FREE GAMES, SCENARIOS AND VARIANTS Here are some complete games and scenarios/variants I have designed, yours to download and use. I'd appreciate if you would send me any comments you may have, provided they are constructive and/or adulatory. (as always, I am not responsible if any of these files make your machine go **SPUNG**)

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Free Games

Scenarios and Variants

Free Game One: BATTLE OF SEATTLE (2000)

A mini-game inspired by the anti-WTO riots in Seattle November 30 - December 3, 1999. Sort of a hybrid of my Civil Power game and Joe Miranda's LA Lawless, this one has 96 counters, an 11x17" area map of downtown Seattle, and the usual 3-4 pages of rules and charts. It came together very quickly and I think you'll like it, that is if you like this sort of thing. Was published in the March 2000 issue of Strategist, the newsletter of the Strategy Gaming Society.

But hell, you can have a copy of your own right here right now! Download these files and print them out, and simulate urban mayhem at home! Beware though, the graphic quality is not as nice as the hard-copy versions I made.

Battle of Seattle files
rules and charts
Game rules and charts, in .html format.
counters
Counter images, GIF file, 28K.
map
Game map, grayscale, GIF file, 106K.

Free Game Two: PARANOID DELUSIONS (2006)

In the game, each player adopts simultaneously two roles: the Paranoid;, who represents a lone conspiracy nut; and the Enemy;, who represents a network of real or unreal groups hiding a nefarious secret.

Each Paranoid must struggle with his own weakening grasp on sanity to reveal the Groups, Methods and Goals used by the other players' Enemies. Meanwhile, the Enemies do their best to mislead the Paranoids, betray their competing plotters to them, or just drive them insane (for purposes of entertainment only, though some people do take their games much too seriously). There are two ways to win the game, and part of a winning strategy is attacking yourself!

Game files
rules
Game rules, in MS Word format, 58K.
counters
Counter images, PDF file, 58K.
player aid
Player aid, PDF file, 7K.

Free Game Three: FINNISH CIVIL WAR (2010)

FINNISH CIVIL WAR is a simulation game of the civil conflict in Finland in the early months of 1918. The game is for two players, one representing the recently elected government of the recently independent state (the White player) and the other the perhaps-irresistible forces of proletarian revolution (the Red Player). The game comes in two versions:

1) a company/battalion scale one that has 280 counters and uses a system heavily modified from my previously published games Freikorps, Konarmiya and War Plan Crimson; and
2) a brigade scale one that has 60 counters and an even more heavily modified system.

Both games use the same map (hex grid of southern Finland, at 12 map miles/ 20 km per hex). Special units and chromy bits include: variable-strength Red and White Guard units; Armored Trains; the spring thaw that occurred midway through the war; peace negotiations, German intervention and Russian withdrawal (including the Future Guilt Clause!); General Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim; German Tactical Agility; White guerrillas; and the Swedish Talent Agency.

October 2012: Compass Games (http://compassgames.com/) has agreed to publish this game in issue #82 or #83 of Paper Wars magazine. It will appear in 2015 some time, maybe, but I have been asked to take this free print-and-play version off my website. So, you'll have to wait a year or so, but I don't think you will regret it - Compass Games does great graphics and the game will have both die-cut counters and a decent size map. Both versions of the game will be published.

Free Game Four: GUERRILLA CHECKERS (2010)

A hybrid of Checkers and Go, for two players. The "Guerrilla" player, using small Go stones, plays on the intersection points of the checkerboard squares to surround and capture the enemy pieces. Meanwhile, the "Counterinsurgent" player, using checkers, moves on the checkerboard squares to jump and capture the enemy. Equipment required: checkerboard, six checkers, and 66 small flat pieces (buttons, glass beads, small Go stones, etc.)

rules
Game rules, in RTF, 89K.
VASSAL module
Link to a VASSAL module for the game, by Joel Toppen.

Free Game Five: UKRAINIAN CRISIS (2014)

A free print and play game on the Ukraine Crisis of spring 2014. Designed over the weekend of March 15-16 2014, during which the referendum on whether the Crimea should leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation was held, the situation was changing hourly and an outright invasion of Ukraine seemed possible if not likely. It's a fairly simple pol-mil game with card play on the military, diplomatic and information-warfare fronts combined with a simple counter game if someone decides to "go kinetic" - though it's quite possible to play the game without ever doing so.

link to blog post
Files for the PnP version, on my dedicated game design blog (which is where everyone goes now anyway, I guess).
link to module
A VASSAL module for the game by Martin Hogan. You will still need to download the game's rules from the link above.

