Jim Owczarski, 13 January 2025
Lest I be thought rude, by way of introduction, I am the fellow that gathers a merry band of ne’er-do-well dragoons and plays a range of (predominantly) miniatures-based wargames on Tabletop Simulator. I then have the temerity to live stream these over YouTube in the off chance someone would like to watch. And, while the current 1,600-plus subscribers to the channel is no great deal, it is far more than I thought we would get back when the originals (OJ, Haz, Redd, and a handful of others) joined me in screaming into the void.
It has also been an opportunity to play far more games than I ever did when restricted to face-to-face play. Consider these counts from 2024:

- Bloody Big Battles – 8
- General d’Armee I & II – 7
- I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum – 7
- Charlie Don’t Surf! – 6
- O Group – 5
- Valour and Fortitude – 4
- Epic Armageddon – 3
- Midgard: Heroic Battles – 3
- Chain of Command – 2
- Eisenhower – 2
- Grimdark Future – 2
- Lasalle 2 – 2
- Rapid Fire: Reloaded – 1.5
- Fighting Sail – 1
- Fire in the Skies – 1
- Blucher – 1
- Commands and Colors: Ancients – 1
- Commands and Colors: Napoleonics – 1
- The Men Who Would Be Kings – 1
- Squad Battles: The First World War – 1
- Through the Mud and the Blood – 1
- Quadrant 13 – 1
A few observations are in order.
One, I will, in the next life, have to explain this to the Powers-that-Be.
Two, these numbers represent only scenarios played using that system, not sessions. With Blucher, for example, we again played the Battle of Leipzig. That took more than a few sessions1. Related to this, just because a system only appears a time or two does not mean it did not find favor with the crew. The Men Who Would Be Kings, used for Isandlwana, is much liked. O Group is not.
Three, some rules are more conducive to quicker play. Bloody Big Battles is notable in this regard.
Four, I hope this list bears adequate witness to the flexibility of Tabletop Simulator as a gaming platform. I do not suggest that it and its kin will end face-to-face gaming, though for me they largely have. Rather, they are worthy alternatives.
With all this as prologue, I wanted to write about the process by which a system, a setting, or both are brought to the virtual table. Along the way I will inevitably continue my shameless promotion of the Too Fat Lardies’ best rule set, I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum (IABSM). It is unequaled in its space — company-level World War II gaming — and is the better of its far more popular cousin, Chain of Command. Regrettably, it is a legacy product for the Lardies these days, but myself and a few of the others on the channel have committed ourselves, in our very small way, to leading a revolution in its favor. I hope to write about why I like it so much later.
I am an early Generation X-er, natal date in the Fall of 1966. You cannot be us and not be affected in some way by the second wave of science fiction media, particularly Star Wars. Wells, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, &c., were background influences, but Lucas’ creation was formative. I am one of those that takes only IV-VI + R1 as canon, but even that little bit was a enough to create a desire to live and, yes, make war in that universe. The movies take direct cues, one blushes to use the word “steal”, from the war pictures that came before. In their scope, sweep, and drama they gave us the good guys and the bad guys, the fights worth fighting, and bunches of close run battles.
And then you say you want to play it all out on the tabletop.
click images to enlarge
This is not an easy proposition. Think for a moment. All the coolest fights are in space. Good for you naval and aviation nerds, but ground-pounders like me are left out. The only land battle of size in the original trilogy is on Hoth. I have long figured budgetary constraints and the need to work in practicals had something to do with it. Rogue One gave us Scarif and Jedha, but everything else is pretty much a skirmish, although I suspect some will argue Endor comes closer to a “real fight”. This is why games as far back as Star Wars Miniatures Battles (1991) and the classic Epic Duels (2002) were skirmish systems. This has continued with more recent offerings like Legion and Shatterpoint. I have no complaint with any of these systems, but they are not what I want to play either then or now.
This is directly linked to the utter disorganization of the militaries in the Star Wars universe. And I do mean utter. Over on Discord, our born-again-hard Star Wars nerd Ron (Dalinore) has poured forth pages of information about equipment, organization, manpower, &c., for both the Empire and the Rebellion. There are posters that purport to show the size of an Imperial Legion and the number of men who were needed to staff the Death Star. It is all nonsense. It is all the combination of Capt. Kirk’s safe during that famous episode of “Saturday Night Live”. Neither Lucas nor anyone else had thought through those questions in those sunny middle years of the 1970s. He had not even thought his way through his own story arc. If he had, I rather doubt he would have had two bored stormtroopers talking about lawnmowers (I know they are not lawnmower models, nerds. Down in front.) We have made it all up since. Yet these questions are fundamental when choosing a rule set and designing a scenario.
How many men are in a squad of Stormtroopers?
Same question for the Rebels.
What kind of support weapons did either side use?
Did the Rebels really have a TO&E? One assumes the Empire did, but did it?
And what in the blue fizzy heck is this
This is my personal rabbit hole and has already been a good deal of fun. I hope you will join me when next we gather and try to answer these and many other questions in a quest to bring Star Wars to the table.
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