chapter" episode, I'll cover my own visit to Pearl Harbor, books & films that relate to the infamous event, and a few games, too.
Wargames To Go 6.2 - A Month of Infamy (Herman interview)
November 10, 2015 05:47 - 1 hour - 35.6 MBContinuing with my new idea of releasing incremental episodes of my podcast that all deal with the same subject, here's the second one about the events of December 1941 in the Pacific. The main feature is my interview with game designer Mark Herman. At the end I decided to record my reply to the recent Bonding with Board Games/HAMTAG episode "Top 5 Wargames That Made Me the Grog I Am Today." Ogre/GEV Air Force Up Front Strategy & Tactics magazine Panzerschreck magazine Remember to foll...
Wargames To Go 6.1 - A Month of Infamy (Intro)
October 10, 2015 01:08 - 23 minutes - 8.1 MBHere's that new idea I was talking about--the first of smaller episodes that get released as I go on my exploration of a topic. Not much in the way of links & notes, as you can find those in the discussion thread and geeklist, above. I'm still figuring out how, exactly, I want to do this new format. Feedback is always welcome. -Mark
Wargames To Go 5 - Waterloo
September 24, 2015 05:12 - 2 hours - 54.1 MBHey! I'll be at BGG.con. Look me up at the Wargamer Meet & Greet on Wednesday night. Or join me in a game of Waterloo 200 on Friday morning! Timestamps (approximate) 12:09 - Andrew Hobley interview (Bicentennial Waterloo gaming) 38:25 - Pete Belli interview (One-Minute Waterloo) 1:02:45 - Books & Films 1:19:45 - Paul Comben interview (Waterloo wargaming) 1:59:30 - Games I played Maybe now I'm getting the hang of this, not biting off more than I can chew for the the next episode. Migh...
WGTG 4 - Western Front 1914
June 30, 2015 00:23 - 1 hour - 37 MBTimestamps (approximate) 8:37 - Ted Raicer interview 59:18 - Books & Films 1:12:30 - Games 1:32:11 - Visiting the battlefields I sort of did it to myself again, aspiring to play more games and learn more about the subject matter of this episode. I swear I'm getting calibrated on myself, though, and have big plans to think smaller next time. :) Historic anniversaries in wargaming are appealing to me, because the occasion often leads to the some of hobby community focusing on th...
WGTG 3 - English Civil War
October 27, 2014 08:52 - 3 hours - 71.7 MBThis is a long episode. If you want to skip ahead, here are some approximate timestamps within the recording you can jump to: 0:00 - My intro, poll results, BGG.con attendance, etc. 0:15 - Vasey interview pt 1 (background, his games) 0:51 - Vasey interview pt 1 (ECW) 1:51 - Cruel Necessity report 1:58 - Unhappy King Charles report 2:06 - Winceby report 2:13 - Langport & Naseby report (TCS series) 2:28 - Cromwell's Victory report 2:33 - Roberto Chiavini interview 2:49 - Other wargaming recap...
WGTG 2 - States of Siege
January 31, 2014 16:33 - 1 hour - 28.6 MBWell, shoot, that was a longer interval than I'd planned. But here, finally, is the second episode of my wargame podcast. As before, the episode features me talking about broader topics in the first half, then transitioning to discussion about individual titles in the second. In between I've got an interview with wargame designer Darin Leviloff, too. The focus of the episode are the [url=http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/3245/victory-point-games-states-of-siege-series]States of Siege...
WGTG 1 - Intro & Gettysburg
October 02, 2013 04:34 - 1 hour - 21.9 MBThe first episode of my first podcast about smaller wargames, I spend some time introducing myself and my wargame interests, then proceed to cover three different games about the battle of Gettysburg.