The left side of the map, from the US point-of-view. (Compared to the right-side shot, this is later in the game.)

By this point we had realized this village was a "prepared position" - meaning it was defended by dug-in Germans - which we had not anticipated. (We were expecting to easily move into the village, then hold it from counter-attackers.) They also had mines set up in the field we were advancing across. Fortunately, we had machine guns set up, just in case they were already in place.

This shot is taken just above the CP (command post) of my platoon on the left, which was assault platoon. (Jon had support platoon - with most of the machine guns - to my right.) There is one of our squads (that cluster of chits) advancing slowly across the field, probing for mines with their bayonets. The cotton batting represents smoke grenades the men in the rear of the squad are throwing to cover the advance. 

These assaulting troops are now under fire from German machine guns in the two red buildings dominating the scene, as well as German rifle squads in trenches just in front of those buildings. However, off the bottom edge of this frame - in a treeline at our near edge of the board - we have four medium machine guns set up (one from my platoon, three from Jon's support platoon), pouring suppressive fire into those buildings, and any other suspected German positions, to cover our troops in the minefield. 

At this point there was a lot of confusion among those assaulting US squads - and we were seriously considering saying to hell with it and retreating (you can do that in tabletop wargame; there aren't the rigid victory conditions of a computer game - it is more like a real-life assessment). The white chits with black crosses in the centre-bottom of the shot are US troops killed by German fire. We had our men dispersed to minimize incoming fire, but they were still badly suppressed, approaching total panic. The Germans also had us under light mortar fire, originating from behind the hill, to the right. 

We approached the village from the left side so the central hill would shield us from other Germans in the village (who would need to move away from their dug-in position to bring us under fire). Eventually we made our way to that little hollow - where the hill was steepest - just left-below the left-hand red building (as if that creek [blue-felt strip] is carving out the hillside, forming a bluff). We called that spot "the Notch". Once in the Notch we had shelter from the heavy machine guns on the top floor of "Big Red" (that big-ass building on the right). However, we got into a grenade dual with Germans in the smaller building to the left, and in a trench just in front of it - they were throwing grenades down on us and we were doing the same up at them. But our machine guns - which were continuously firing into those buildings, even when we didn't have clear targets - basically caused mayhem among the Germans and covered our approach. (The Germans were feeding reinforcements in to make up for casualties, we later found out.)

Eventually the Germans in the trench above the Notch panicked and fled, and we assaulted up the hillside and took their trench.

In the second of the two assaulting squads we had a flamethrower. We brought it to the Notch, then up to the trenches above it we now controlled. At this point we had the position at Big Red in flamethrower range, and were cooking Germans, when the game ended.

It was what is called an improvised assault in the army.

*     *     *

This game points out a lot of the differences between digital and tabletop games...

The first is that the scenario is a one-time event. It happens now, and it takes some time and work to play out. If you lose, you lose - you don't just reload it and start over again like you do with a digital game. There is a sense of event to things. It is less casual, less throwaway. There is a feeling of history - not on par with a real battle, of course, but more so than with a digital wargame (much more: these wargames rank among the most intense games I've ever played - even after thousands of hours of digital gaming). There is a sense that "We are meeting at this time, at this place, to fight this battle." Whatever happens happens, and no-one can go back and change it.

There is also more subjectivity in victory and mission definitions. This, too, is more like real life. In this scenario we were given incomplete intelligence - and when we realized the position was prepared (instead of lightly or not at all defended), we seriously considered just curtailing the mission. We considered just staying put - digging in at our side of the minefield, putting the town under fire, and reporting back to "HQ" that the town is too well-defended to take. (The general military rule is you need a three-to-one numeric superiority to take a prepared position. Our estimates put us at two-to-one against them in terms of numbers, which meant our strength was equal.) As it turned out, it wasn't quite as well defended as anticipated - but when we started spotting barbed wire and trenches we had to assume it was. Unknown by us, the minefield was only lain hastily - it was only through bad luck that we just happened to hit one of the few mines placed. Nevertheless, once we had evidence this was a minefield, we had to assume it was a proper minefield. My point is, a tabletop game's objectives are not the absolutely clear and extremely rigid ones that dominate digital games, and often force the player to sacrifice his troops to just meet those criteria (often to the point of absurdity, if reflected on). The tabletop wargame is a more realistic game in this sense - even if the game does not appear, visually, as realistic as a digital game. In the tabletop game, circumstances are fluid, and objectives are fluid. Things are less superficial (i.e. visual - we all know how much digital gamers focus on "graphics"). Indeed, the challenge of so many digital game designers - something they often acknowledge - is to marry the superior internal elements of tabletop games with the strengths of digital ones.

A third difference is the ability to improvise - to do things unanticipated by the game's rules. In our case, we improvised a prepared assault by specifically pooling all the smoke grenades of our assaulting platoon in the hands of two men in the assaulting squad. That way they could toss them continually in front of their buddies in the assaulting squad - who were up front, probing for mines - to provide cover from German fire. This ability - to attempt different and unusual things - is simply beyond the scope of all digital games.

A fourth point: A tabletop game is not played through a manual-dexterity interface. This is very important. This means it involves true strategy. Most "real-time strategy" (RTS) digital games - as they are called, for some mystifying reason - are essentially reliant on how fast the player can manipulate mouse and keyboard. They are basically videogames, because they are built with this aspect in mind: their strategic component - if you can call it that - is heavily influenced by "twitch" (hand-eye coordination). In a real strategy game, the focus is on making decisions - not twitch. You must assess the strengths and weaknesses of the game's pieces in a different way. In the best tabletop wargames, you are more aware those pieces are men. As you charge your men in you must also, at times, pull them back. You must know their breaking point. You experience their victories and losses much more. 

In an RTS game like Starcraft your troops are just graphics. They charge mindlessly - and heartlessly devoid of feeling (outside aggression) - to their doom. Indeed these sprites have lost their symbolic quality altogether. In an RTS game you see a little soldier animation: it walks, it behaves, it shoots, it dies (exploding) in so much graphic detail, on such a vivid 3D terrain, that you forget it is supposed to represent a larger unit of soldiers (soldierSSSS - plural). That "guy" is actually a bunch of guys. The overwhelming graphics completely blast this understanding out of the mind of the player. These games are, as McLuhan would say, "hot" media - their graphics crowd out any sort of deeper understanding. The player does not need to imagine whether his unit is, say, on the verge of panic, as he must in an authentic tabletop wargame. He usually brings little to the game - other than twitching and reacting.

I can't illustrate this point unless you actually try a tabletop game - a wargame or roleplaying game. It is "cool" media - you must bring more of yourself to it. You are invited to "fill in the blanks" with your own imagination. I would say these games can be more intense for this reason.

A final issue of the digital game is Black Box Syndrome (as it is known in professional wargaming circles). I mention this elsewhere. Every digital game has, at its heart, a black box. Decisions are inputted at one end, results come out the other. How does the computer arrive at the conclusions it does? Few know. Not so with a tabletop game.

Knowing these things - knowing how to design a good tabletop game - can make you a better strategy game designer not only for the tabletop, but for the digital realm as well.