The Brick Mill Games Blog
Like everyone else on the planet, we’ve been affected by the Coronavirus pandemic in one way or another. Nor’easter XXIV, an ASL convention held in southeastern Massachusetts that Paul and I attend to play test TOCS, given its ASL roots, was cancelled. Soldiering on, Paul and I decided to take the previously scheduled days off…
Continue ReadingPaul and I attended Nor’easter XXIII two weekends ago in Fairhaven, MA to finish our long-running playtest of Scenario One of our Advance to the Moselle TOCS module. The module covers the US 80th Infantry Division’s attempt to bridge the Moselle River in the area of the city of Nancy, France in September 1944. The…
Continue ReadingKen and I finished a play testing of Scenario 1 of the Advance to the Moselle TOCS Module at the Nor’Easter tournament in Fairhaven MA, during March 21-24. The playtest utilized the VASSAL prototype developed earlier that allowed us to achieve and prove out the double-blind combat system known as TOCS/MASL. This highly interactive game…
Continue ReadingAs I’ve stated in earlier blog posts, there are times when I go into “radio silence” for a variety of reasons. Whatever the underlying reason(s), the silence aspect of it usually boils down to two explanations: I have nothing coherent to discuss, or posting something somewhere (besides flippant Facebook posts) is “yet another thing to…
Continue ReadingGrapeshot [greyp-shot] noun: in artillery, grapeshot is a type of shot that is not one solid element, but a mass of small metal balls or slugs packed tightly into a canvas bag. [Wikipedia] Dice Service Migration Status The migration of the old KenWare dice service to the Brick Mill Games site continues apace. It is not…
Continue ReadingThe Nor’easter XXII con is over and I’m just now coming down from the high that was a very successful playtest of the TOCS game system. It didn’t start that way, though. Paul’s aged laptop refused to boot when I arrived on Thursday morning. After numerous failed attempts to diagnose the issue, we wound up…
Continue ReadingPaul and I are attending the Nor’easter XXII Convention in Boxborough this weekend and playtesting the latest rules and tools for the TOCS system. In spite of some initial technical difficulties, we are both having quite a bit of fun with the game and ironing out quite a few rules. I’ll post some pictures after the con….
Continue ReadingThe latest playtest of Steel & Steam was, in my opinion, the most successful yet. As to why… Pace We actually finished a game within 4½ hours. The faster trains solved the pacing problem w/o adversely affecting game play. My primary concern with making the trains faster was that it would reduce game tension among…
Continue ReadingYesterday was the day where I introduced four new players to Steel & Steam in the game’s first 6-player play test. It was also the day where my Canon PIXMA Pro-100 inkjet printer decided that the clogged print head was going to prevent me from printing the latest map & materials that I was going…
Continue Reading