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Has anyone played micro armour as a double blind game to simulate the fog of war? If so how was it and what group level was it played at

Yes,

Paul (av8) was my opponent 12-13 yrs ago and another person was GM. It was Harpoon. I had an Los Angles class vs. Akula. We mapped in on grid paper and plotted on table.

Also, micro armor, had GM of course. Used Tac-Air maps, three sets. Put on board when contact was made and what was seen. 10 companies of US vs Russians (do not know how much).

I have played "blind" using many different approaches ... some of which reach to the level that I would call "double blind", and others that do not reach fully to that level.

From the maximum "double blind":

Some years ago I played a full double blind game, where each side came into the room to view and play their pieces seperately from the other team. There was an umpire who, between each team's turn, update his own map record of all pieces on the board. For side A's turn he would place all side A units on the board, and remove the side B pieces that were not in view of side A units. Then side A would come in, make their move, and adjudicate their own fire. Then they would leave, and he would update his map, put all of the side B units up, remove the side A units not in view, and side B woud come in.

It was OK, but not a great game. Very tense, and very interesting when you came in to the room to discover some of your own units burning away, often with no idea what shot them or from where. But it was only possible to play the game with very constrained forces (maybe a platoon each). It was a very slow game, and you really needed to have something to hold your interest in the "ante-room". Might work with a few friends on the day of a ball game everyone was also interested to watch going in the other room...

Next in "blindness":

I played a game where each side plotted all movement on maps rather than placing units on the board. The umpire reviewed both sides' maps, and decided which units to have us place on the table (sometimes making die rolls to determine if units had been spotted). Then we adjudicated fire.

The game was a modern recon / counter-recon game, so discovery was the very gist of the process. The scenario was taken from a US Army War College study of an engagement during Operation Desert Storm. I played the Iraqi's, and my objective was to penetrate the Armored Cav screen at night to find the main body of a US division (ie: to get across the board).

Here is a picture from the event ...


My map. The maps were a composite of photos of the game boards, with an acetate overlay. I used colors to distinguish between my units (one company in red, one in blue). The marking shows arrows (movement routes), positions (hash lines across arrows), and turn numbers, among other info.

The full AAR is posted on Thunder's website, with captions describing each of the pictures. It can be found here: http://www.microarmor.com/images/MK1%27 ... index.html

This approach worked reasonably well. The game flowed, and it was very intense. The umpire, CG Erickson (who used to post here occasionally) did a very good job, but it was a lot of work for him. The problem we (he and I) identified was that this game mechanism really encourages "fudging" ... there were some questions about how well my opponant's unit positions on the battle board compared to what he had drawn on his map. I would not suggest he was trying to cheat per se, but I think he had difficulty accepting un-optimized positions on the table when he had no indication of optimizations on his map diagrams.

For example, when told to place a unit he might place it in a hull-down position, when there was no notation of hull-down on his map. Just little stuff like that, which can accumulate to make hard feelings if one is not careful. I'm used to gaming with a group of guys that don't worry about that level of stuff ... that move and place units without perfect knowledge of the the opponant's positions or the game turn results, and accept that some units will suffer from sub-optimal positioning. Attempts to squeeze the most out of the edge of a turn is kind of beneath us.

Now to my own preferred approach:

I inject a certain amount of blindness into my games by using paper chits to represent un-spotted units. At the start of a game all units are represented on the table by paper chits. Each player also gets some number of blank chits to use / move as he sees fit.

So during my games you have suspicions of where the enemy is, where he is moving, where he is strong or weak. But you have to get eyes on his units to confirm your suspicions. It is common to have some portion of a force reacting to un-founded suspicions (blank chits), it is common to have commanders loose their nerve when suspecting far greater opposition than they actually face, and it is common to receive very rude surprises when the opposition is far stronger than was suspected.

The first AAR in the "Show Us Yer AARs" thread on this site gives a demonstration of my approach.

There is another AAR on this page at TankNet: http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?sh ... 454&st=260 I thought I had posted this AAR was on this site somewhere too, but I can't find it. This one shows the impact of the chits a bit more.

Here is a picture:

It was a July 1941 scenario. I was the Soviet player defending a village crossroads, my German opponent (PaloAlto from this forum) had a combined arms mobile force of unknown strength. I did not get the benefit of knowing which side he would come in from. Here we are at the first turn. Imagine my tension, seeing all those chits coming from the top of the picture, when all I had was an infantry screen on that side of the village -- my precious few AT guns and tanks set up to defend from the bottom of the picture instead!

I should add that I also prefer games where each side does not know what the other side's forces are. When I have to supply troops for both sides we usually have some level of approximation (ie: "a re-enforced company per player" with a variety of possible re-enforcements available), so that I don't have an advantage in knowledge. When I supply only my own forces I prefer to have no idea what the opposing will have. So long as you don't play with guys that always want to have an overwhelming force ("Oh what a surprise, King Tigers again!") this works well.

The advantage I have found in the chits approach is that it gives the full fluidity of a miniatures game. There is no extra burden on the umpire -- in fact there is no real need to have a non-playing ump. It is very simple and quick to add to any ruleset that includes spotting rules. Doesn't really slow the play at all.

Yet at the same time it retains about 60-80% of the tension of blind gaming. It pretty fully eliminates the "God's eye view" of your enemy's forces, and so forces you to think in terms of actual realworld battlefield tactics. You spend a lot of time trying to discover your opponant's forces while at the same time trying to keep your own true strength concealed. You will find yourself thinking in terms of mutually supporting fields of fire, and keeping at least some form of mobile reserve, and you will find yourself fretting and gnashing your teeth over when to truly commit. It becomes a very different game from the standard move-your-tanks-in-line-abreast-and-throw-a-bucket-of-dice.

All IMHO. Your mileage may vary. Kids, don't try this at home. Well, actually, it's OK to try it at home, so long as you take pictures and post your AAR!

I've always wanted to do an American Civil War double blind, if I ever get enough 10s painted. I would love to the Wilderness, with woods so thick nobody could see anything.

I once saw a single blind game someone did. It was simulating the overreaction to the TIger and 88s. Every vehicle spotted was represented by a Tiger, since that is what the troops feared every vehicle was. Every gun in the game was represented by an 88. The Germans knew what was what, and the ref resolved combat results based on what the units really were. But the American commanders ahd no idea what was going on, since everything looked like a TIger in their troops eyes.