One of the defining features of the Battle of Mogadishu was the constant, almost random thrust of forces against the Americans. These forces were a mix of trained soldiers (few), militia, and civilians. They were “controlled,” if you can call it that, via a network of phones and word of mouth communication.

One of the challenges I’ve had in building my game around Mogadishu is the issue of how to make controlling the Somalis interesting. If I just make them a horde of shooters, you’re barely playing a game. If I get too granular, I’ve pushed you too deep into the tactical level and I start to lose my more operational/high level tactical focus for the game.

My solution is to borrow somewhat from Chain of Command. If you already know how Chain of Command handles its Jump Off Points, skip this next paragraph.

In Chain of Command, players place Jump of Points toward the beginning of the game. They do not place forces on the board. Instead, as you play, you spawn forces within range of the Jump Off Points when you want them on the board. This creates a fog of war which realistically forces players to carefully consider where enemies might exist on the field, rather than having a perfect God’s-Eye-View of the field.

Now, in my game, we take that idea of Jump Off Points and twist it a bit. The Somali players will place colored “Command Nodes” around the board. At the start of each turn, they’ll roll to see if they can identify any incoming American support (helicopters, tanks, etc.) and then they can select a colored network of nodes. During the turn, they can bring forces onto the board from those nodes.

Those forces are, of course, poorly trained on balance. They will fade away and disappear off the board once placed under real pressure from the Americans. What this allows me to do is create an environment in which the Somalis have infinite forces, but they’re hard to control and can’t always be where their leaders want them. On the other hand, the Americans won’t know exactly how, where, and when the Somalis will pop up until it starts happening. Somalis live with difficult command and control but overwhelming numbers, while Americans live with the uncertainty of a whole city sporadically coming to life just to fight them.

I have other ideas of how to build on this. I may try to find a way to give Somalis the ability to break their rules once per game, or maybe give the Americans the ability to sweep nodes from the board through their actions. I also need to develop a better concept of how the American Command and Control will work. I was hoping the uncertainty of Somali behavior could be leveraged to replicate the Command and Control difficulties the Americans faced but haven’t quite nailed down how to connect those two ideas yet.

Either way, this is an early concept. I’m happy with its direction and will continue to flesh it out as I write. I’m really hoping that in the end I have a concept that can be applied to other modern insurgencies. With a few tweaks, this could represent the Command and Control used by modern terrorist networks via cell phones. Add a layer of electronic counter-play for the Americans and you may be able to really flesh out a good system for fog of war and comms disruption on a modern battlefield.

Time will tell. I hope to get through hammering out an initial pass of the ruleset by June. My plate has been mighty full lately, so consider that a moving target. I’m just happy to be making any progress at all at this point.

I also need to paint the miniatures for the game! I was hoping to have a few painted for this article but haven’t gotten there yet. Man, I need a vacation from my day job as a wargamer to be able to catch up with my hobby as a wargamer.

…Okay that’s a humblebrag. I admit it.