"Static Wargame?" Topic

I am trying to find out the name of a category of wargame that consists of a stationary group of figures with terrain and enemy that moves past them.

Jim Birdseye wrote a specific game with this mechanism in an old Courier about a Napoleonic group in retreat from Moscow. A very innovative game. Players were French/Allied stragglers in the center of the board. They stayed there while the scenery moved past them. Not all that much, a house or clump of trees. Players went through a deck of cards, each card signaled an event. E.g. draw a nine of diamonds and 6 cossacks appear on the left, draw 6 of spades and a clump of trees appears ahead, maybe an ambush.

I have used this concept for a game set in independence Congo. Train in center of table and things appear and move past it, or engage it.
I once did a similar game with a train "moving" through the Congo.

What is such a game called. Are there other examples?

We do that with train robbery Old West games too. I didn't know there was a name for them.

I suggest we INVENT a name for such a game.

Let's hear ideas.

To get the ball rolling…Accelerated Wargaming.

I have a feeling that Dark Future, a games workshop game of racing, shooting, souped-up cars in a post apocalyptic world, was run similar to this or at least that's how we did it :-)

I don't know of a name for this (though it sounds like fun!).

A close cousin would be boardgames with a recycling board: as you approach the edge, the board segment at the back is recycled to the front. Examples include Thunder Road, Mississippi Queen, and Bombers over da Sulphur River.

Rolling terrain games ?

Rolling road, was the designation.

Played a rolling river one as well.

Game ended when you outdistanced or defeated all enemies, or were defeated.

Other instances of such games:

- naval games in which you have one big ship (e.g. aircraft carrier), and everything moves relative around it.

- Any game, but mostly naval, in which everything is shifted to make room depending on which direction everyone is moving in.

- Convoy games are a typical favourite.

Rolling terrain or rolling road games indeed how we call them.

We did a bomber interception game like that (with the bomber box in the middle of the table), plus convoy escort/interception. I've also run Science vs Pluck like that, and we did an 'escape the Russian encirclement' eastern front game in a similar manner.

iirc they are usually referred to as rolling terrain games.

The Society of Ancients game Elephant in the Room ( soa.org.uk/cartloom/games – in A Domino Double Header ) in which a band of Velites cluster around a hostile Carthaginian war elephant also works this way …

Phil
Ancients on the Move

There was a GW Lord of the Rings scenario like this too I read. where the mounted Ringwraiths chase Arwen and Frodo on horseback.

I think rolling terrain covers it…

GW had an article in White Dwarf using that system for jetbike chases in a forest. They also had a couple of scenarios for Gorka Morka that used it too.

In computer games, it is a scrolling background, so

Scrolling terrain?

Other examples by Two Hour Wargames:
Charioteer (chariot racing), Machinas (mad max style car race), Wire to Wire (horse racing), a canoe adventure part of the Muskets and Mohawks game, maybe.

McLaddie's suggestion was what I thought of.
For example, Zaxxon or Scramble from the 80s.

YouTube link
YouTube link

How about the term "Abstract Maneuver"?

Was on a TMP thread the other night about tank skirmish games. We talked about Avalon Hill's "Open Fire" and "Patton's Best" so I dug them out and flipped thru the contents.

Patton's Best has the same principle involved. You command a single Sherman tank. Your tank is placed in the middle of the board. Your support and opposition "move" around you on that board relative to your movement actions.

The Web Grognard site has links to reviews, tips & suggestions, variants and rules so you can get an idea of what it is all about.

Unfolding Game
Scrolling Game
Rolling Terrain Game
Dynamic Environment Game

I am now working on two of this type of game. One is a cattle drive game, the other one based on movie, Stagecoach is game of such a stage moving from town to town. I thought von Ryan's Express movie might be good too.

Scooby-dooing. Though apparently the idea of re using backgrounds for cartoon chase scenes is nicknamed 'buffet animation'

I would go for "relative maneuver" as the term.

I did a scenario like this for a QILS game, YAGRAG (Yet Another Giant Robot Assault Game) … and yes … it was a giant robots vs. a train scenario.