Scenarios and Variants

Operation Sword o' Dubya!
A variant for my Somalia game postulating a quick American strike into that unhappy land later in 2002, looking to uproot Al-Qaeda elements there. At the end of 2001, it really looked as if Somalia was next on the list, though investigations have not supported the rumours, which looked good at the time. Anyway, try it out if you happen to have the game.
Desert Leader and Steppe Leader
Two major variants that use the rules and mapboards from Avalon Hill�s Arab-Israeli Wars game. Follow the link to the rules and scenarios. Desert Leader covers the war in the North African desert 1940-43, and includes 14 scenarios. You will need copies of Arab-Israeli Wars, Panzer Leader, and the Panzer Leader 1940 variant kit to play. Steppe Leader covers battles on the Manchurian steppe, with seven scenarios ranging from 1938 to 1969. You need copies of Arab-Israeli Wars and Panzerblitz to play. Finally, here is the graphics file for the new units you will need to play both games, together on one countersheet: ldrctrs.gif
The East in Shreds
A major revision of The China War (SPI 1979), postulating a six-way civil war in the People's Republic in the near future. This was published in MOVES magazine #93 with full colour mount-your-own counters, but here is the graphics file for the counters you need to make in case you don't want to mutilate your copy. The rules also contain an important addition to section 9.0 concerning combat - the "Big Socialist Push" - that was somehow left out of the MOVES article.GIF
The East in Shreds Redux
A revision of the revision, done in spring 2013 and using the best available OOB information on the PLA I could find. Reworked rules and coloured counters, for an updated Chinese Army. Note that the top seven rows of the first countersheet are for the front and back sides of the first-line Chinese divisions and foreign units (Taiwanese and American).

Balkans 1943-45: The Invasions That Weren't
A large variant for Balkans 1941 (DG 1997). One of the great what-ifs of World War 2 in the Mediterranean theatre was the possibility of an Allied invasion of Greece and/or Yugoslavia after clearing the German and Italian armies from North Africa. In history, the logistical and political difficulties were rife and the Allies did nothing of the kind until Operation MANNA, the liberation of Greece in late 1944 after the German garrison had already withdrawn into Yugoslavia. But to Hitler and the German High Command, it was always a possibility and made them vulnerable to several Allied deception plans, which have been used as the basis for two scenarios in this variant. In response to these plans, the Germans held several critical troop formations in northern Italy and Yugoslavia in readiness for invasions that never came, when they would have been much more useful somewhere else. To play this variant, the rules for the game are altered as described in the document above; you will also need to make up 140 new counters from the following PDF files (one version in black-and-white to colour yourself, one in colour if you have a fancy printer).
B+W PDF
Colour PDF
The Italo-Greek War
A new scenario for Balkans '41 (DG 1997), for the 1940 curtain-raiser to the main campaign. Also published in MOVES magazine #90.
La Raza
A new scenario for the old SPI Minuteman game (SPI 1976).
Macarthur's Other Gambit
A scenario using the map, rules and counters to When Tigers Fight (XTR 1994), on a Nationalist Chinese invasion of the mainland in 1951. Also published in MOVES magazine #91.
Stalin's Tanks
A host of additions and revisions, not to mention three new scenarios, to this 1980 Metagaming micro-game on tactical Eastern Front combat. The first two parts were published in Vindicator magazine.
Stalin's Tanks Plus One This article introduces rules for aircraft, some new units, and lists three new scenarios.
Stalin's Tanks Plus Two This article introduces a points value system and suggestions for Design-Your-Own scenarios, as well as rules for morale and command control.
Stalin's Yanks Yet more rules and notes for Lend-Lease vehicles on the Estern Front, as well as some wee Soviet tankettes and light vehicles.
Graphics - Here is the graphics file for the counters you'll need to make up, for all three variants: GIF Print out and mount on cardboard.
Test of Arms
Additions and revisions to Test of Arms (GDW 1985)

Hey! Lemme outta here, you warmonger!